Well, I just received a mail from SiliconIndia News with this title ” Why Women Managers are Bossy?
As you know, I have been vocal about Office Culture, and Officially Speaking platform is objectively writing about improving the work culture that is making many young professionals sick on the job. I thought I must express my views in this area where so many women managers are doing a great job with their men counter parts in professional life.
This is what I feel about women managers without any offense meant to anyone as there are always exceptions to rule and not that all can be measured with the same scale. Nothing can be and should be generalized.
So this is an academic discussion and may be taken as a learning curve to improve upon personal and professional skills for the successful personal and professional life. Because, I strongly believe, personal and professional life are the two sides of the same coin. You can not separate them however you wish. Yes, I also believe, either should not have a spill over effect on the other side, strictly. Or the disastrous effects are experienced immediately in both lives, personal and professional. This balanced act those who can do are successful and happy in both the lives. Personal and professional. You need to know where to draw a line between these two.
Many of our problems in personal as well as professional life are in effect from our personal and social backgrounds. Our traditional thinking and perspectives over the years are deeply ingrained and embedded which become the root cause of our behavior on the job or in our personal life. It is a reflection of our fixed Mind Set that we refuse to change with new set of challenges. And we fail.
We must change our thinking and perspectives with time. In other words, we must change our Mind Sets with positive approach and attitude to see this New World from new perspective. And then many things will be seen with clarity, better understanding and whole lot of good opportunities that this world offers.
Now coming back to Why Women Managers are Bossy?
According to my experience, women certainly have their own set of problems and challenges working as Managers. Most of the time they think they need to prove we are better than men. In the process, some women over do and over react and lose the sense of balance with their subordinates. May be it is not intentional but it is perceived.
Yes, not all women are bad managers as I hate to generalize.
But in my professional experience, I have seen they are constantly trying to prove themselves they are better Managers than men by putting on an act of go getting attitude. May be because naturally they are emotional and soft, they need to exert extra to put on an act of no-nonsense attitude. In the process, some women start enjoying bullying others as bosses and like to intimidate the staff to show off how strict I am as a Manager and no one can take me for a ride or take me for granted.
In this whole artificially propped up act, arrogance, shouting, humiliating or insulting of staff is seen in their behavior which is more counter productive resulting in frustration of staff that constantly works under stress and tension. This affects badly the ability of an individual to give his/her best or excel in performance or even go extra mile for such a boss.
I am not talking off the cuff but I know of cases narrated by women only working under women managers. And I know, equally there are men managers who are still worst. There is no comparison. But since we are talking about women managers today, I am talking here with frame of reference. In both cases, the ultimate result is, professionally competent, good, sincere and honest people look for a better working environment and leave the organization. Company loses good people in the bargain.
Women managers can do better than their counter parts, men managers, because of their sensitive and soft nature. They surely have better understanding while getting the jobs done with a balanced act as we see many times in our social environment.
They are better managers than men if they don’t try to imitate MEN. And if they remain in their skin with their natural self of influencing others with their smile, charisma and soft sensitive profile, they can be the best in their act as managers.
Of course, where you need to be strong, that you must be as a manager, but it should be without arrogance and not for the heck of it to prove, I am better than a man. That fake image does not inspire nor does it motivate others to work with you and contrary, do lot of damage to your own profile. It never works and it has never worked even in case of men managers.
Humiliation of staff, insulting someone working for you, shouting at people in front of other co workers and trying to bully is all a past. It should be a history. This is 21st century and treating your staff like slaves by manager or management is not on. We must move on from this position and make sure in our efforts how human beings can be made the best and by far the happiest performers in any place, any job. I am your boss and you are my subordinate need not be highlighted in your normal ACT as a manager.
After all, both men and women must understand when managing people working under them that, the best performance you can get from others is by three incentives. Appreciation. Admiration. And rewards. These are excellent motivators to get the best out of anyone. And why not? Everyone wants to be appreciated and rewarded fairly for his /her performance on the job. Unfortunately, many managers and managements fail to do so.
If the manager fails in all these three areas, that is certainly not a good manager.
Be it a man or a woman. And the loss is of the company in terms of human assets. Many Indian managements and managers have to understand this basic fundamentals about human resource development. Unfortunately, many don’t. And because of this lack of professional attitude many good workers suffer, personally on the jobs. Live a frustrated life and the spill over effect of unhappy professional life is seen in personal life too. This discord, discontent makes the family life suffer. And the whole objective of making a happy family life gets defeated.
The bottom line… Respect human beings first and earn the respect in return. You can get anything from a person then.
The greater performance and Happy minds give you the best.
Ajay Angre
Author, Writer, Publisher
