I had some female supervisors who were great and some who really resented it when I became a mother. (An option they were now too old for). I had some male supervisors who were kind and supportive and others who were tyrants. You can’t stereotype people by sex.
I agree.
Better to have a mentor who is a powerful, period, who knows how to play the system, plus who can advocate for you and project a halo on you by association with him/her.
My best mentor was male, and truth be told, we were kind of attracted to each other, too.
I have to agree with many of the comments on the article. I much prefer working for men. I had one decent female boss, the others were nightmares. Then again, maybe it was my personality type. I am an ISTJ for those familiar with Meyers-Briggs. As a female, we are not looked upon fondly in the workplace.
I worked in a field that required collaboration and often escalation out of our dept, and was frequently subject to critical deadlines. (Eg, that rocket can’t go up if the comm lines go down.) I had female bosses whose management skills were so utterly lacking, who had to be convinced first when support was needed, settled for an “I left a message, yesterday,” then went home at 5. So bad that I vowed I wouldn’t work for another woman unless I knew her as a friend first. With one exception, the men were far better mentors and support, had an open view of “team,” knew the goals and got the job done, and were willing to share credit. Young or older, minorities, internationals, highly educated or built their way up. Men. I assumed there was a deeper level of confidence there.
I’ll skip detail, but it really wasn’t just me. And yes, the corporate structure had somehow put those women in place. Maybe that was part of the underlying problem. The women lifted into management were a sort.
Unfortunately, the best bosses I have had have been men. I had one or two women mentors in my previous field who were great, but one senior woman (not technically my boss, but she had power over me) early in my career was horrid to me and ultimately was key in my getting fired the only time in my career. (Before I could leave on my own which I was planning, ha ha). I think she was just miserable herself, which turned her into a miserable person and boss.
H right now has a pretty not-clued-in very senior female boss but it mostly causes him eye-rolling (and more work). She has too much on her plate. He thought she was pretty bad until he got a new direct boss who is years younger than him and his AWFUL. I won’t go into details but he is just tyrannical (and not too bright).
My H, on the other hand, is a great boss to his staff, including many women with families, and they are so appreciative that he shields them from awful senior boss. (I don’t think this just because he is my husband; his staff tells me this every time I encounter them 
Disagree. The queen bee syndrome is real and there is no reason to believe that it disappears at the workplace door. It is a social tendency that must be engaged with no less than the more male dominant tendency to put ego ahead of better decision making. This does not make women unfit to be bosses but it seems foolish to ignore what we know exists. Sandberg was wrong on Lean In and wrong on this.
I had to look back through my careers to realize I had five female bosses. Three of them get a thumbs up from me. My first female boss probably got her sales job due to her looks, and I think she was the only one who wanted the supervisor job. I worked from a satellite office and rarely spoke to her. Another boss admitted to all of us that “people don’t like me” and I could see why…tactless, tolerated no mistakes and excuses, very negative, gossipy, and a poor trainer. She hired me to do one job then I discovered all she wanted me to do was data entry all day long.
One female boss was hard on me when I first started. Eventually she respected my work and we became friends. Soon she was telling me confidential information about management and her supervisor. I was the only one who was following “who’s who in the zoo” and kept it to myself for months. She finally gave her two weeks notice, and her boss fired her on the spot, and made her clean out her desk in front of her entire department. I don’t think they would have done that to a man. The woman who replaced her was very respectful to me and I think it was because of her battles with some of the women.
I tend to be the same way in the work setting as an ENTJ. However, having little/no concern about touchy/feelie supervisor/supervisee relations tends to result in lots of personnel issues from what I’ve seen and some feedback* from friends who have worked with me.
Been making it a point to account for the touchy/feelie aspects even though it comes exceedingly hard for me personally as if taken into account, supervisees would be inspired to work much more effectively without necessitating more coercive/negative motivational techniques to ensure accountability so objectives are met and tasks which need to be done are done correctly, on time, and at/under budget.
- Most friends have said they'd be glad to have me as a supervisor of a department working for them as they know I'll make sure the staff I supervise work together to meet the main objectives/get stuff done correctly and on time. However, they'd also said they'd hate working under me, especially if they tended to be on the laid-back lackadaisical side as the latter tend to regard me as a bit of a taskmaster. However, I don't agree with and won't do what one senior biglaw partner did to a paralegal working on the same team did:....summarily fire him because he was seen reading and thus "slacking too much" in the eyes of the law partner without considering the fact that:
- He was taking his lunch hour and was well within his rights to use it to read his book.
- Even though our team had much to do, the rest of us were covering for him for that hour so when another one of us takes a lunch break, we'd do the same for him.
Unfortunately, as that senior law partner was one of the most powerful equity partners in that biglaw firm, his firing of my colleague stood despite the unjust aspect of it.
One of my dearest and oldest female friends once told me this… “Before I had kids, I was an unreasonable boss. I had no sympathy for pregnancy issues, child care issues, sick-child issues, doctor appt issues. Once I became a pregnant and later a parent, I realized what a jerky boss I was.”
Now…the above could be said about male boss (except becoming pregnant), but it was interesting that a “really nice lady” was insensitive about family issues…and it took becoming a mom herself to “get a clue”. She’s been a fab boss ever since. (And…M…if you’re reading this…we’ll laugh later.)
My very best boss was a female who is married but has never had kids. I worked for her for 8 years and she was my boss when D was born and I took maternity leave, etc. She was absolutely wonderful to me as well as to a male colleague who also worked for her and became a dad at around the same time.
Can’t stereotype.
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Can't stereotype>>>>
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Very true.
One of my sisters is married and can’t have kids, yet she is an awesome boss. Her employees adore her. She’s very flexible with their family needs. They all cover for each other when one has to leave early, arrive late, or miss a day.
I have managed few hundred people at one point or another. I have never worked for a woman, but have had a lot of camaraderie with many female colleagues. At one firm I worked at, women of my level would keep each other informed of various “inside information,” and we often supported each other. At my current job now (very new), women are inviting me out for drinks and meetings to network. I would say 95% of people who have worked for me would work for me again (they have reached to me after I left), but for some reason there are these 5% of people who have had very strong reactions to me. They didn’t like my style of management or our interactions. I do wonder if they didn’t like the fact I was a strong woman, or maybe I was just too aggressive for them in general. I have and do continue to mentor people, not just women.