Ladies, have you come across a male co-worker who seems to resist taking any instruction from you? And questioned your decisions and moves? I didnt want to make it about gender but a few other females coworkers feel the same way about him… I’ve seen him work fine with male co workers without second guessing their every move. Any advice on how best to approach this?

I have definitely had someone tell me that he didn’t feel he had to listen to me because I was a black woman. My boss wanted to fire him but I made his schedule match mine for 3 weeks and we worked together everyday. I did this because I wanted him to understand that the color of my skin and the fact that I’m a woman has nothing to do with the fact that I’m capable of doing the job. We are friends now and he reaches out to me for advice. I’m not saying this may work for you, just saying that I have definitely dealt with this. Praying it works out

The easiest thing in the world is to let them fail when they don't listen. You should communicate and over communicate the details, and then host a lessons learned session after the spectacular failure and hammer the extended team with how collaboration could have saved everyone without using the offender's name.

More passive aggressive but less time and effort for you is to find out which 'alphas' this person does respect and use them as a beard. Win that alpha person over to your position and maneuver them into doing the pre wiring chats with the roadblock person, and then get on with implementing the same idea with the professional air cover in place.

Ahhhh yes. Mine was referred to as headphones guy. Bless my boss for telling him to go ask me first every time he came to my boss with a work question.

Also bless that boss for telling clients we weren't secretaries and he kept his own calendar.

Yes. And this is maddening. On top of it, they tend to get away with it and other men excuse their behavior. And when you’re busy already working twice as hard as them and others, you are further burdened with having to craftily address their behavior and performance in a way that challenges them appropriately while you’re documenting (if they report to you and you’re concerned there may be call for eventual termination).
I’ve consistently reported to men in my career that couldn’t do a penny to the dollar of what I could do (less intelligent, poor leader, not capable, little-to-no industry experience, incompetent, etc.) but never considered being disrespectful or trying to ignore or undermine them. But damned if there aren’t SOOO many male punks that have no experience or knowledge compared to me or their female bosses and leaders that feel totally confident treating them like their own bosses are someone they can step on. It’s beyond incredibly frustrating.
Difficult to say how to handle as each scenario has its nuances. But, one tried and true method is turning the attention their way in a questioning manner when it makes sense. Calling them out in a non-confrontational way but an inquisitive way with open-ended questions. “Help me understand what you learned in your 1 year at X company/role that leads you to feel Y is the best approach here.” [He probably would give some poor excuse for response without fact-based reasoning to support it, then you can challenge with your own knowledge/experience/insights.]
Draw attention to their ideas asking for fact-based reasoning, then kindly/carefully challenge with yours explaining the gaps in theirs.
Def depends exactly how they are acting and what they are saying.
Moving someone from an entitled, chauvinist male to a male feminist is not easy and often not possible.
Which is also a reminder to find ways to sell yourself in the workplace. Simply assuming leadership will notice your great work is not a savvy plan.
There are bad actors in the workplace (unfortunately) that are busy scheming their way to the top. At minimum, you should be skillfully navigating.
Also as a way of drawing attention to his behavior so some of the right people know what’s going on but it’s not you just complaining/gossiping/throwing shade, you can consult a higher level person and ask for their mentorship. Explain this dilemma and that you are still learning the best way to navigate things like that in the workplace and want to mature your professional leadership and approach in general but also when facing complicated conflict. Share examples of this person’s behavior. 1) A light will be shined on this person’s inappropriate behaviors without it seeming like you are on the attack, and 2) This leader, in the context of what’s actually occurring and at your actual company might have really great feedback and helpful advice.
You could also learn from their feedback that more people (like the women you mention) and people within leadership are aware of this person’s behavior, and you’ll feel less alone and stuck.

I dare you to show me a woman who HASN’T dealt with this.

I can go down a giant rabbit hole on this one. I am a female HR Director at a construction company…the rest of the management is all male…they kinda listen to me…when they feel like it could be important…like when it comes to my subject matter expertise, but seriously, they seem to forget that I also have an MBA and marketing background.

The only people at slalom who really stood up for me were senior leadership in women. My goal is to become a people leader as well and do the same for my women peers at slalom.

I did. I ended up leaving the company (not because of him). He’s still there, all the women hate him, and everyone complains about him to leadership but they haven’t fired him. He’s generally known to be incompetent but is failing upward. I have nothing encouraging to add. These men are consistent in their behavior and my best advice is to distance yourself from them as much as you can and minimize any collaboration or dependencies you have on them.

Same here same problem same its Male dominance issue you say something they do opposite
I sometimes say the opposite to get what I wanted😂

yep. sadly happens all the time and the only way it’s been resolved is involving someone senior. almost always another man.

No, but I can easily be very intimidating.

Yes. He is not in my department and is more senior to me (c level). At executive meetings he would often make comments about my presence and why I was there. For about two months he skipped our 1:1’s. I report into the company President, not the CEO, and I’ve had to work with my boss to get him to work with me. My boss is quite accommodating, but I have to bring the issues to him.

Yes and it is infuriating and frustrating.

My suggestion is tackle it head on. Lay out exactly what you expect from them. Set up daily or weekly check-ins and if that doesn’t work then move straight to a PIP.

Totally going through same thing. I outrank a guy and lead a large team. He consistently is trying to tell me what to do and does it on the same email chain as my boss and my directs. Infuriating. I basically just respond by saying “thanks for your opinion”.

Fire the dude.

Yup, I don’t ask him for anything. I asked every time else and in turn his boss removed home because it was obvious & I never had to say anything to anyone

Yes. And then I watched him crash and burn when he didn’t want my initial help/direction and ended up drowning. I had the pick up the pieces later at our leaderships direction. And then he had to come to me eventually to get the training he needed.

Yes- many times and each one required a different approach.

You can try being a servant leader, interacting one on one , providing a ton of value , being gentle but firm. Adapting when reasonable. These may or may not woke depending upon the individual.

I had a male coworker try to blame something on me and tell me that “I need to do something” even though he was super incompetent and I was on top of my tasks. Needless to say we didn’t stay close after that. I told him how I felt and he kept his distance.