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Can I be honest? I have yet to experience a good male manager/department head. The greatest managers/mentors have been women. I’m all for men in higher positions- heck I wanna be there someday! - BUT GUYS! please be nice. Don’t make it a competition and forget who you are when you get to these positions
Agreed!!! Most women managers are evil but they are forced to be like because of men. It’s ok for men to be in competition. And yes whilst it’s healthy women need to promote each other not take over each other’s work or credit for the other’s stuff.
People - I think we need to look at the innate and learned differences in men vs. women.
1 - women probably struggled a lot more to get to that position than their male counterpart
2 - they have lived a life of being told they aren’t good enough / that’s a man’s job etc
3 - they carry a lot more personal weight and responsibility than their male counterparts (imposter syndrome)
4 - women lead from insecurity (deficit and fear) and mean lead from power (the innately believe they belong there)
So let’s talk about how to help women in leadership positions see their worth and lead from confidence and power rather than fear. This post while maybe an observation based in fact is not getting to the root.
Anytime you have a shitty boss - you HAVE to ask yourself: what is driving their insecurity, what are they afraid of, and how can I help them? This goes for male bosses too…. Most shorty behavior stems from insecurity. And yes, each and every one of us plays a role in the dynamics. So what role do you want to play?
Help your sisters out people!!!
Such a great post!
Women a lot of women struggle to maintain balance. I’ve found that it’s difficult to maintain my femininity and lead my teams effectively. I have to be very direct with male counterparts in order to achieve goals. Honestly it’s very tiring.
It’s not the role I want to play, more like something that I was thrusted into. I’ve been working switching my mind set as of late though. I belong at this table and I don’t have to be a jerk to get there.
Mentor
This is the 2nd woman manager bashing post I’ve seen in a week. How sad.
I also don’t take this as bashing but just a point of view on a personal experience. It is too bad that this is the experience, personally I’ve had good male and female leaders and bad of both.
Not my experience at all - I have had some great female leaders.
Honestly it isn’t about gender. It’s about the personhood.
Yes. I can’t agree more. I feel so many people really overthink this whole gender thing…sometimes we just wanna work for kind and supportive boss, and that’s it.
In the immortal words of Stephen Sondheim “nice is different than good.”
Often times the same traits that are prized in male leaders are reviled in female leaders. If we are tough or have high expectations we are seen as cold and uncaring. We often have to disguise more of ourselves to be in leadership than we would like to be seen as a competent leader.
It’s really tough, often discouraging, and many days lonely to be a woman in leadership. We keep pushing forward to make opportunities for other women, because when there are more women in leadership, the perception of what a good leader looks like shifts.
This is exactly what I was thinking, but stated much better!
You could have just complained about your crappy boss like everyone does without bringing gender into it. Maybe you just respond to authority from males better… check yourself before you wreck yourself
To be honest, OP, I see you are in events. Every event manager, male or female, I’ve ever worked with has been an awful people manager.
And managers in corporate business units who have an events department beneath them (finance, procurement, travel, marketing) rarely understand the workload required for event management.
I’ve had terrible and wonderful male managers and terrible and wonderful female managers. I will say, when a female manager is especially difficult to work for, I find myself thinking “why is she putting up roadblocks for me? She isn’t an advocate for woman.” Is it fair that I’m having these thoughts? I make an effort to pave the way for females after me and wish I saw more of that when I cross paths with these terrible female managers….
I couldn’t agree more. I am a manager and I work hard every day to open doors for those behind me, and to make sure my team feels motivated, happy and engaged. I myself have had amazing male and relame managers as well as horrible ones on both sides. It’s a leadership issue, not a gender one.
Same, all the female leaders I’ve reported to have been awful. Poor leadership, no direction, showed favoritism and caved to internal gossip and politics. They deliberately tried to hold me back when I was looking for external development opportunities on my own dime. All of this was very disappointing, I admired female leaders when I was early on in my career and wanted to follow their career paths. However, I’ve realized as a WoC, not everyone is going to root for you and see you grow, and most people in leadership didn’t get there because of
merit and competence.
I’ve experienced this type of female leadership at 2 companies I’ve worked for so far. At this point, I don’t look to management for any sort of career direction/encouragement/mentorship. I do enough work to look good and get on projects that boost my resume and bounce to the next opportunity.
Sounds like you don’t want them to forget who YOU think they are.
Mentor
Are you holding the men and women to the same standards?
I actually joined a company recently partly because my boss is a female and very talented. She is stern, she has to be. As a manager myself, sadly the society and workforce probably won't take a woman seriously. Having said that, I have had very good male managers but she has to be the most empathetic. I don't believe this statement to be true at all. There are not many female bosses you can truly draw the comparison against.
I agree with your comment 100%. As a women in a male dominated field- not just business but the Automotive Industry as well, I find it very difficult for others to take me seriously if I act the same as my male counterparts.
I've had the opposite experience. When I broke into the corporate world it was because a female director fought for me. At the time I was a very quiet, shy girl with only a high school diploma. Under her leadership, I soared! I worked my way into management and got a degree. When I shifted departments, with her support, my new boss was a female VP. She was just as supportive and gave me all the tools I needed to succeed. I made a new shift about a month ago now and my boss is now male. He's great, but I miss serving under female leadership.
The business world is progressing, but still heavily dominated by men. Yes, it can feel like a competition for a seat at the table. Some people (women) fight so hard for that seat that it can come across as being a difficult or abrasive leader. With that said, not everyone is meant to be a leader. You just have to decide if the actions and decisions made by that leader is fueled by actual poor leadership or if they are reacting to a threat that you aren't aware of.
Same for me! My best bosses have been women, except for ONE.
I was a female leader in law enforcement and I can tell you that it is a painful and difficult road. I was kind and fair to everyone but they wanted me to be a villain so bad that each move I made was misinterpreted.
One example: I led the way in creating policies which increased maternity and paternity leave from 3 months to 1 year and from 10 days to 6 months respectively.
When benefactors in my direct line of command returned from maternity leave, they accused me of being insensitive for expecting them to return to work as new parents and requested a transfer to field work where they could work 4 days on and 4 days off (another policy that I had set up by the way).
I had a conversation with them to hear their grievance and accepted their request for field work as I honestly believed it was what they wanted based on their new phase of life. Honestly, they were just unhappy to be working and needed someone to blame for their unhappiness. I can never fully comprehend how they managed to make policies (that I improved) about my personality, but they did.
Rumours spread quickly across the entire agency that I was a shark, hated women and forced new mothers to return to work when they were emotionally and physically not ready to do so.
A few months later, I was transferred to another region and experienced the bitter pill of having an undeserved reputation. My new team was abrasive and disrespectful. I had to sacrifice productivity and do the incredibly soul-crushing task of "showing people" that I was harmless by example over the course of several months. That meant accepting insults, people deliberately refusing to do tasks or compromising tasks so they could blame me and more. I did my work and the work of others to meet targets and shared victories with others who didn't lift a finger. Eventually, they came around but honestly at that point, I had decided that it was time to finish the great work I had done for the agency and move on.
Over the same months that I was toiling to win over my new team, my old team got what they always wanted - to work with my male colleagues. The scales fell from their eyes. Several of them requested to be transferred to my new zone. Some outright came to my office and apologized. Others came by and plainly stated that they trusted my instincts and would happily accept my leadership and any assignments or guidance I gave them. I suppose in their own way, that was an apology.
The validation was nice but late. I left the agency several months later. My last few months were wonderful but I knew in my heart that I could never stay after what I went through. I hear from friends at the agency that I am a bit of a legend there. Great. Hopefully, they will give other women in leadership the benefit of the doubt because of me. I paid with my mental, physical and emotional health. I don't know a lot of people, male or female who would have agreed to go through that as long as I did. Maybe I shouldn't have.
Thank you for paving the way in your field. That’s another thing that I have come across as a female working in male dominated fields. You will give your professional opinion or advice and no one will listen until everything plays out. Then they finally see that you were right when it’s too late and SOMETIMES they will acknowledge it 🤦🏾♀️ I’m so thankful to work in a team that listens when I speak. And I’m not always right obviously but it’s okay and not counted against my character or identity.
I’ve had only female bosses my entire career, all of whom were excellent and why I am where I am. I’ve also had a few of my own employees tell me I’m the best boss they’ve ever had. We’re out there :)
If it’s not a woman competing with you then it’s a man
Complete opposite experience for me! All the female bosses and managers I’ve had have been great—smart, professional, encouraging. The male bosses and managers have been a tossup, I’ve had some good ones, but none have been better mentors than the women. A couple whom I even questioned how they got their position, seriously useless workers.
Yep. I work for a manager now who is pretty useless. Easily steamrolled by the alpha personality females who report to him. It’s the strangest team I’ve ever been on.
IMO successful individuals that aren't white men (women, POC, etc) tend to take two paths: the villain (I went through hell to get where I am and so will you) or the hero (I went through hell to get where I am and I want your experience to be better). I've encountered a lot of "villains" in my path and I take on every mentoring opportunity hoping to increase the amount of "heroes" that are women in STEM.
I hear you, and hopefully all of us can acknowledge that our own experience isn't necessarily universal. I've had GREAT female bosses and GREAT male bosses, and my hands down worst boss ever in a professional setting was a woman. Not every woman is a great manager, as much as I wish every woman would be able to do us proud.