Battle of the sexes, dealing with gender at work
How do you deal with gender differences at work?
Your Rant: I received the following e-mail from a woman about the different styles of men and women and I thought it raised interesting points.”As a kid growing up on a farm, I was very aware of what was ‘men’s work’ and what was ‘women’s work.’ Men were responsible for things like mucking out cow pens, hoeing and cleaning chicken coops. Women scrubbed floors, dusted and vacuumed. Our paths did not cross and we certainly didn’t share work. Apart. Simple.
Today, I work in a conservatively managed high-tech firm where there are very few women in management. The unfortunate part of this equation is that most of the company is managed from a ‘point and delegate’ approach, something men seem to do with ease. As an acting manager and woman (I do the work of my previous man-manager for my same salary and no title, but I’m not bitter) I’ve discovered my management style is more “coach.” I have a hard time delegating because sometimes in the time it takes to describe the task and check for understanding, I could have completed it myself. My previous manager had no problem assigning tasks that were as simple as ‘point ‘n’ click’.
When there’s a question with work I’ve assigned, I try to respond as constructively as I can with further appropriate guidance. When I’ve provided finished product to my male counterparts that requires more work, I will hear that it’s wrong, but with no further instruction. It is, again, the ‘make it so’ approach and it leaves me wondering if I ever left the farm.
It seems to me that men make an assumption that in the telling of the task the details of their request will become clear. As a woman, I’ve discovered I need more guidance.
Which leads me to my other distinction between men’s and women’s management styles. As women, we worry about what something will sound like as it leaves our mouth, having crossed the great divide between frontal lobe and lips. On a good day, we spend a few seconds thinking of the appropriate expression for an idea. In a recent meeting I witnessed an outright attack on an idea by one of my more astute male colleagues. I spoke up in defense of the idea, in a manner similar to a mom telling a small child to ‘be kind.’
I can admit that as women, we have our own brand of management that is not perfect; we can be ruthless and calculating. In our hands, character assassination is a deadly art form and it happens in seconds. We’re notorious for not sharing information simply because of the power in the knowledge that we’ve worked so hard to gain. This is not to say that men have not worked hard, it’s just that they are the historical managers, it has been their birthright. I wonder how different work would be today if our roles had been reversed and women had managed first.”
911 Pulse:
Was the best boss you’ve ever had a man or a woman?
- The question itself is sexist, 9 percent
- I’ve yet to have a best boss, 16.1 percent
- A woman, 31.3 percent
- A man, 43.4 percent
User strategy:
Experience tells me that it is the type of manager, more than the gender, that determines a good or bad manager. I need someone who can trust my abilities to do my job, but is available when I need them. I don’t want them to be constantly standing behind me checking on my work or questioning why I do things the way I do (because their way is better). I am an intelligent woman who likes to make my own decisions on my work and expects my manager to show compassion when it is due but let me know (in a nice way and in private) that I have done something wrong. I see too many people being moved to management positions because of their education level, not because of their people skills. And sometimes the manager is only as good as the senior management.
Bob Rosner and Sherrie Campbell author the weekly internationally-syndicated workplace911 column. Bob’s a best-selling author and award-winning journalist who has personally responded to over 50,000 emails. Sherrie’s a relationship expert and award-winning comedian who has offered quick, intuitive and humorous responses to over 30,000 people. He’s been called “Dilbert, with a solution.” She’s the counselor with a kick. Watch our 911 team of consultants, authors, counselors and comedians—namely Bob & Sherrie—tackle the nastiest work wrecks in organizations and via seminars, TV, radio, newspapers, books, web sites and live on workplace911.com.
Filed under: Difficult Coworkers (T), Managing a Diverse Workforce (V), Work Life Issues (V) | Tagged: gender differences, men, sexes at work, Women
