I didn’t want to do this, but here it is: my personal boss scorecard.
Boss 1. Male Irrational and unethical. Oh, the stories I could tell.
Boss 2. Female She rocked.
Boss 3. Female Demanding, micromanager who was smart as hell and taught me volumes.
Boss 4. Male Great guy. I’d work for him again.
Boss 5. Female Great woman. I’d work for her again.
Boss 6. Female She rocked. (It was Boss 2 again.)
Boss 7. Female Toxic. (Docked my bonus when I got pregnant.)
Boss 8. Female Neutral.
Boss 9. Male Toxic.
What does any of this mean? Not much. The fact is some people, regardless of gender, make great bosses and some don’t. And yet this week alone I’ve seen two “men make better bosses” stories. The first was surprisingly in The Glass Hammer and lead with this zinger, “You don’t have to look too far into management research to uncover that all the statistics point to one thing: we prefer to work for men.” The so-called research the author cites is a survey of MBA students taken and written about by Ella J. Edmondson Bell, PhD. Bell teaches a leadership course at Tuck where the classes typically average 20 -60 students. The other was an informal Facebook poll done by ForbesWoman. These “statistics” mean nothing.
The second story was in the UK newspaper The Daily Mail and ran with the sensational headline, ” Men are the best bosses: Women at the top are just too moody (and it’s women themselves who say so).” And while this story was based on a survey of 3000 people conducted by recruiting firm UKJobs.net, it is still flawed and misleading.
Put aside the completely damaging statements in the article like “They are hormonal, incapable of leaving their personal lives at home and only too happy to talk about their staff behind their backs. Female bosses are a nightmare to work for….” and examine how workers arrived at their conclusions.
Supposedly the respondents preferred men for a variety of reasons including that they are, “straight-talking, less likely to get involved in office politics, able to leave their private life at home, have no time of the month, more likely to share common interests.”
Shall we break those down?
Straight-talking, less likely to get involved in office politics
The employees surveyed prefer a certain set of attributes- attributes they accept as corporate norms. Those attributes have become norms subtly and over time because they have been consistently exhibited by leadership and that leadership has been predominantly male for years. And, they have been reinforced by performance evaluations which are often inherently biased against women. It makes sense. Performance reviews are usually created by management. And management at most companies has been and still is predominanteyl male. Leaders are likely to evaluate employees on “acceptable behaviors” – those that mirror their own. So whether or not they realize it, most employees, both men and women, have been conditioned to view stereotypically male behaviors as acceptable corporate behaviors. No wonder employees prefer men’s communications styles in the office. It is what they have observed as normal corporate culture for years – both in the office and in the media.
Able to leave their private life at home
No kidding?! I don’t know what the statistics are in the UK, but here in the US at least one study shows women do 53 percent more housework than men. The study, from Vanderbilt University, defines housework not only as cooking and cleaning but as childcare too. Women traditionally take on more elder-care reponsibilites than men and still are the only sex capable of bearing children, causing them to need time off for doctor’s appointments, labor and delivery. Is it any wonder men can leave their personal lives at home?
Have no time of the month
The fact this issue even surfaces in the survey results leads me to believe the study was written with a strong gender bias. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the original data on UkJobs.net so I couldn’t dissect it.
More likely to share common interests
Take a look at the clip from the 1970s hit sitcom “Maude” below. Many of the issues the fictional Maude faced as a woman manager still ring true today. Again, because corporate norms have been so heavily skewed toward men for years, women often feel the need to adopt the dominant behaviors in their workplace. And when they do, they are often penalized for being a “bitch” or come across as inauthentic. So it’s not surprising employees feel a connection with their male bosses who are free to be themselves.
But hey, aren’t things changing? Don’t we have more women on the national payroll then men? Aren’t high-profile female CEOs like Carol Bartz (Yahoo!) and Ursula Burns (Xerox) creating a new corporate reality? Yes, things are changing. And a whole host of research proves that corporate America will be better led by a diverse leadership team than by the status quo. But progress takes time and articles like these, that ask the wrong questions, don’t help.
Instead of talking about whether or not women are capable of management roles, possess the intelligence to hold senior positions, or affected by their “time of the month”, we should be talking about:
What kind of leaders do we need to bring about a recovery?
How can we find, nurture and retain a more diverse leadership and workforce?
and, How can we better support working parents so that they can fully participate in the economy?
Those are the questions we need to answer. But alas, those questions don’t sell newspapers or attract unique visitors to a website.
For more analysis on this topic:
“Why Does Forbes Think Everyone Prefers Male Bosses?”
I’d like to start off by saying that I’m glad that your scorecard doesn’t match mine or most of the people I know. You say that those statistics mean nothing but I can tell you that they turned out that way for a reason. In my experience, female bosses are catty hate-mongers who play favourites, are not approachable (and I mean AT ALL) and think that they’re the “QUEEN BEE” of everything. Male bosses I’ve had are a lot more likely to be professional and genuine. I’m a woman and I can say that as a general rule, we make TERRIBLE bosses. We have been raised to be self-centred (Valentine’s Day is all about us and men are “supposed” to give us things like flowers, jewelry and candy while we owe them nothing) and that bratty demeanor that we end up with makes us awful in positions of control because we’re so spoiled. I was made manager of a Suzy Shier store and I feel so bad when I think of the monster I had become. I’ll take a male boss any day and you shouldn’t be so quick to just discredit statistics simply because they don’t agree with your idea of perfect reality. That’s another problem we have. Men tend to investigate whether or not they are right or wrong when someone disagrees with them. We, on the other hand, tend to just turn into impossible angry little brats who refuse to believe that we might be wrong, in fact, we’re terrified of the idea. That alone is why we’re not very good at being in control. It’s also why we prefer our husbands to be in control. That is a generalisation, I admit, but when we consider that we take our husband’s name and when I look on the road and see that 90% of couples in a car have the man driving, the idea that we like a man to take control is not all that subtle.
Hi Melissa,
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I was reacting to the first sentence in your story that reads, “You don’t have to look too far into management research to uncover that all the statistics point to one thing: we prefer to work for men. ” I was surprised to read that on The Glass Hammer because I thought it was a pretty broad, bold assertion backed by weak statistics. I do appreciate the insights and suggestions you offer in the rest of the article and perhaps should have pointed that out.
I am a big fan of The Glass Hammer and so yes: here’s to working together toward gender parity! Let’s keep talking.
Hello Liz, as associate editor of The Glass Hammer, I feel your coverage of our recent article is unfair. It is certainly NOT about how “men make better bosses,” as you imply. It’s not even asking the question of whether men or women make better bosses. Because really, that’s kind of a dumb question – there are good bosses and bad bosses, male and female.
What the article DOES say is that like it or not, there is a decent number of women who say they prefer male bosses. Our article discusses some of the psychological and social reasons behind these feelings, and how we can move past them.
I’m a regular reader of your blog and am disappointed that you’ve taken our story out of context. Here’s to working together toward gender parity!
Kind regards,
Melissa Anderson
Associate Editor
http://www.theglasshammer.com
Thank you Eden. It is amazing how the MSM perpetuates the myth that men are better boses without examining either the small samples of studies they cite or the inherent problems behind their theories.
As usual, a great post on a tough issue. And as a female who has led big teams that were predominantly male, I feel confident the majority of my team would (and did) rate me as one of the best bosses they have ever had. I don’t think it has anything to do with me being a woman. As you mention, some people are just better bosses than others. Anyway, great job Liz. I love your stuff.