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I am an engineer in the tech field. I'm also a contractor and move from company to company pretty often. As a result I've had several different types of bosses. My worst bosses in my opinion have been females though. Why? I'll tell you.
I've found that female bosses are more about trying to stay on friendly and cordial terms with their peers. As a result, I've found their easily manipulated by other managers and senior management. They are more reactive in management, and as a result their management style trickles down to their employees. Two of my worst jobs have been when I have had female bosses. In both cases, the female bosses were very compotent, but way to much into micro managing, and they become too forceful on their direct reports when they get tension from other managers. In my industry we often have to coordinate with other divisions since a lot of times we either rely on other systems owned by other teams. There are a lot of situations where a system is at fault for massive outage, and I've noticed in almost all cases the female bosses at the blame, even when it wasn't their fault. They would always try to pass down top heavy procedures as well, and they were too CYA. I think with female bosses your ability to be CYA almost outweighed your ability to peform. Even some of the CYA stuff became ridiculous at points.
My male bosses were more assertive, and if there was ever controversy, they used their direct reports to prove the other team was at fault. They also never tried to be on friendly terms with other managers, and as a result other managers never had issues respecting them. They always had a clear goal for the team, and got off that path. In most cases with my male bosses, they expanded the team because they were more efficient.
I don't want to sound sexist, but I've just found female bosses have just had horrible managemet styles. This could just be an issue with my industry as well, as it's heavily male dominated. They be better in other fields and markets though. What has been your experiences
I honestly thought you'd go in another direction with this altogether. I don't view women as pushovers at all. I have a female manager now and I'd say her thing is about proving herself to the rest of us. That said, she can be quite relentless. She has no qualms about throwing you under the bus. She is the epitome of cut throat.
All in all, I think a lot of people tend to agree, both men and women alike, that working with women can be quite a chore. Among each other, they are catty and extremely competitive. With men, they seem to always be attempting to prove their worth by acting macho and cut throat. And don't get me started on passive aggressive tendencies.
I honestly thought you'd go in another direction with this altogether. I don't view women as pushovers at all. I have a female manager now and I'd say her thing is about proving herself to the rest of us. That said, she can be quite relentless. She has no qualms about throwing you under the bus. She is the epitome of cut throat.
All in all, I think a lot of people tend to agree, both men and women alike, that working with women can be quite a chore. Among each other, they are catty and extremely competitive. With men, they seem to always be attempting to prove their worth by acting macho and cut throat. And don't get me started on passive aggressive tendencies.
This has been my experience as well. At my current job, our female CEO is very 'emotional' based in their decisions and interactions with staff, and is absolutely horrible at keeping business and personal separate. This has led to an environment of blatant cronyism and nepotism in my office.
I look forward to the responses in this thread....
I am an engineer in the tech field. I'm also a contractor and move from company to company pretty often. As a result I've had several different types of bosses. My worst bosses in my opinion have been females though. Why? I'll tell you.
I've found that female bosses are more about trying to stay on friendly and cordial terms with their peers. As a result, I've found their easily manipulated by other managers and senior management. They are more reactive in management, and as a result their management style trickles down to their employees. Two of my worst jobs have been when I have had female bosses. In both cases, the female bosses were very compotent, but way to much into micro managing, and they become too forceful on their direct reports when they get tension from other managers. In my industry we often have to coordinate with other divisions since a lot of times we either rely on other systems owned by other teams. There are a lot of situations where a system is at fault for massive outage, and I've noticed in almost all cases the female bosses at the blame, even when it wasn't their fault. They would always try to pass down top heavy procedures as well, and they were too CYA. I think with female bosses your ability to be CYA almost outweighed your ability to peform. Even some of the CYA stuff became ridiculous at points.
My male bosses were more assertive, and if there was ever controversy, they used their direct reports to prove the other team was at fault. They also never tried to be on friendly terms with other managers, and as a result other managers never had issues respecting them. They always had a clear goal for the team, and got off that path. In most cases with my male bosses, they expanded the team because they were more efficient.
I don't want to sound sexist, but I've just found female bosses have just had horrible managemet styles. This could just be an issue with my industry as well, as it's heavily male dominated. They be better in other fields and markets though. What has been your experiences
While we appreciate your ancedotal sharing - it really means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Show me some statistics that female bosses are the 'worst bosses'. I've worked for both.
Sounds to me like you have a problem working for women.
There are just as many bad male bosses as there are female bosses. Insecure, immature, petty, emotionally unstable, gossipy, pathological, cut throat, micromanager, aggressive & people pleaser are gender neutral attributes. I've had some male bosses actually display those attributes in worst manners than women bosses. A good boss is based on qualifications not gender, race, age, or any other individual demographic category. While emotional intelligence tends to be more important than IQ neither are determined by gender.
It depends on the office. In my experience, I only had an issue with one boss who happened to be a woman. She didn't like me much although she hired me! Perhaps she felt threatened or our personalities didn't mesh well, I have no idea. All the male bosses I worked for were very relaxed-and being a woman, they seemed to be more understanding when I was out due to "female issues". The other female boss I worked for liked me ALOT-almost two much. I seemed to be her favorite-perhaps it was that we were close in age, or maybe something more.
Alot of factors come into play, which preempts the need to generalize, but we base alot of our opinions on past/present experiences, so what may be true for one, may not be true for another.
Thats the most reasonable explanation about why less women are promoted to management positions than men that I have heard. Of course you can't say that in public without being scolded. Despite what people want to believe, men and women are not the same, which is why men pay more in auto insurance than women. Not all men are more risky drivers, but in general they are. Why is a generalization like that allowed and acceptable but not the other way around?
While we appreciate your ancedotal sharing - it really means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Show me some statistics that female bosses are the 'worst bosses'. I've worked for both.
Sounds to me like you have a problem working for women.
Maybe you should fix it.
I'm not going to sit here and try do statistics. I'm speaking from my own experiences, and I'm not asking for anyone to share statistics but share experiences. I really have no issues working for females, but I have noticed very different approaches to management from females. I have also admitted that this is what I've noticed from MY industry, and women may be better in others. Again, my industry is incredibly male dominated. I have noticed that women tend to be FAR too reactive in their management, and over emphasize CYA practices. In both cases where I've worked for terrible female leadership, our team remained stagnant, because we could never get passed all sort of internal team issues. Way too many policy changes from female management, which sometimes even contradicted earlier ones. Terrible communication, terrible with assertiveness, terrible with other managers, terrible with senior management, way too much "covering yourself" than getting anything productive done.
I have noticed that with male managers, they spend less time on defense, because they actually bother to fight their battles instead of trying to change the team's direction. Again, females may be really good in other industries, but I do not think my particular field is female friendly. And it shows with female managers.
You want statistics? Go to the library or better yet, google the issue. There are tons of statistics. Men working under women bosses do better than OTHER WOMEN WORKING UNDER WOMEN BOSSES. Never heard of the glass ceiling? Google it.
You want statistics? Go to the library or better yet, google the issue. There are tons of statistics. Men working under women bosses do better than OTHER WOMEN WORKING UNDER WOMEN BOSSES. Never heard of the glass ceiling? Google it.
Yes, and women actually prefer to work under a male Boss over a female boss. Statistic.
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