College Grads: Should You Work For A Woman?

There will be bad bosses -- male and female. There will also be good bosses -- male and female. College graduates considering choosing a boss based on perception only serves to reinforce certain stereotypes.
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This month, hundreds of thousands of college seniors will graduate and enter the workforce. And, it seems, few of them have the luxury of being picky: According to a new poll by career-networking website AfterCollege, 83 percent will not have landed a job by the time they collect their diploma.

But with female bosses making some of the year's most prominent headlines -- from tech execs Sheryl Sandberg and Marissa Mayer to recently deposed New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson -- one question on many graduates' minds may be: Do I want to work for a woman? A 2013 Gallup poll found that, despite a slight uptick in female corporate leadership, more than a third of American workers surveyed -- both men and women -- say they prefer working for a male boss compared to 23 percent who said they prefer a female boss.

Some 4.2 percent of the country's largest public corporations are now led by women, who also make up 14 percent of top officers in corporate America and 18 percent of board seats. A list of the 50 most likable CEOs from jobs community Glassdoor, culled from employee surveys, includes just two women -- Yahoo's Mayer and Victoria's Secret's Sharen Turney -- and they are in the bottom half of the list.

There is perhaps good reason for this: A 2011 survey by the American Management Association found that 95 percent of 1,000 working women polled believe they were undermined by another woman at some point in their career, while a 2008 University of Toronto study of nearly 1,800 U.S. employees found employees working under a female supervisor reported more distress and symptoms of physical stress than those working under a male supervisor (no percentage cited; just those who worked for women more likely to report stress).

In explaining Abramson's termination, her boss, New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., outlined her flaws, even describing her using words often associated with the classic "Queen Bee," those women who aim to undermine or push aside their employees out of insecurity and competitiveness.

In a statement, Sulzberger wrote that:

"During her tenure, I heard repeatedly from her newsroom colleagues, women and men, about a series of issues, including arbitrary decision-making, a failure to consult and bring colleagues with her, inadequate communication and the public mistreatment of colleagues... she had lost the support of her masthead colleagues and could not win it back."

A recent article on the folding of Newsweek described working under Tina Brown as "making The Devil Wears Prada look sane" and likened the experience to PTSD. City Council Speaker and failed New York City mayoral candidate Christine Quinn, meanwhile, was often described in the media as combative, volatile, hyper-demanding, and vitriolic. Male and female underlings talked about her brashness, her temper and affinity for "old fashioned screaming," and her love of the F-word.

And yet it's important to remember that being a woman in a position of power is a classic catch-22. For women to succeed, they have to be different, extraordinary, and not too emotional; that is, not "too feminine." At the same time, women also need to be relatable and likeable. Research, including a 2011 study published in the journal Psychological Science, proves that women are held to different professional standards, and that being a "tough boss" means something different for women than it does for men. Standards of behavior are uneven.

One thing is for certain: There will be bad bosses -- male and female. There will also be good bosses -- male and female. College graduates considering choosing a boss based on perception only serves to reinforce certain stereotypes. Instead, the best piece of advice may be to focus more on what sort of employee you want to be before deciding what sort of boss you want to have.

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