No, this isn't going to be a post about politics, at least not in the usual sense. The article which is prompting my thoughts is The Queen Bee in the Corner Office in the current issue of Atlantic Magazine:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/the-queen-bee-in-the-corner-office/534213/
It discusses whether women are worse bosses than men, or whether they are only perceived this way because of stereotypes. The subheading of the article is "Research suggests that conditions in the workplace might be to blame." To me that is the problem in a nutshell. Oddly, however, the article only delves into that in passing. It seems to be mainly about how women tear down other women in the workplace.
In my opinion there are toxic people and toxic workplaces. Which came first is a chicken-and-the-egg kind of question. A workplace is toxic if it tolerates, or actively rewards, bullying or abusive behavior. Consider this passage:
"About 15 years ago, Margarita Rozenfeld, who is now a leadership coach
in Washington, D.C., found herself reporting to a queen bee.One day on her way to work, Rozenfeld tripped on the parking-garage
steps and twisted her ankle. It swelled as the day wore on, and she
worried that it would get even worse. She wasn’t particularly busy, so
she knocked on her boss’s door and asked whether she could leave early
to see a doctor. Her boss asked Rozenfeld to come in and close the door.
“You
know, I had high hopes for you,” Rozenfeld remembers her saying. Her
boss questioned why “you feel like you can leave” when “things like this
happen.”
“But I feel like I’m not going to be able to walk,” Rozenfeld said.
“I
will tell you something about my career and how I got to be where I am
today,” her boss continued. “Do you know how many times I worked with
men who basically sexually harassed me? Did you know that man over there
missed his kid’s high-school graduation because he was working on a
proposal? And you have a sprained ankle and you think it’s okay to
leave?”
As tears welled in her eyes, Rozenfeld realized that she
was never going to be the kind of worker her boss wanted. Six months
later, she quit."
There have been a spate of articles about how we shouldn't hold "bossy" women back, that they are just doing the same things we reward men for doing. However, the behavior described above isn't bossy, it is abusive. If someone talks like a jerk, acts like a jerk, does jerky things, guess what?
A good rule of thumb is, run, don't walk, from a toxic workplace. But
sometimes people don't have a choice; putting food on the table and a
roof over their family's head takes precedence.
The qualities which make a good boss are not rocket science, they are common sense. Good bosses keeps the lines of communication open. They are clear about expectations, but is also listen to feedback. They are fair, and don't play favorites. They are not micro managers, but are involved enough that they actually know what the people who work under them do and what their workload is like.
As far as bossy women in the workplace, I prefer the description of women with "moxie". Which is defined as courage, perseverance, pluck, and guts.
I've worked for and with a lot of women. Some were harridans. Some were great. I learned pretty quickly that gender has very little to do with whether they're good co-workers or bosses.
ReplyDeleteI would say that bad women bosses are bad in the same way that men are bad bosses: Arrogant, overly demanding, micromanagers, willingness to humiliate people in meetings, uncommunicative and unappreciative.
I have three bosses (in charge of different aspects of my teaching job) a man and two women, all with their own styles. The guy is friendly, communicative, and collaborative. One of the women is very businesslike, but makes good decisions in a timely fashion and remembers what you tell her. The other one is a people-pleaser, and so gives conflicting instructions, is kind of a Jekyll and Hyde personality, and makes bad decisions by taking the path of least resistance.
Three of THE BEST bosses I ever had were women. One was a Lt. Col. in the USAF and the other 2 worked for Bank of America. It's easy to work for and be supportive of someone who treats you well and, even though demanding, is not an authoritarian.
DeleteSome of the men I worked for were a far cry from these three when it comes to management and leadership skills.
Jean, I agree with you that gender has little to do with it.
ReplyDeleteI am grateful that I work in a good department with reasonable people, unlike some other departments in the company. One of my coworkers is in department which has had to work every Saturday of a holiday weekend for the past 3 holidays. He just found out they are working the Saturday before Labor Day even though he had bought tickets for a baseball game weeks ago for that date. He gave us the tickets, said he didn't want them to be wasted. Problem is a supervisor who won't support his people to management.
My bosses during the last 20 years of my work life were all CEOs of their organizations, and I was a member of the senior management group. That may bias my comments since the ability of the CEO to not only manage the senior staff but also to lead the whole organization in its relationship to the environment are critical.
ReplyDeleteI had three male CEOs and one women. The women was the best CEO because she understood how to create a "corporate culture." She mined the best of the management literature and created a "work hard, play hard" culture for the large community mental health center. We did great and difficult things together, and had the best parties. I still remember my going away party when I left the organization for a position at the county mental health board which benefited them as well as me. I still have on my desk one of the unique art objects which symbolized for departing staff that this was more than a job.
Also like my second ranked male CEO she knew how to create a team, or rather how to let everyone do what they did best in a coordinated fashion. Both did very little personal supervision. Essentially at the senior level if you know your area well and how to manage people your job does itself through the people who report to you. As a senior person you are spending most of your time resolving broader organizational and environment issues. Essentially you are making the CEOs life as easy as possible. Wise CEOs let that happen.
But then dumb CEOs don't; they try to supervise senior staff. I had two of them. The first one got fired by the board of the mental health center. The second one, I was smart enough to fire him. He simply did not appreciate me. I did what I was hired to do; actually he thought I would fail at it, and hired me to fail at it. One of my colleagues who sensed my happiness even though I was succeeding, ask me what he could do to make my happy. I said find a new CEO. That is what I did, with a substantial increase in salary and responsibility, and greater opportunities.
Two bad guys; one good guy and one good woman in the mental health system. All my bosses back in academia were men. About half of them were good, half were bad. All those were temporary positions so I did not have much investment in those relationships.
Almost forgot, I did have a women manager for one year when I was a post doctoral resident at Saint Elizabeth in DC. Very unusual complex organization (local, state, and federal combined). She could have been one of these bad woman bosses. I escaped her. The two psychologists that I worked with were more like colleagues than supervisors since I was essentially extra help.
I agree with Jean that bad women bosses are likely much like bad male bosses. Unappreciative of talent, try to micromanage, and at the senior level very defensive. If you can't be honest with the CEO about what needs to be done, it simply not going to work for anyone or the organization.
My first boss: jewish, looked like a combination of Martin Balsam and Ernest Borgnine, the ever puffing cigar fit the steam engine persona. Always invaded your personal space when talking to you, not to intimidate but just due to God-given intensity and everyone knew it with a touch of amusement. He used the people under him, not in a bad way, but like a craftsman uses his tools, respecting their capabilities and limitations. His top circuit designer had emotional problems that sometimes got out of control. So my boss would say to a technician, "Hey Bill, take Gene to the Philly airport and let him watch the planes take off and land for a few hours". He directed the team that fielded the FADAC artillery ballistics computer used in Viet Nam. Upon retiring from the government in 1977, he started a company that developed computerized cash registers, selling the company in 2000 to Rite Aid for $40M. First boss I ever had, best boss I ever had.
ReplyDeleteStanley, my husband was in an artillery unit in the National Guard. His specialty was fire direction control, and he used the FADAC system. Fortunately it was just practice and his unit never got deployed.
DeleteVery cool, Katherine. It was fielded in the 60's. Had one of the first disk or maybe THE first disk memory. Was a four man carry. I was never a member of that team but I heard all the stories and there were many. My boss would do anything to get the project done and he did. Glad your husband never had to go over there but happy to hear he experienced the FADAC. I worked at the Frankford Arsenal in NE Philly until the BRAC commission closed it in 1977. Probably because we had no room for a golf course. FA developed smokeless powder, became an optics center following WWI. They developed the jet powered ejection seats for fighter jets, the exploding bolts that separate stages of a space rocket and last but not least, shared half an Oscar with the Dynalens company for developing the first actively stabilized optics. No nice non-shaky opening to the Sound of Music without the Dynalens smoothing out the helicopter vibration for the camera.
Delete"Hey, Bill,take Gene to the Philly airport and let him watch the planes take off and land for a few hours."
DeleteOMG, such talented observers we have here. I will never meet Stanley's boss, but I KNOW this guy, and it's a gift. I still remember unagidon's gramma's Italian friend who taped holy cards to her dog's bum hip. My brother, my kid, and my uncle can all capture character in a little vignette like this. As a "character junkie," I can't get enough of it. My idea of heaven is sitting around a table in some dive bar (because I will be able to drink and smoke in heaven) listening to this type of thing from master raconteurs for eternity.
Gee, thanks, Jean. Coming from you, so savvy in English and writing, that's a real compliment.
DeleteYou are welcome. I always thought there should be some special genre of these types of mini sketches. Probably someone is doing it as Twitterature.
DeleteStan, about the FADAC being a four man carry; the Guards hauled it around on a truck with a gasoline generator to run it. Amazing that the average smart phone that fits in your pocket probably has more computing power now.
DeleteHi Katherine, despite the rapid advances in integrated circuits, it took around two decades to supercede the FADAC. Why so long? Probably it was lack of Stan Greenberg, my boss. Also, I attribute it to the rise of the Program Manager Offices (PM's) begun under that fount of wisdom, Robert Macnamara, a layer of bureaucracy that has lead to withering of Army laboratories and in-house expertise. Around fifteen years ago the Army initiated something called the Acquisition Corps. Yuck! My colleague/friend Lou and I called it the triumph of the desk fracks only we didn't say "fracks". The other depressing development was the rise of "Six Sigma", which I consider a form of cargo cult. How one applies something that applies to production of millions to an organization that buys in thousands (except for bullets) has always eluded me. It did create jobs for thousands of six sigma commisars, I guess. Well, rant over. Sorry.
DeleteI am thankful that I never had a boss I had to escape. That may be because the kind of work I did ultimately depended on teamwork. Micromanagement and ego aggrandizement don't function well in newsrooms. The more usual problem is that a great reporter was promoted into a frustrated editor -- frustrated because her reporters will never do the job as well as she would have if she wasn't stuck at a desk. Ted Williams had the same problem in his fling at baseball manager.
ReplyDeleteI've known a lot of bad bosses from a medium distance, and I agree with Jean that toxic managers come in both sexes.
I think it works well if everyone is goal focused and that goal is to do a good job. The worst boss is an insecure boss. For my line of work, that meant a boss who spent a good while at "the bench" before he was promoted. There were others who got there because they promoted themselves. Way too much of that now. I agree that toxics come in both sexes. It seems more egregious if it's woman-on-woman nastiness but it's not a woman thing. I agree with those who say it's the toxic environment
DeleteYes, a newsroom is a good place to learn humility and checkmyour ego. At my first jobs the old gal who covered the county beat later died on the steps of the newspaper building because she couldn't retire, said to me quite kindly, "God, your hard news leads are terrible." Then she rewrote a bunch of them for me. Mine were terrible.
DeleteI dunno. There seems to be a cadre of rich, high-functioning alcoholics and dry drunks roaming the land and getting themselves appointed as board members, CEOs, or elected president. These people collect an obscene salary, fire a bunch of people, and then move on to screw up something else.
DeleteAs the economy has changed to be more service and information oriented, the research on organizations has focused less on management (direct supervisory control) to the broader concept of leadership (the ability to influence others in the organization as well as subordinates). The content of leadership has also broadened to include social-emotional as well as task elements. Since women have generally been perceived as being better at socio-emotional skills one would think that women would become more highly evaluated as leaders, and be more likely to be promoted in this changed world.
ReplyDeleteDoes NOT work out that way according to the research. When male leaders are considerate, affirming, etc. in additional to having good task skills they are highly rewarded, but male leaders who fail to exhibit these more feminine skills can still be promoted on the basis of their task skills (maybe not as fast or as high as other males).
Women who are considerate, affirming etc. don’t get rewarded for these skills (they are just being women!). Rather they are judged on their task skills. However should a women focus only on her task skills, she is likely to be sanctioned as being inconsiderate, bossy, etc, because she is failing what is expected of women.
This is according to Alice Eagly in THROUGH THE LABYRINTH (2007) which makes a convincing case for the difficulties that women have in becoming leaders. Her advice to women is to carefully articulate in advance and then document all their more feminine leadership skills with their supervisors so they don’t get lost in the perception and evaluation processes.
ARE women better at socio-emotional skills? What are examples of such skills? What is a "feminine leadership skill"?
DeleteI think some men have strong prejudices against women (and other groups) working as their equals. And they have a lot of rationalizations, like that dweeb at Google who said women had more "neuroticism" than men.
I tend to think of what is sometimes defined as a "feminine" trait as a construct/stereotype made up by insecure males than anything grounded in reality.
Jean: "ARE women better at socio-emotional skills?"
DeleteNot my experience...but from time to time in various places I worked, I found that both women and men expected women to be better at it.
Example: Those who expected women to be good at it expected motherly treatment. There were women ready to supply it. Women who declined the role had to put up with the "mean" girl role. I am hoping that wider experience will displace that expectation, especially among women who are eager for the motherly role in the workplace.
Sexual politics in the workplace is interesting. I hear women in their 30s and 40s complaining all the time that older women co-workers have not retired. I have called them on it several times, but they always say, "Oh, we don't mean you!"
DeleteEvery work or fashion flaw is chalked up as evidence that women over 55 are doddering screw-ups. One colleague started to use a cane, and the younger cohort acted like she ought to be put down like a dog.
These same younger women seem to have no problem with older men in the workplace, though they sometimes use the adjective "sweet" to describe older male colleagues, which would horrify the men if they knew.
Nobody ever accused me of being motherly (or, now, grandmotherly), and the students have never seemed to expect that, though in comparing notes with older male teachers, they get fewer requests for assignment extensions preambled by long sad stories.
I do notice that as I get older, I have become Information Central. Students and younger workers want to know when the cafeteria is open, how much they can get for a used book, how to turn on their computers, where you can smoke on campus, etc. I'm not sure if this is because they think I have been there for generations and am familiar with everything. Or whether older ladies = safe and friendly.
As a younger woman, I think people thought I was smarter than I was. Now I don't think they realize how smart I am.
Yes, you are smart, and even with your sometimes acerbic replies, I suspect you are a very nice person (not an insult). Information Central role: that's because (I assume) you never rejoin: "How should I know?"--a not uncommon reply in large institutions.
DeleteSomewhere there must be reams of research suggesting that male/female, female/female, and male/male adult behaviors rest on childhood experiences, especially where you landed in the lottery: youngest, oldest, in the middle, one of twenty, one of two, only child. That carries over into adult life.
Two patterns that seemed quite marked to me is to have been the oldest girl in a mid-sized family and to be a younger boy in a largish family with many older girls. My amateur impression: oldest girls get to be mothers long before their time. That makes them bossy, but it also makes them smart about managing small groups and being good readers to themselves and others. Younger/est boys are good observers of the family dynamic, especially with older sisters. If they are the pet of the oldest they are startling astute as to the right next moves; that makes some Machiavellian, others peacemakers and soothers of frazzled relations.
True or False?
P.S. Asking for information: In NYC (sin city) I notice that older men and women are frequently asked for info and directions. I have assumed that's because no one expects them to pull a knife (guns not allowed). The worse olders can do is be crabby--and generally they are not.
DeleteThat's "worst," not worse....
DeleteI was the oldest grandchild in our extended family ("the very oldest of all") as my cousins like to say. I was a typical eldest--bossy, worried, and somewhat entitled. No, I am not going to sit at the children's table with THEM.
DeleteMy brother was in the middle of the pack of cousins, but there were just the two of us in our immediate family. We are very close, but he is definitely not a soother of frazzled relations. My cousin Chuckie, the youngest, was.
Boys have always outnumbered girls by about three to one on both sides of the family. My grandparents tended to throw us all in the car and make us do gender-neutral activities: berry picking (ugh), fishing, skeet shooting, ice skating, roller skating, snow sculpting, boat cleaning, swimming, going to the fair, looking for Petoskey stones (it's a Michigan thing).
I was brought up generally without gender restrictions, though my Gramma used to try to get me to wear something besides "dungarees" when I was a teenager.
I don't know if you read "The Peterkin Papers" by Lucretia Hale when you were children. The Peterkins were a smart and eccentric family with very little common sense. They relied on their neighbor, the Lady from Philadelphia, to use her wisdom to get them out of the jams they got themselves into. My mom used to say, "Why do I always have to be the Lady from Philadelphia!" I would tease her and say, "Because you know everything!" I often find myself being the Lady from Philadelphia these days, and actually I don't mind it.
DeleteI did not have a typical career, as I was a self-employed freelancer for most of it. My very best boss was a man, a Korean with two doctorates (one from Harvard), who was a true mentor. He taught me not only how to be a good economics researcher and analyst in the "real world", where pure economic theory often doesn't apply, but he improved my writing skills. This was at the World Bank, and most of the candidates sent to him from HR for a position as his economics research assistant were not American. He hired me because I am a native English speaker, and liked my writing samples (a couple of term papers from grad school). He was a prolific author of books and journal articles on various facets of international finance and the monetary system - a highly respected expert in the field. In addition to my job as a researcher, he also wanted me to serve as a type of first editor, to ensure that his English was "right'! It sometimes was not - small grammatical errors (I learned that the reasons he often left out articles is because Korean doesn't have them), but his writing was amazing. So clear, really easy to understand. No PhD needed. He taught me that simple is better, and to avoid "jargon". My two worst "bosses" were women. I really hate to say that, but it is true. I worked for one as a consultant, and simply decided that the fee wasn't enough to be worth staying and putting up with her. She had founded a non-profit program to help inner city girls - one of my few projects that did not involve economics in some way. She had a small staff with huge turnover. Look up something called "Founder's Syndrome", a common problem in non-profits. That was her. The second woman I worked for was a micro-manager. Since I was a consultant, that didn't happen often and I was free to leave. When I told the Project Manager I was going to leave, he decided to keep me, but on a different project, one that didn't involve my work being managed by this woman. I reported directly to him after that. Most of my clients assumed I knew my job and would complete it by the deadline. That's why they hired me. I was a consultant, and they could simply fire me if they chose. Most clients gave me years of regular work instead.
ReplyDeleteMy Korean boss was in the first job after grad school, a full-time job that prepared me for becoming self-employed and working freelance. My other really amazing boss/client was also a man - from Iraq. It is sort of ironic in a way, given stereotypes that prevail, that my two 'best bosses" were men and both were from countries that are generally seen as being more male-dominant cultures. Yet both of these men simply were good managers of the individual talent among their staffs, whether their full-time employees, or me, a consultant. I worked mostly in male-dominant organizations, so actually only had those two contracts where my "supervisor" was a woman. Not a big sample size. I was fortunate in being able to work freelance - primarily because I didn't need a regular job for health insurance! I got it through my husband's job. I liked being freelance - not only could I control my own schedule better while raising three sons, working mostly from home, I could usually avoid getting caught up in the toxic office politics in some organizations. I would observe this primarily when I would go in for team meetings or work on-site when needed, using the desk and computer that most provided for me when I was on the premises. I was a fly on the wall, and it was very interesting.
My best boss was a young man from India. When we heard he was coming to our department, we had some misgivings. For one thing, we were all old enough to be his parents. For another, I didn't know how he would interact with women; having heard that Indian men aren't always too enlightened that way. But it worked out fine. He was courteous and formal in kind of a British way, and had a kind and gentle personality. Also he was very smart. I enjoyed his British English, he would say things like "la-BOR-a-t'ry" (for laboratory). We were sorry to have him moved to another department; but he still checks in with us from time to time. He has a nice family and is a citizen now.
DeleteThis is only tangentially related to work; but falls in the "will wonders never cease" category. Across the hall from my office at work is an office where 4 or 5 maintenance men hang out (actually only two of them have the office but they are a herd). These guys are your typical blue collar Trump voters. One in particular is loud and proud about that. However this morning he was overheard to say, "Well, I wonder what stupid thing Trump said today. He can't let a day go by without saying something that gets him in trouble." One comment doesn't make a trend, but it says something when the fan club starts noticing.
ReplyDelete