This summer a study from the Gallup Organization caught my eye. The findings indicated that overwhelmingly (80 percent) both men and women prefer male bosses. This led the Harvard Business School and Forbes’ Facebook sites to conduct informal straw polls that also showed people prefer a male boss to a female one. The comments were wild.
I’ve had only female bosses. But through my male friendships (the ones where no romance has been involved), I could see how a male boss would mean less drama. Most respondents argue that males are more effective leaders in the workforce because they are less dramatic and can separate home and office better.
As most know, I’m working on a larger piece about powerful women and insecurity. One subject recently admitted to me that she was afraid to mentor younger women because she didn’t want her position threatened. This feeling is disturbing because we need more women leaders right now mentoring younger women since we’re still making 75 cents to a man’s dollar, and women make up only 7.6 percent of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.
I ask everyone: what has been your experience with female bosses? (You can post without having to put an e-mail address). Women, do you feel a loss of mentorship with female bosses?
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I work in the legal field and, by far, my male bosses have been more supportive and easier to work with. I’ve only ever had one female boss who wasn’t standoff-ish/controlling and that was when I worked in the service industry in college. There’s nothing quite like the way women resent each other for their success & potential, especially in fields traditionally male-dominated where only 1in every “X” women is going to rise through the ranks.
“Women could rule the world, if only they weren’t so busy hating each other.”
I’ve only had one female boss and she was ferocious. I think because she had to be, had she not been that type of personality, she wouldn’t have got to where she was (administrator of a surgical department). Almost all her administrative counterparts were men except for a couple of small department heads, and the chiefs (doctors in leadership positions) were all men as well.
I’ve had 2 female bosses and 1 male. One of the female bosses wasn’t a good person in her personal life, and mean and conniving in her professional life. The second female boss was the opposite; she had a huge heart & was kind to all, but unreliable and lackadaisical professionally. The male boss was fine personally, but did not give sufficient direction or time frame on tasks and was a bit too hands-off at times. In general, I find many people (male or female) haven’t been taught or given leadership skills or tools, and that may be reflected in their management. The small-ish companies I have worked for do not use resources for management development, but hope that turnover and eventually experience managing is sufficient while chasing the almighty contracts. This makes for some rough transitions, and some managers may be experts in the field, but never acquire management skills.
I have worked for both male & female bosses and would work for a female any time before I’d work for a male. If you tell a female boss “I’m happy with this position, I don’t want a promotion, just let me do my job” they trust and believe you and let you do your job. On the other hand say the same to a male leader, he won’t believe you, and assumes you are not motivated to work harder for a promotion.
From my own (male) perspective, I’d say that it might be better to distinguish mentors from bosses. I’ve never considered any of my bosses to be a mentor, but instead formed bonds with more experienced peers. With the current generation of tools connecting people in online communities, maybe that will become the focus of mentor relationships that don’t risk the same sense of competition.
I think women are more protective by nature, you know the mother-bear syndrome. Mostly, women have had to claw their way to where they are and yes are threatened by younger women. Seriously what woman doesn’t size up another woman in any social or work situation? It’s the threat of losing our “man” our “provider” our “position” etcetera. My mother was a guard and counselor in the state prison system and she always preferred to work the men’s side because women were always “horrible.” I think the prison environment is a petri dish of the real world.
I work in healthcare (nursing, to be specific) and have almost exclusively had female authority figures. While its nice to have logical, non emotional supervisors (regardless of sex) we are all human. Do I think there are is a lack of authority women figures? No. Do I think that if we all, men and women alike, quit looking at color, religion, nationality and sex for defining who or what we are going to look up to – that we might actually evolve a little faster? yes.
I am a womand and I work in IT. Before being where I am now, I always had waaaayyy better female bosses than male. The men were pretty much aleays sexist and/or verbally violent. Not towards me thank goodness, but it still sucked to watch! Now I still have awesome females bosses, but the company/dept I work in also has awesome male bosses. So I guess if they hire the right people + surround them appropriately gender is a non issue.
I’ve had both male and female bosses over the years and would say that the male bosses were, by far and away, the easier of the two to work for. But, and its a very big but, as I worked my way through my career and particularly now as I’m setting up my own business, whenever I need to draw on experience and guidance the two I always look to are my old female bosses. Both could be terrifyingly ferocious at times (and, yes, emotional), but their passion, strength, tenacity and attention to the minutest detail leave my old male bosses in the shade. Both women pushed me to achieve far more than I ever thought I could through their refusal to accept any work from me that didn’t reach the perfection to which they both strived. I owe an awful lot to these two women (even though it may not have seemed it at the time!) and, for this reason, I would steer away from the easy option and choose a female boss over a male any time.