I came across a study on LinkedIn. It was about female and male bosses. It generated over 17,000 views. From over 1000 respondents, 72% say they prefer male bosses to their female counterparts. On Instagram, 69% of the respondents do not want to work with female bosses.
Citing their reasons, many respondents said they preferred male bosses because men tend to be logical. Others said that women are dramatic and competitive. Moreover, society supports men in leadership, politics, decision making, management, etc. It was more surprising that a lot of female respondents also preferred male to female bosses. Whom would you say is better? A Female boss or Male boss?
How then can we have more women in leadership if the majority say they make terrible bosses? Women tend to be very competitive. We compete for who is prettier, who is more attractive, whose hair is longer? Whose bag is more expensive? and more. Trivial as they may sound, there is the feeling of fulfillment of outdoing the other woman.
Having worked with both, I won’t be quick to say make a judgement. The workplace is competitive enough, working with a female colleague is even more. When it is a female boss, one has to take caution. The first week at work, I had learned to tone down my makeup and dressing. Not that it was too pronounced but with the kind of female boss I had, this was necessary to get along and ahead.
I had to drop some part of my personality to conform to the work culture less I offend my female boss. She was quick to find faults. If I was going to remain in that organisation, I had to conform to her taste and leadership style. It was not like I was ‘seeking for attention’ employee who overdid everything including dressing. But I noticed whenever we had board meetings with external trustees, she would do private scrutiny of my appearance beforehand. I felt that it was ensure nobody took her shine. Of course, I kept it professional but there was no freedom to be oneself.
If it was the male boss, he would emphasize on always looking good and dressing the part. This is not the same for the female boss I worked with. She was more concerned if you were dressing to outshine her. So it was like a competition. This goes without saying that she had empathetic. There were times, I had personal issues. Sensing that it affected my work, my female boss had a listening ear and would advise me accordingly.
Leadership and management are not gender-based concepts. To break the proverbial glass ceiling, women need to support each other. They also need to get their acts right and overcome any form of ‘impostor syndrome’ and myths surrounding womanhood. The sooner we realise that life is not a competition and that there is space for everyone, the better.