Women in the Workplace

[Mission]

I was reading an article in Managing For Success pages of the October 10th, 2005 IBD entitled Do Women Boost Earnings? It discusses a study by Robin Cohen and Linda Kornfield, managing partners at Dickstein, Shapiro, Morin & Oshinsky which uses an (admittedly rather soft) scientific approach to the long-standing question of the value and importance of women in the workplace, specifically in managerial positions.

Cohen says, "The group [of companies] with the highest representation of women in management had a 35% higher return on equity and a 34% higher total return to shareholders." (After reading the way they came up with this, I find their research methods to be a tad arbitrary, but I wanted to throw that out there.)

What interested me was their thoughts on why female managers would improve the performance of a company.

To wit:

-Women executives are more likely to consult with others - experts, employees and fellow business owners - when developing strategies.

-Women executives have a greater natural tendency to deal comfortably with multitasking.

-Women executives have fewer competitive tendencies and often seek a cooperative approach.

-Women executives tend to focus on the big picture when making important business decisions or developing strategies.

-Women executives stress relationship building as well as fact gathering.

-Women executives are more likely to talk through business approaches and incorporate the ideas of others before making final decisions.

Thoughts?

[Nomadicalpirate]

I won't deny that women in management may have a positive effect on the workplace

I won't confirm that they do either. I simply wouldn't know, I have never worked under a female employer.

But lists like these

-Women executives are more likely to consult with others - experts, employees and fellow business owners - when developing strategies.

-Women executives have a greater natural tendency to deal comfortably with multitasking.

-Women executives have fewer competitive tendencies and often seek a cooperative approach.

-Women executives tend to focus on the big picture when making important business decisions or developing strategies.

-Women executives stress relationship building as well as fact gathering.

-Women executives are more likely to talk through business approaches and incorporate the ideas of others before making final decisions.

Are A ) Falling into that category of bullshit generalisations.

and B ) Make me suspect the author has yet to speak to a woman.

[Mission]

Interesting.

FYI, the authors are both women.

[Nomadicalpirate]

the authors are both women.

That's never shut me up before

[blackjohn]

My supervisor's supervisor (or, maybe I should say the civilian head of our division) is a woman. Most people that I work with would say she exhibits none of those characteristics.

[hurricane]

Before striking out on my own I worked for 13 different managers - 12 were women - all great managers and one was a man - a complete idiot.

Since then I've had hundreds of clients and the women were always better decision makers on projects and easier to work with.

So I would have to vote for the research based on experience.

-- Hurricane

[Rummy3]

Well, it very well could be that women are good at the qualities noted, but in a leadership role, I have my own thoughts. My preference is to work for men. Women are WAY too moody. The men that I have worked for, on the other hand, have been more professional and less personal.

[hurricane]

There's a trend there rummy - I work much better with women, you with men. Guess that makes us heteroemployable. Hhmm!

-- Hurricane

[Mission]

Perhaps the normal relationship between men and women makes them deal differently with each other. (Ok, from my experience there's no perhaps about it much of the time.)

A lot of what's up there struck me as broad generalizations. However, there is often a great deal of truth in generalizations. And, naturally, there are always exceptions to generalizations.

[Diego Santana de la Vega]

I think working under women is a blessing! I think? No really I do think! Not often but sometimes I even think I think about good things to think about. So I believe I'll go think about what it was I was going to say........I think!

[Christine]

My boss is such a phoney! She's the reason why we have such a huge turn over!

[Capt Grey]

In the large companies I used to work for the women managers did not display any of the characteristics listed. Partly because they had to act like men in order to achieve their executive status.

The worst woman manger I worked for was guaranteed her position because she was a black woman working in a small government contract company. Just having her on the books ensured the company would get many "set-aside" contracts. It didn't matter to the owners that her turnover rate was 75% because people left in frustration.

Women who aren't afraid to act like women are very good candidates of upper management - especially if they are mothers (talk about multi-tasking and attention to details!). Unfortunately corporate America is very slow to understand this and still promotes those that back-stab, take credit for things they didn't do, and walk on others to get to the top.

Is it any wonder that so many women has started their own businesses?

[Rummy3]

I think working under women is a blessing!

Aye Diego - and ya be a good performer when ya does!

[Cpt Sophia M Eisley]

I would hope the female managers in my company would have the characteristics described above, but alas, not many do. I agree, many feel they need to follow suit with the men (especially with competitiveness). My current boss is nice though...smart, funny, and she's the first one to admit she's only human. I'm glad to have a manager who's humble.

[Red-Handed Jill]

My best bosses have been women who have endeavored to make of the most of women's strengths (as in their own.) They didn't attempt to become men in order to compete. They were respected by their employees and the divisions or companies they ran were extremely productive. My current boss is one of these. So it definitely works to play to your strengths. :)

My worst bosses were two men and one woman. The men both had what has become recognised as disfunctional (to me at least) male behavior (used to being the patriarch and being able to do whatever they wanted within their "kingdom", reality and the law be damned.) One retired and the other one nearly ran the company into the ground before the parent company got rid of him. The woman was very good at playing politics and sucking up to upper management, but treated her employees badly and refused to protect them. At times, she did try to go the act-like-her-perceived-notions-about-men route, but for the most part, her failings were neither male nor female.

[Biker]

Depends on the woman. Some know there jobs some use thier cleavage to make you think they know their jobs. Some guys are the same way, except with them, it's called the "good ole boys club"

[The Doctor]

At NASA, I had a male manager. One of the best I've ever known. Competent, direct, and fair.

At Cargill, my manager was female. She was wonderful until the team got too large for her to manage comfortably. Then she turned into one of the worst managers I've ever had.

At IBM, I've had two female managers, both incredibly competent and rank in my book as superb. I'd work for them again in a heartbeat. The two male managers I've had to deal with have been, respectively, bumbling and utterly lost. Everything built by the women has been sqandered by the men. It's frustrating, but the pays very good and I work from home full time.

[Diego Santana de la Vega]

I think working under women is a blessing!

Aye Diego - and ya be a good performer when ya does!

I have no qualms about working for women or working for men, as long as I'm working and love what I do. The mere fact that I can have fun working and do so without hurting anyone is Gods doing!

"It is that which can be done that gets done! No matter who does it as long as it gets done right" unknown

[Caraccioli]

I have no qualms about working for women or working for men, as long as I'm working and love what I do. The mere fact that I can have fun working and do so without hurting anyone is Gods doing!

Amen, Brother!

[hitman]

Female managers in white collar feilds are male managers with a different anatomy they come in both good and bad and neither gender has much of an advantage in my experiance. In blue collar work however female team members boost production greatly cause to be frank no man want's to be out worked by a women. Sexist maybe but true