We know that when the proportion of women on corporate boards is increased financial performance can be expected to decline, but could there be other outcomes which might partly compensate for this assault on meritocracy? For example, will the working environment become more pleasant and supportive for men, or women? Proponents of more women in the senior reaches of business often claim that women are more ‘consensual’ or ‘collaborative’ than men, or as I prefer to think of it, hopelessly indecisive.
What might one of these consensual geniuses do when a topic arises unexpectedly at a board meeting? Perhaps take a ‘comfort break’ during which she’ll attempt to forge a “consensus” among whoever is around to “collaborate” with at the time? So long as boards are happy with female directors taking two-hour-long comfort breaks, I see no problem. Of course board meetings could then last all week, but that’s surely a small price to pay to keep up the charade of often poorly qualified female directors appearing competent.
Our thanks to “M” for sending us links to two intriguing documents on employees’ preferences with respect to the genders of their bosses. The first is from the Gallup organisation in the United States, a report titled, “Americans Still Prefer a Male Boss,” which draws on a survey conducted in August 2013. Gallup has been asking questions in this area since 1953, 60 years ago. The report:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/165791/americans-prefer-male-boss.aspx
Intriguingly, a higher proportion of women (40%) than men (29%) prefer a male boss. Key findings from the study:
MEN
29% prefer a male boss
18% prefer a female boss
51% have no preference
WOMEN
40% prefer a male boss
27% prefer a female boss
32% have no preference
Young Americans showed the same preference for male bosses as older Americans. Also from the report:
Implications
Although four in 10 Americans do not have a preference for a male or a female boss, those who do would rather work for a man than a woman – as they have since Gallup began asking this question in 1953.
The minority of working Americans who have a female boss break even in their preferences for the gender of their boss, suggesting that if the percentage of Americans who work for a woman increases, so might the percentage who would rather work for a woman. However, young Americans’ preferences are in line with the average, which suggests that the aging of today’s workforce may not in and of itself produce changes in these attitudes in the years ahead.
The fact that even in 2013 women are more likely to prefer a male boss over a female boss will come as no surprise to anyone who’s read Steve Moxon’s The Woman Racket (2008). One of Moxon’s key theses is that men are innately comfortable with rules-based competition – one of the reasons why so many more men than women engage in competitive sports, or watch them – and with a male dominance hierarchy based upon power, or its modern proxy, money. The female dominance hierarchy, by contrast, is based upon youth and attractiveness, so women tend to be less comfortable than men with the male dominance hierarchy which remains the basis of the vast majority of commercially successful organisations.
Many times over the course of my 30+ year-long business career women complained to me about their treatment at the hands of female bosses who generally had a small “in group” they favoured in numerous ways. The situation was made worse by women being promoted beyond their abilities, in an effort to get more women into the senior reaches of organisations. In my experience men were rarely promoted beyond their abilities in this way, but if they were, they soon realised they had a problem, admitted it, and a solution was found. Women in the same situation would struggle on in an effort to save face, they could become unpleasant to deal with, and end up with depression, stress-related absences from work, substance abuse issues…
Crossing the pond, we turn to a short but interesting article in the Daily Telegraph, published in 2010, “Workers Prefer Male Bosses”:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/7938593/Workers-prefer-male-bosses.html
From the article:
Two thirds of employees agree they would rather work for a man than a woman. Female bosses were accused of being moody and incapable of leaving their personal lives at home. A third of those polled claimed women in charge are ‘loose cannons’ – ready to stab colleagues in the back at any time, and who constantly feel threatened by other people in positions of authority. By contrast, both male and female workers believe male bosses were less likely to get involved in office politics, were easier to reason with and rarely suffered from mood swings.
Men are also said to be more straight-talking than women and rarely talk about others behind their backs, it emerged.
The article ends with the following:
Ten reasons why men are considered the best bosses
1. Straight talking
2. Less likely to get involved in office politics
3. Easier to reason with
4. Less likely to bitch about others
5. Less likely to suffer from mood swings
6. Able to leave their private life at home
7. No time of the month
8. More likely to share common interests
9. Don’t feel threatened if others are good at their jobs
10. More reasonable
Who could argue with any of the 10 reasons? So there we have it. When organisations drive up the proportion of bosses who are women, not only can they expect to see financial performance decline, but also a less happy workforce. It’s a lose/lose situation, engineered to keep a small number of privileged women in positions of power for which they’re poorly qualified. So why do the government, the business sector, employers’ organisations and professional bodies all relentlessly pursue this insane direction of travel? Things may have to get a lot worse before people in positions of influence come to their collective senses.
