Controversial topic.
I love women at work, I’m even bi, so I love them outside of work too, but why is it so much easier to work with men when it come to emotional stuff? So many women around me are suffering from people-pleasing syndrome, or people-pleasing ptsd, and bring so much drama at the work place.

likehelpful
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Hot take - but, I agree with OP. Yes, it is an sweeping generalization, but I've found over years and years of working with different people in different industries, my experience has been the same. I am just more comfortable working with men or managing men on my teams.

That being said, while there is some truth to the people pleasing syndrome, I think my leadership style attracts talent that is not like that. I am direct, upfront with expectations, a discerning judge of impact over activity, and results-obsessed. I am notorious for very honest performance reviews. This style tends to repel certain types of folks, and attract those who are ambitious, direct, self-critical, and intrinsically motivated.

A minor note, but likely a part of the bigger picture - I do not have many common hobbies or interests with the women I work with - I love football, videogames, bourbon, and I'm a sneaker head. It's hard to find common ground when many of my interests are stereotypically more "masculine"

Overwhelmingly, I forge stronger and more productive working relationships with men.

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Right there with you! I have a serious lack of female hobbies (college football, yard work, home maintenance and upgrades, etc) and unfortunately I am also not a nurturing type - except for being the player/coach and nurturing a career.

Maybe instead of making sweeping generalizations and putting other women down, you work with the people you're critiquing to help break them out of this people-pleasing mentality.

As you mentioned, for women, a lot of this behavior is a result of social conditioning. Be the change you want to see and try making a difference instead of reinforcing harmful stereotypes and looking down on others.

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Thanks for your input! Not putting other women down, definitely. I think this community helps us to fight our own biases too, so getting polar opinions is incredibly helpful to navigate my educational journey

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🙄 to all of this. You have an issue with one particular colleague per your post, then make sweeping generalizations about preferring to work with men on “emotional stuff”. I hope you aren’t really a VP of HR.

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Reading thru the comments it's hard to say that one or the other is 100% more emotional/dramatic and people pleasing at work. I personally have dealt with it from both sides. I would have to say that men like women can be just as dramatic if not more! Lol Some men love to gossip and stir the pot in a work environment but later point fingers at there female colleagues- trust me it's happened! As an owner of a nanny referral agency, working with 15 females was definitely a challenge at times!! But as the author of this post mentioned, it is the style in which you lead that will create the foundation for the "work environment". I too am very blunt, straight to the point, and have an open policy where I like to get honest feedback from my team. I enjoy new suggestions on what will make the business run more efficient, I encourage and reference everyone as being on my team therefore I don't tolerate the petty drama that can take place amongst 15 females... we lean on each other, we teach and share our successes and pitfalls with each other because ultimately at the end of the day without them I am nothing and vice versa!! If one person is unhappy and spreading negativity it completely ruins all the positive that I have worked so hard to create for our clients and our work environment. Conclusion- both M&F can be equally difficult in any work place it just depends on leader ship and the overall morale of the workplace! Good Energy is a thing :)

This is such a wildly gross generalization coming from a person, a senior leader no less, in HR(!).

She sounds like she’s bad at time management and accountability - something that’s not unique to women. Sounds like you should’ve managed her accordingly.

If it’s any consolation, my experience has been the exact opposite of yours.

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That sounds like it's a more specific issue with this person in particular. Highly doubt most reasonable people (women included) would react in this way.

likehelpful

Honestly this sounds like a woman doing what we do frequently see successful men do. Ie: Tag their name on a project but then do little to no actual work, then be there for the credit at the end.

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I agree. But if I tell a man - dude, you either put in hours, or leave, they either put in hours, or disappear. I’ve never came across a man saying it wasn’t nice of me to tell that. Yet.

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Example: I have a coworker who constantly overcommits and underperform. I’m trying to avoid getting her on my team projects. But she volunteers notoriously, and I couldn’t avoid getting her on my latest super-mundane, but super-important audit project. She said she could commit 5 hours per week. It’s been 4 weeks, she volunteered 2 hours, both were project meetings, did zero tasks that were assigned to her. And when I asked her if she wanted to revise her commitment she called me rude bully. 😳

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But I am definitely generalizing for the purpose of conversation to get polar opinions.

likefunny

HR = hell….VP of HR = the devil

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AD, it’s not true. I’m sorry that your experience says otherwise

I feel this as well. Women in the workplace are exceptionally difficult for me to work with. Especially as supervisors. It seems like everything is a challenge against them. I wish we would empower each other and not cut each other down. (This is not all woman of course but most in my experience).

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The truth is that we live in men dominated society in politics and business. If we look at the leadership of multinationals,, we mostly see men at the C-level. In Canada, there no one “united”culture and language, and also “common” leadership style” (eg compared to France, Italy, China, India, Middle Eastern countries), so that means often people have no idea how to behave and try to adopt to various cultures and fit into different leadership styles. So that could be just a few explanations.

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I find this laughable because at my job we always joke that we have a ranking system of who is most emotional to least emotional and the men are always and by far the most emotional and the women are least emotional.

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I am very displeased to put it mildly at some of the comments. I have been in a very male dominated tech field for 20+ years. And a better half of that time in a management and leadership roles. To read that HR person thinks that females are under-performers compare to male colleagues is shocking. We all have different styles of work. And yes, women work differently than men. But boy have I seen lazy men, more drama came from male tech guys that I can care for. Gossip in the tech field is huge, and not driven by women. Have you ever been to any of the conferences where everyone knows everyone or through someone?! Should we keep generalizing?!
I think at some point, and maybe it is my age showing, you have to learn how to deal with each individual person, regardless of gender. You do not want a particular person on your team, learn to say ‘no’ - you are HR. You should be equipped to do it better than anyone else. Have you though how they feel having you as a female on their team - same idea. It is 2021 and we have to work with each other as women, and there are more of us in a tech field now (thank god)
I came from a society where women always worked. I have never heard that girls are somehow think different - e.g. not good at math or not as logical as boys. It is all learned thinking. I see only individual performance. Of she/he is bringing up not fact based ‘emotional’ arguments, it is your responsibility to stick to the performance facts to backup your decision.

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I agree with you and have had the same experience. Not with all women of course. I am put myself in the bundle at times too.

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“DEI conversations” you host sound like struggle sessions in the CCR. Yikes

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What is CCR?

P.S. To be honest, I often use fishbowl to test-run controversial topics before DEI conversations with various groups of employees. People are more argumentative and direct on anonymous mode, so it helps me to prep better.

If you consistently have difficulty working with one gender over another, or have difficulty developing and maintaining relationships with one gender over another, you need to explore what about yourself is causing that issue. Look inward, not outward. People are diverse and varied regardless of gender. Your question tells me more about your own perceptions, biases and challenges with women than it does about women as a whole.

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