ROB writes:

I started my working career firmly believing (without evidence or experience, of course!) that men and women are equally suited to the professional workplace, and I have worked beside, and sometimes for, women all my life. I have had many able female subordinates, colleagues and bosses. However, my experience of working with them has been profoundly different from my expectations. I have generally found women in the professional workplace to be less collegial than men. With a few notable exceptions, the women I have worked with are quick to see any disagreement or criticism as impugning their competence. Time and effort goes into dancing around their sensitivities which would have been better spent on getting the job done. It is true there are some men like this as well, but not the majority.

The “type A” women who rise to high managerial positions can be particularly defensive, requiring delicate handling if you want to gain their agreement or approval. They can find it hard to move on from the rough and tumble of a robust meeting of equals and they play a very “person-focused” hierarchical style of office politics. Watching a male subordinate disagree with a female boss is like watching a sad pantomime, as the male tentatively introduces a few negative comments into the otherwise constant stream of reassurance to see how badly they will be taken. Obviously this does not encourage effective decision-making. Women executives also tend to choose advisors and confidantes who agree with or reassure them, with sometimes catastrophic results when the real world eventually intrudes.

— Comments —

Jane S. writes:

I couldn’t agree more.

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