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The Conversation: Male Vs.
Female Bosses
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Meghan Casserly, Forbes.com
This week
on the Huffington Post, Ella L.J. Edmondson Bell, an
associate professor at the Tuck School of Business
examined one of the final frontiers of gender (in)
equality in the workplace: the perception of women as
bitches--or at least bad bosses.
Edmondson
Bell surveyed her Dartmouth M.B.A. students to see
whether they would prefer a male or female manager and
was alarmed to see an overwhelming 90% of the women
preferred a male. Being ForbesWomen, so were we. But a
quick Google search had us reeling: The preference by
women for male over female bosses is common knowledge in
the study of workplace dynamics. (This sad truth on the
heels of a major breakthrough for women as they surpass
men in the workforce for the first time in history.)
The
findings of a 2008 study from The University of Toronto
revealed that women working under a sole female
supervisor reported more distress and physical stress
symptoms than women working under a lone male
supervisor. The same stress levels were reported for a
male/female supervising team, hinting that the very
presence of a woman in a position of power is a stress
trigger for female employees.
Edmondson
Bell referenced another study. "Last year in a survey of
2,000 British women in full or part-time employment, 63%
said they'd prefer a male over a female boss. According
to the research, reported in London's Daily Mail and
other media outlets, most felt men were stronger
decision makers and better at 'steering the ship.'"
An article
on SingleMindedWomen.com summed up the general sentiment
succinctly: "Female bosses fall into one of two
categories," according to an article on "B*tches or
bimbos." The feature examines the stereotypes of women
bosses as "dragon ladies" as perpetuated by movies like
The Devil Wears Prada.
Confident
that the ForbesWoman community--empowered women that
they are--would tell us otherwise, or at the very least
make sense of this preference, we took the question to
Facebook and LinkedIn. Surely they prefer a female
supervisor. Working on the all-female ForbesWoman team,
we prepared ourselves to be proven right. But boy, were
we wrong.
"A man any
day of the week," says Stephanie Rovengo on Facebook,
"They do not have those female cat fight instincts."
Zaida
Sarely Mauricio agrees, adding: "Because [we] women are
very competitive with each other… emotions and
feelings get in the way."
"I'd prefer
a man," says Tamara Bowman, also on Facebook. "I've had
one good female manager but most of my spectacularly bad
managers have been female."
Diana
Dietzschold Bourgeois continues: "Women have been evil
bosses to me in the past."
In fact,
when the responses on Facebook are tallied, of the 25
women who spoke up, 19 were adamant that men make the
better bosses--and that they would choose a male boss
over a female boss if given the option., "A man hands
down!" attests Annette A. Wilson in the Facebook
conversation.
"Women can
be conniving and backstabbing while giving you the
nice-nasty smile." Lynn Maria Thompson says, "Absolutely
a man, and I speak from personal experience. Women I've
worked for, with only one exception, tended to feel
threatened by me, whereas men were better mentors."
On LinkedIn,
Wayne Tarkin offers a possible explanation for the idea
that women don't live up to expectations in mentoring
employees: "There's a split between successful women and
those who don't feel themselves successful," he says.
"This fosters resentment and the impression that women
who have made it are not helping others [to] get there."
Frequent
commenter Bridget 'Snarky' Thornton did a great job of
summing up just how uncomfortable we feel about all of
this "women bosses are bad" business.
"I had this
conversation with a friend last week," she says. "We
were angry with ourselves for preferring a male boss but
we both agreed that the level of competitiveness and
lack of support among women in the workplace. We MUST
address this issue and realize what women can accomplish
collectively if we worked together in the same way men
do."
Who are we
to argue? As women who consider ourselves champions of
women in business, shouldn't we be the best bosses of
other women? Shouldn't we know best about developing
other women to be the best, most proactive and
collaborative employees?
Or, as Ana
Budeanu puts it, If we don't have faith as women that
women can be good bosses, why would we think that
someone else should give us the opportunity? If we don't
believe in ourselves, who's ever going to believe in us?
Over to you
readers: Would you prefer a male boss or a female boss?
Tell us in our Facebook or LinkedIn communities and
share some of the stories--both good and bad--about the
bosses in your past.
-Yahoo News
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