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Do Women Make Better Bosses?
Hugh Pickens writes "David Mielach reports on a new study which finds that women in management positions lead in a more democratic way, allowing employees to participate in decision-making and establishing interpersonal channels of communication. 'In line with known gender differences in individual leadership, we find that in workplaces with more women managers, more individualized employee feedback is carried out,' says study author Eduardo Melero. 'Likewise, we can see evidence, although weaker, that in these workplaces decisions are made more democratically and more interpersonal channels of communications are established.' The research was based on data from the Workplace Employment Relationships Survey, a survey of workplaces in the United Kingdom. Melero analyzed this data by looking at the number of women in management positions in companies and the leadership tactics employed at those companies. He found increased communication between management and employees in companies with women in management positions led to more well-informed decisions, since employee feedback will be utilized in the decision-making process. Still, correlation does not equal causation. 'One might question the direction of the relation: is it women managers who are the behind these policies, or is it that more progressive organizations are more accessible for women leaders than other workplaces (PDF)?'"
I have seen examples of both male and female boss fail... I don't see much difference, I think they are equal.
EA David Gardner -"... but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun."
In my career, I've had good male managers and good female managers. The difference is that, while I've had several male managers that were priggish martinets, I've not had a female manager with similar qualities.
Anecdotal experience is not law, of course, and I could have been the beneficiary of just not having a large enough sample size of female managers, but that's been my experience.
I've done some of my best work under women. :-)
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Because it would have been sexism.
I must being a bad location then. I find most women in manager positions are good, but very authoritative. Which makes sense for the reason that they were able to get to that position to begin with. I'm not saying that it makes them bad in any sort of way I just don't see a female manager being any more cooperative than a male manager. In both cases it truly comes down to how that individual initially got to their position.
Because it's pro-woman.
The main difference I've found between men and women as bosses over the years is I have never had a woman try to pull a power trip, leveraging the "authority" of their position to try to force me to do something they wanted.
Men, on the other hand, sometimes think that a title means they have power over me. How soon they learn...
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I think it's safe to say that Steve Jobs did not lead in a way that was similar to most masculine-driven companies. He constantly choose to go against what everyone said "worked" and made everyone "change" their thoughts to agree with him. That sounds fairly feminine to me.
Men do better in a role - "Men and women are equals. The men must have had an unfair advantage. Reperations will have to be made."
Women do better a role - "Women's brains must be wired up in a way that makes them better at certain things. Or perhaps it's down to hormones or genetics."
Michael Reed, freelance tech writer.
The moment you judge a person by any simple facet, gender or race or anything else, you are doing them and yourself a great disservice, even when you judge them positively. Human beings are individually very complex, and no characteristic, even when supported with loads of statistical evidence about that characteristic is going to inform you properly. Judge individuals as individuals, in the context you deal with them. Anything else is a major failing on your part.
This is not to impugn this study; statistics are useful and can be used in all sorts of intriguing ways. Just never let them stand in front of the individual qualities of a human being.
In my engineering jobs, sex roles have always been... ahem, traditional - this is at about 8 different jobs in two Southern US states over the last 25 years. Same applied to the grocery store I worked in.
The "women bosses" I have had the most experience with are elementary school principals... they have run the gamut from insecure totalitarian witches to the ineffective ostrich to genuine warm caring professionals who do the right thing - not much different from the men I have had as bosses.
Like we believe you are married...HA!
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I think that is the exact opposite of the approach described. Apple was more of a dictatorship than a democracy.
I share your doubt. Women may lead more democratically, but that doesn't always come out with the best outcome... Different? Yes. Better? Not always. The title tries to twist the words of the summary. I didn't read the article.
Er no it wouldn't. There are hundreds of studies that show that women are worse than men on a wide range of tasks. Not the least, almost everything that is physically challenging. I hate this notion people have that research is somehow censored to be politically correct and that it is therefore not trustworthy.
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Since everyone's going to chime in with their perspective from experience, I'll add mine. I've had several managers in the course of my career, at multiple companies and on both sides of the gender fence. I've also needed different levels and styles of management at different points in my career, and have experienced both "good" and "bad" bosses along the way.
Early on, when I was more likely to need guidance and suggestions (in learning time management and prioritization, communications skills, etc.), I found much better and more involved management from the women than the men. The women were more likely to take the time to observe and try to understand where the deficiencies were, and to advise me in a non-confrontational way about how to proceed and what to learn from the situation.
As I grew in my abilities and my confidence, though, I was more likely to run into conflicts and differences with some of those same women managers. Communication was less direct than it needed to be, personality differences became more of an issue than they were with male managers, and occasionally, problems would escalate to a passive-aggressive undermining. Conversely, men in management seemed more likely to recognize and acknowledge my increasing competence, and when corrective communication was needed it was short, direct, and efficient.
Don't underestimate the effect of corporate culture, though, on management styles - my opinion is that bad management is caused by culture as much as culture is an effect of bad management. I think it's very much a chicken-and-egg thing, in that regard, but there's definitely an influence at play.
In the years since I've entered management, I've swapped back and forth between two upper managers (depending upon company re-orgs), both of whom have decided that the best way to manage me is to leave me the hell alone. My current boss has told me that, as far as he's concerned, my department is a black box - resources go in, profit comes out, it all runs seamlessly and quietly, and that's all he needs to know. :)
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
There is a bias against hiring women in leadership positions. It follows that the standards a female manager has to meet are higher than those of a male manager, and therefore the female managers who do get hired likely have above average communication and leadership qualities.
is it women managers who are the behind these policies, or is it that more progressive organizations are more accessible for women leaders than other workplaces
In my experience, it's the former.
My last boss was male, and he was very open to ideas and input.
My boss before that was female, and she was a complete tyrant.
You'll find people with similar stories, or opposite. It's a matter of chance.
Gender makes no difference, it's all on the individual.
The only difference it DOES make, is that I might be attracted to a female boss.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
"men and women are the same in every way except the ways that women are better." Typical femnatzi logic that would get anyone tarred and feathered were the logic reversed. I'm sure some women make great bosses just like some men do. How about we stop caring about averages and about case by case basis? If a woman is a great boss, keep her! If a woman is a terrible boss, fire her! Same goes for men.
First we get bad statistics about the relationship between supply and demand in the oil market, and now a bad statistics "study" of management styles?
What's next, a sure-fire way to win the lottery?
I hate this notion people have that research is somehow censored to be politically correct and that it is therefore not trustworthy.
As long as the research is only discussed among educated researchers, you are correct. Yet if some scientist gets on TV and says that women are somehow less able than men to perform some task, politics kicks in -- the researcher is obviously a misogynist (unless the researcher is a woman, in which case she is just misguided). It does not matter what the results say, what matters is that nobody ever publicly suggests that women are less capable.
Palm trees and 8
Anyone want to guess what the reaction would be if an article posed the question, "Do men make better bosses?" or "Do whites make better bosses?" My view of this article is no different. Sorry women.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Hey man, maybe he's just into that kind of thing. Behind closed doors and all... sheesh - be a little more open minded!
Somewhat related, though it's not apples-to-apples, I more or less refuse to go to male doctors. Their "God complex" tends to be way worse: many times, they don't ask you what's wrong, or even bother listening if you try to explain. They already know.
The summary says that women make decisions that are more "democratic", but that doesn't mean they make "better" decisions. My experience is that female leaders are less willing to make hard, unpopular decisions, even when that is what needs to be done.
There are few matriarchal societies, and the few that exist, such as the Mosuo. tend to be in isolated regions where they are protected from war. Could this be because war requires leaders to make the kind of hard, unpopular decisions that women are often bad at?
Jobs often poked his nose in the types of decisions that a typical CEO would let someone much farther down the ladder deal with. He'd even exchange emails with random customers.
So while while he was the "decider", he made decisions that had a perspective from inside the trenches was well as from inside the boardrooms. I think that's something that's missing in many large companies, - even ones where consensus plays a bigger role in major decisions.
Taking it a step further, I think that's what goes on with some of these dictators like Assad. They're so insulated from the bulk of their country that they truly don't have a grasp on the magnitude of the discontent. Jobs had his own RDF but he could see through it enough to create products that people wanted, though there were some notable failures.