| Topic Name: |
Touchy Issue |
| Message Name: |
Great topic... |
| Date Posted: |
03/16/2005 |
| In Reply To: |
In two of my prior jobs I had women superiors (I'm male), either as a direct report or group head; in both cases the end result was that we could not get along. Even other co-workers and higher ups could not understand why. And always their tracks were covered with acceptable to good reviews of my peformance. Its just our personalities were incompatable.
I will be interviewing for a position where my direct report will be male but the group head is a woman. While the job seems right for me based on past negative experiences I am a little more than wary.
Before the women on this board label me a Neanderthal and misogynist, maybe someone male or female can offer some advice as to what to do and how to approach this. I have had great women co-workers and bosses but the few bad ones have left me "traumatized".
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| Message: |
When I first read this, I could not believe my eyes. I was almost compelled to write the same exact thing a while ago.
First, the basics: I am a man.
But not just any man. I am a fully evolved, open-minded, well-adjusted and well educated professional. I will even vote for Hillary in 2008.
However, whenever I am reviewing job opportunities these days, I am very wary of potential women bosses.
Why? Well, my first boss was a woman and she was fantastic. In fact, she very well was probably the best boss that I ever had.
I had a succession of male bosses and project managers as a consultant and they were quite ordinary though a positive experience for the most part.
Some years back, I worked at a start-up and had a female boss who was a few years older than me. She was a nightmare. I felt that she thought that I was competing for her job or something and she never lost an opportunity to exert her position. I expended a lot of energy making sure that I never came off in a threatening manner but I still could never figure her out. She was always scheming and conniving and looking to lay blame somewhere.
I know she is probably not representative of her entire gender, but I certainly realize that it would have been impossible for us to have had such a bad relationship if she had been a guy.
Some women managers (especially the younger ones) feel a strong need to exert themselves all the time and are not just relaxed enough to understand how to relate to their subordinates.
My opinion (probably wrong) is that it is somewhat indicative of the hassles that they go through in such a male-dominated world.
I read a recent article on Carly Fiorina that also suggested that she was notoriously bad in allowing strong leaders to emerge under her. I think this was one of her clear failures and one of the reasons she is out of a job today.
k.
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