The question is perfectly civilized. The assumption that all people are or should be the same is incredibly dangerous and divisive.

Many bosses take their position as bosses to exact revenge for wrongs committed against them earlier in their careers. That the people or organizations who committed those wrongs are miles away or years in the past usually doesn’t matter to such bosses. We’ve all known people like this. I can see how women who also happen to be this type of vengeful boss would be extra hard on men, since all women have faced sexism at some point in their careers.

But I would also hazard a guess that men have had some hand in creating the “monster” female bosses that they now decry. 20 years ago, the only way for women to get ahead in traditionally male fields was to become as “male” as possible — to dress male, act male, talk like a male, compete in a male way, and have only those personal priorities that would be acceptable for a male. There are managers of both sexes who take this “alpha male” behavior to the extreme. The difference is that when men do it, it’s “typical” or “expected” and therefore forgivable, but when women do it, they’re heartless
b!^$#es (because even though they’ve probably had to discard their femininity and “man up” for their whole careers, they’re supposed to also still be “proper” females, apparently).

Finally, everyone knows that when someone has a bad experience, they not only crow about it much more than when they have a good experience, but they immediately pick out the most obvious or visible characteristics to blame for the experience. Since the “archetypal boss” is a middle-aged white male, any deviation from that is naturally going to be perceived as a reason for any deviations in behavior.

For full disclosure, I am a woman. In my lifetime I’ve had two female bosses (first and current) and three male bosses in between. I haven’t seen a lot of the witch-type stereotyped female boss yet, but perhaps that’s since I worked in healthcare previously and a male-dominated industry now. I do know my current female boss gets less respect than others at her level, and less pay. She doesn’t mind. She doesn’t micromanage and treats me on a similar level with the rest of the guys in her group. We are not gal pals, and in fact I think the young guys who remind her of her son get more personal affection. I think the problem is; a guy is rarely promoted into a position he is not qualified for because he is good looking. He is rarely kept on because he is attractive or the other people at the company enjoy flirting with him. Around here, there’s a few competent women in positions but also a few incompetent women who have stuck around possibly b/c they are women (also possible company fires women less so as to avoid gender-biased lawsuits). Therefore, men around here have a perception of unqualified women working here, when it’s not true in all cases. The women who’ve been promoted quickly and earn good money early in their careers tend to be young, attractive women. However, being a woman in a technical field can also hurt you – they question your intelligence and assume you don’t have a good brain for technical details.

There’ve been a lot of studies recently that women who negotiate for more money are looked upon negatively by men AND women, whereas men who negotiate are looked upon as bold, or management material. Same goes for attitude. If a guy is a jerk one day, you just shrug it off and say oh well, and don’t take it personally. However I think men AND women take a woman’s attitude personally, no matter the case. So the woman becomes demonized as a witch or uncaring. She can go the other route and be considered motherly but then she’ll likely have guys trying to walk all over her and not treat her as the boss. I think the problems are systemic across the country, and not particular to any company or field. In more woman-dominated fields there is obviously a different attitude (healthcare, teaching) but in most corporate structured environments women will always face a tricky double standard. I only hope it will get a little better in my lifetime. I am not attractive enough to have received special raises or attention, and yet have had my qualifications questioned when I can easily cite men with half my experience getting promoted sooner and getting paid more. I try not to blame it on the company, I think it’s society’s problem and we’re all pawns in that game.

First, let me just say that I am female. Second, I have been in the work force around 15 years and I am in my mid-thirties. I have to admit that, unfortunately, of the few female bosses I have had during my relatively short career, they are all of the same management “style” as the boss described. I have also had really bad bosses who were male, so I generally agree with you Bing, that both genders can be equally offensive and that it’s not so much the gender, but the person.

Still, I do find it curious that I have never really had a female boss who I considered to be kind or even sane. While I have had good bosses who were male. And the absolute worse boss I ever had was female (total tyrant and an evil witch with a capital B). I don’t know why that is the case, but maybe could be convinced that it has something to do with the environment in which these female bosses developed.

These female bosses started their careers in the late 70’s, early 80’s and went to school during the “I Am Woman Hear Me Roar” era. Maybe acting the way they do was the only way they could be taken seriously. It served them well back then when that management style was the norm and they never got off that train.

Sad to say, but I feel like I have never had good female mentors in the workplace. The female bosses I have had did not have lives I wanted to emulate (most worked all the time, were divorced or never married and had no children). And these same bosses just could not relate to me (I’m married, have young children and want to find some balance), while some of my male bosses have embraced the whole work balance thing and bent over backwards to try to accomodate. Maybe it’s just my misfortune that I have never encountered a good female boss, because I think they exist out there (I read about them in the WSJ).

Maybe time will tell. Once women like me work our way up, maybe we’ll be better managers and the negative stereotype of a female boss will slowly fade. I sure hope so.

Women have still gotta work twice as hard to be thought half as good, that’s for damn sure.

I am female. Over the years I have had a number of female bosses. I’m sorry to report women are way more mercenary, sneaky, and downright evil than any male boss I have ever had. Men will tell you right to your face what you are doing wrong and where you stand with your job. Women, particular women who are older and threatened by youth and intelligence will undermine you behind your back. You will never see the knife coming till its too late. Basically women are unable to work in a team environment. They want all the glory for themselves. I have never seen an exception to this phenomenon.

I don’t think the question is uncivilized at all, and I thank you for broaching it. But then, I’m a guy. I’m one of the guys whose mention of the manager’s sex was deemed not too mysogynistic for the previous entry.

You’re right, sex shouldn’t have anything to do with it. Miles and Rebecca are right, double standards exist. I was wrong to jump at the issue of sex just because of my own recent experience with a sexism practiced by a group of females that was every bit as pernicious as that practiced by many males. There was nothing in the story you related about the guy with prostate cancer that indicated that his manager’s behavior was based on gender, but that’s what caught my eye.

I’ve had male bosses who were jerks (well, actually, it was just that one — I get along with most bosses, male or female), but I never made that leap to say that it had to do with him being male. I shouldn’t have done that with the female manger. So, I was wrong to bring it up. Mea culpa.

Not at all, Mike. Your original comment was thoughtful and interesting and kicked off the basic debate, so thanks. And what’s interesting right now is how many women are writing in to testify. I fear I may have scared off a few of you guys, though. Come on. Don’t be shy. If the women can shuffle off the bonds of political correctness, you can too. Just don’t mention any body parts, that’s all.

I’ve had men bosses and women bosses. I’ve seen great leadership and horrible leadership in both genders. I’ve even seen where a female boss got her promotion due to her physical characteristics. I’ve also seen a male boss get his due to his schoozings. I’ve seen where a promotion came about because of race.

One thing that bosses and employees forget is that it is necessary to leave the feelings at the door when working. It’s when people bring in their personal feelings that trouble begins and things like the woman who got promoted because of her great _______ (fill in the blank with any non-leadership quality) or the man who got promoted because of his _____ (fill in the blank with any non-leadership quality) happens. It’s also the source of employee lawsuits for everything under the sun such as sexual harassment, wrongful termination, etc.

Both men and women have a terrible minefield to work through when they have both genders as subordinates or a team of the opposite gender. Add to that some people are just not leaders, but are placed into leadership roles.

A business instructor of mine from college put it nicely when he said that you have four kinds. You have people with desire and ability, you have people with ability but not desire, you have people with desire but not ability and you have people with neither desire or ability.

I’ve found that desire+ability = hard charging boss with lots of energy who often gets involved with everything. They often have trouble delegating tasks but know the right things to do to keep things working correctly. Great at starting things but can get in the way when the “baby” has out grown the “daddy/mommy”. (baby refers to business while daddy/mommy refers to the person who started it)

Ability without desire gets you a competent boss able to delegate tasks and to show his/her people the easiest way to get their work done. They are great because they stay out of your way as long as you’re getting the work done and not causing any problems.

Desire without ability leads to lots of action but no headway on completing work. He/she tends to make huge messes of everything. This boss type can make you crazy as they can’t seem to make up their minds on what you should be doing Sometimes, this is a move up and move out action by the company to get rid of an otherwise “great” employee.

Having neither desire or ability gets little work done and no real leadership at best and similar results to desire but no ability at worst. These usually get moved out of the company, i.e. move up and out.

I’ve had the pleasure and pain of working for all four types and most good bosses regardless of gender, race, religious preferences, etc. fall into the ability without desire category.

Usually, bad bosses don’t stay long once their “supporter(s)”, that’s the person or people who handed out the promotion, leave or loose their position of power. Sooner or later when the numbers come out and the profits aren’t there, the investors in the business will start asking what happened and expect the company to fix the problem. As an investor myself, I can tell you that creditors have tied hands by comparison (in some ways). In other words, “we the investors expect you the ceo to fix the problem. Or, we will fix your problem and your replacement can fix the problem.” Any ceo who was given a chance to tenure his/her resignation after really bad financials have been released can tell you. There’s a reason why Venture Capitalists are sometimes called Vulture Capitalists. Bad bosses of either gender just don’t fit the profit plan and they get replaced.

Hi Mike I went back and looked at your original comment. I think you said a very un-PC thing as politely as you could. Also, it seems like you said (generally) “In my experience, this is what female bosses are like,” as opposed to “All female bosses are like this one, it’s a fact.”

It’s a very important difference!

I second our fearless leader’s call. Come on out, gentlemen. Don’t let us think that all that unposted vitriol is all you guys have to say on the subject…

* Unpublished vitriol. Not unposted. Certainly didn’t mean to imply that all you can contribute is vitriol!

As a woman, I agree with Julie! I have been fired twice by women.

One fired me 3 days before my last day as I had already gave my notice. She fired me when I got back from lunch instead of before lunch.

The other one was an office manager at healthcare agency who couldn’t seem to get any work done herself as she was always too busy in the breakroom complaining about her homelife, never having enough time to get work done and drinking coffee. She would lock herself in her office for 2 hours and make alot of noise in there. I was basically doing 4 positions myself and still had enough time to visit with everyone and had even offered to help her with a couple of projects in addition to my roles. She fired me for “never doing anything she assigned me” which was bs. She gave me a company test which I couldn’t answer half the questions (not because I was stupid but because she had told me those were rolls that were covered and I didn’t need to learn them) about 2 weeks before kicking me to the curb. Yup..that test got thrown at me when she fired me (the test proved, I didn’t know how to do my job). Then a week later people called me at home to say they missed me, that I was the best person so far that they had in that role and ask why “I had quit and walked out that day”.

Lack of comments from men seem to indicate they agree with L. and Julie: that women make worse bosses than men. That they are b@#$y and insecure, moreso than men. The men are just too afraid to speak up and be called sexist, so the women are doing it for them. Sad. Sometimes women are their own worst enemies. I still think there’s no gender difference, and that the sample size of competent female bosses is too small to be compared to the larger demographic of male bosses.

Aw Stanley, you’ve disappointed me.
Some of your earlier blogs were so sensitive to women I wondered if your wife had written one or two (still not sure)and here you were doing so well until your own comment to your blog ended in “just don’t mention any body parts” ARGH!
Stanleeeeee, think with your BRAIN man, even if it is about women.

Hey, I said DON’T mention any body parts!

When I read the original post, I instinctively agreed with the idea that women were bad bosses more often than men. Then I thought back to my own experience, and now have a different opinion.

I have had two female bosses in my career. One was OK; the other was my most influential mentor. “Mary” was a great leader and organizer. She taught me a great deal about our business, then encouraged me to move on when I confided that I wished to move out of state to be closer to family. I sought her advice and guidance often for years afterward.

I have also had male bosses; some were good, some were bad. Would their gender have affected their performace? Would it have affected my perception? In both cases, I doubt it.

What made the good ones good, the bad ones bad, and “Mary” outstanding, was a mix of ability and personality, not gender. Personally, I now think women are good bosses as often as men are, but this is only my experience.

For the record, I am male, and am starting to believe that “A jerk is a jerk, in pants or a skirt.”

T in OP FL raises a good point. Could the occurence of pissed off women in management be a generational thing that will resolve itself with time? The 60ish baby-boom ladies who have made it to management have certainly had to fight an uphill battle with almost no role models other than type-A males to try to emulate. Perhaps the 50ish comers and the 40ish strivers will have a more balanced approach to management and let their natural strengths dominate.

Diversity is good. The strengths of the different sexes, races and upbringings can all be leveraged by a successful organization as long as they are allowed to flourish. Don’t break their spirits by forcing them to conform.

In my experience their have been a**hole bosses of both genders as well as talented managers who have balanced Company vs. employee needs. Like sports when we were “winning” everyone seemed to be nicer. When things went wrong, the abilities of the manager were proved up or exposed depending on the individuals.

Most business owners know that any average person if given the same basic information will make the same good decision.

From there some employees when promoted demonstrate insecurities realizing that they are not really that special and begin to identify workers who could handle their “job” in the same competent manner. They just came to realize this fact of nature and their only why to protect themself is most obvious and perdictable.

As a business owner I find it amusing to identify thoes less average employees who don’t know this fact of nature, promote them and watch what happens. The better employees will work even harder, the promoted employee will work harder to try to keep up and do your dirty work, I become a referee type nice guy for both sides, production goes up, they are to busy to know what’s really going on while I make more money.

Welcome to the real world.

From the legal system to politics women are self defined as different never equal. Just think of the invented concept of “protected class”( another word for protected majority). Look at the way a woman defendent is treat in court by our legal system. Thay have in fact by their own will with the enouragement of allour systems made themselfs stand aprt as “differnet”. The question is, “where does different Stop”?

I’ve had bad bosses and good bosses of both genders. The attribution to gender is an indication of an underlying gender bias.
What matters most is boss behavior, not the sex of the boss, that defines whether that boss is good or bad at management.

The only thing that matters is whether a person does their job effectively. It matters not whether that person is male or female, black or white, short or tall. If that particular boss is not an effective leader, that what difference does it make why that it is. It is far too speculative to probe into whether it is her gender or her upbringing by wolves. The discussion on perpetuates the existence of stereotypes and hinders progress towards judging an individual solely on their own particular talents.

Is now really the time to talk about bad female bosses with Fortune’s most powerful women issue on the stands? Those iron ladies will crush you like a walnut, Bing.

No seriously, it may not be a fair question to ask, but its going to be asked anyway. Bottom line is there are lots and lots of bad women bosses, but being a woman doesn’t make you a bad boss at all, and if you had to generalize, you can say that being female gives you strengths in some areas and weaknesses in others.

I do not disagree that a woman can be a good boss – my wife is a perfect example. No really, I an equal at work that is female. She manages one department in the industrial plant and I the other. We each have hundreds of millions of dollars of equipment and 60 to 80 people each we are responsible for. Her position has historicall been helh by a man, it is a sometime rough hot intense environment with heavy burden for production placed on everyone. Now, what I see and hear from her direct reports ( managers ) and those in the field ( hourly ) anr usually the same. Mostly that she does not “know” her job, meaning process and machines. And when questioned this holds true. She should know these things but how did she get the job not knowing? The company looses a lot of respect right there for hiring her. Then she spends most of time on people issues not process issues that can help meet production targets. But her choice of people issues to “fix” are only problems for her and the rest of her department wonders why even stir that pot? It just distracts everyone. They then say she is being a typical woman by medling in things better left alone. Those soft feel good people issues. But she does it with out input from anyone. She knows best. She is a woman in a mans job and insist on acting like a woman – now wrap your noodle around this; She and we should all drop the gender stigma by focusing on why we are where we are, TO GET A JOB DONE usually by managing real life people with feelings, families and isssues of everyday life in a fast paced America. Male or female, if the manager knows the business enough to open the front door and not lock the back one, and truely has a compasionate heart and can tell when they are being BS’d and has a moderate sence of fairness their emloyees will do the rest at least until they can develop more competence.

G

My male boss acts as if he couldn’t care less about our health problems even when they are work related. I don’t see one gender as being meaner than the other. When someone is a minority in a profession their gender stands out but they don’t embody the traits of everyone in that group.

I don’t know the answer to the question; in fact, I’m sure there’s no one answer to this sort of query. I believe what’s most important is that we CAN ask the question. The only thing offensive is the notion that the question itself is offensive.

The supposed right to not being offended is, or should be, erased by the first amendment; which not only protects me from you, but protects you from me.

Its entirely possible that women are worse bosses than men; just as its possible that men are worse than women. Humans are a study in swings between extremes. We went from not allowing women into management to over-promoting it; just as we went from not allowing blacks to do much of anything and now its over promoted. Affirmative action and hate crime legislation are examples of this phenomenon.

The more open and honest we are about every topic we’re confronted with, the more mature we become, the less these things matter, and the better we can address the next challenge [real or imagined].

Men and women can both be idiots. I do think that labels on idiot women bosses are more gender specific. You know which group of people propogates that? Other women of course… Women hate working for women more than men do.

Since gender is a visibile differentiator of individuals, assigning gender as the main trait for behavior is a common approach for the generalists. Much more influential to leadership abilities are MBTI, Myers Briggs Temperment Indicator, as well as experience. These two attributes would account for much more of an individuals’ ability to be a good leader, than gender.

I have worked for some several introverted bosses, and they have very different characteristics, which I respond to better in close environments, from extroverted boss, with whom i have gotten along, but worked with them from different facilities. two were male, two were female, and all were above 6 feet, about 6 inches taller than i was. . . does height matter?

I work better for MB perceivers than MB Judgers, and better with MB intuitives than MB Perceivers. . . its just the way i am. . . being old in today’s world, i work better with multi industry, experienced bosses than young, single employer’d bosses. .

gender? irrelevant,. . . and better is a relative term of which the opposite does not mean poorly or badly or not at all. . .

I think the question is interesting, and I think a lot of the responses are interesting. FYI I am a female in the military (so my bosses have all been guys, there aren’t that many women). A lot of people attribute women bosses behaving badly to the environment they were developed in, i.e. one that was male dominated. Essentially the arguement is that they are bad bosses because they are trying too hard to emulate “male” behavior. If so, that makes all male bosses bad bosses too.

For those who doubt the role of perception, I cite you to this poll published in August: http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3444210
Excerpts from the article:
“A man who gets angry at work may well be admired for it but a woman who shows anger in the workplace is liable to be seen as “out of control” and incompetent, according to a new study presented on Friday.”

“Participants conferred the most status on the man who said he was angry, the second most on the woman who said she was sad, slightly less on the man who said he was sad, and least of all by a sizable margin on the woman who said she was angry.”

This affects women’s status and pay.

Women do not have the benefit of growing up as males, where there is a constant struggle to determine who is the alpha male.

There are unspoken rules about what is acceptable and what is not when dealing with the competitive ego, and I find that women do not understand these rules. So it is difficult to slot them into a male-centric workplace, quite frankly because they do not have the “education” that being a man provides.

Also, women are commonly made managers but seldom are they leaders. True creativity and passion are not traits that women are biologically capable of possessing. Look at fields where womne are encouraged (the arts) and you will see a complete lack of groundbreaking work. Women work within existing forms quite well, but never define their own styles. I have never known a woman to passionately support a “hare brained” idea of her own, she is more likely to seek consensus, which in middle management is important.

Women doe not understand male creative, passionate workstyles or the masculine conflict that they go through to bring these ideas to fruition.

In my experience, women who are successful and rise through corporate ranks do so because they are non threatening to the alpha-male and will be successful without causing ego problems. For some men it takes alot more strength to promote a strong man (who will show them up), than a woman who will work within existing forms.

So when a woman is promoted to manager above men who have been involved in the alpha-male struggle their entire lives, not understanding the delicate rules, it is like putting a non-english speaking manager in control of an american team. Just doesnt work.

For areas where process is already defined this may work, but in true high stake, creative endeavors, women are the wrong choice and will cause internal conflict.

I seem to remember a front page Wall Street Journal article from many years ago that polled men and women about their preferred gender in a boss. The men who had an opinion were evenly split between the two genders. Women had less “It doesn’t matter” votes and came down preferring a male boss two to one.

I do not know whether this is because of a bias of female employees against their female bosses, or vice-versa. I also have no idea whether this bias, in either organizational chart direction, is founded or unfounded. However, based upon my observations, I agree with the frequent (but not constant) tension between a woman working for a woman.

I have had many bosses over the years and I will say that I am not sure which gender I have reported to more often (the last two have been women). Some bosses have been men, some have been women. Some have been great, some lousy. I personally found no correlation between gender and how good a boss is in general or to me.

Even with a lot of bosses I still only have a small number of data points, relatively speaking. In this conversation this is worth remembering. We are all probably all thinking of one or two great or lousy bosses and wondering whether to extrapolate those peoples’ qualities to their entire gender. This is probably a mistake.

I’ve worked for both male and female bosses over the years, and I can tell you that women supervisors are more difficult to work for. In many instances the female supervisors are very catty and condescending towards other coworkers. It’s an embarrassing situation for everyone, and a liability for the company. Being a female myself, I make it a point to stay away from working with female managers. At times, I just wish the women supervisors would withdraw their claws in the workplace!

“I’m sorry to report women are way more mercenary, sneaky, and downright evil than any male boss I have ever had. Men will tell you right to your face what you are doing wrong and where you stand with your job.”

As a male but also drawing from my wife’s experiences, I have to agree with Julie. What I have seen of women in Director positions and above has ranged from narcissist to sociopath. I have encountered a few men in those positions who seemed like decent individuals. But, I think there are really three questions involved.
men vs women – Individuals probably not that different.

male culture vs female culture – Think back to middle school and boy confrontations vs girl confrontations. Boys will punch you in the nose and tell you why. Girls won’t say what the problem is but will start the most vile rumor about you they can think up. (Which would you prefer to be YOUR boss?)

corporate exec culture vs normal humans – Preponderance of sociopaths in executive offices.

I’d like to thank all of you for your comments on this, even those of you who used emoticons. As always, your thoughts are interesting, funny, passionate and literate. Sorry for getting all gushy on ya, but… *choke*… I love you guys.

Having worked for a number of females (please note I am very aggressive/ educated female myself) there seems to be a mentoring issue here across the board. Women don’t realize you can be tough and still not be a bitch. But on the flip side there is a double standard. Also you have a group of females that want to “play rough” and then hide behind the fact that they are women, to these I say MAN UP! Frankly this is too complicated dynamic for a mere comment that really goes beyond the board room and into the fabric of our society. If we are equal then we are equal across the board in reward as in punishment. Finite…

In my 18 years, I have many female and male management and I can say that I have a few exceptional female supervisors but overall, it has been men that have been better. I did notice that the women that held management positions and were good leaders had a degree in business. I recently dealt with two that were good workers but lacked an advanced degree in business. It’s difficult to advance in a big company without the degree and the people that end up in the lucky lottery are hard as nails. They tend to approach people in a hard attack mode and people are not motivated this tackle and kill them attitude. You may have good employees that need guidance but by hitting them in the head with a steel bat isn’t going to produce postive results. Remember that you get more bees with honey than vinegar.

I am not saying baby and put up with poor performance but don’t tackle them and except great results. People will always put up their defense when treated harsh. Start out talking to people as if you respect them and know you value that they can work at better level.

I have had two nightmares in the recent past that killed my performance when I was always an exceptional exmployee (and documented through the years by written evaluations). Yes, I had a problem and hated going to work after 15 years because of being treated like their 5 year kid, constant control and ego power control of putting everyone down because that was their mode that day.

All I can say is they are gone and the remaining male staff is much better and better at motivating.