While there are clearly good and bad managers from both sexes, some recent research has suggested that women make better managers than men.
According to this article, a survey performed in Austrialia found that “women exhibit more strategic drive, risk taking, people skills and innovation and equaled men in the area of emotional stability.”
Another survey found that:
Women tend to be better than men at empowering staff.
Women encourage openness and are more accessible.
Women leaders respond more quickly to calls for assistance.
Women are more tolerant of differences, so they’re more skilled at managing diversity.
Women identify problems more quickly and more accurately.
Women are better at defining job expectations and providing feedback
Personally, I think these survey’s are operating from a flawed premise. Namely that “management” is about making your staff feel good about themselves instead of delivering on a project and getting a job done.
These same surveys found that "men were more task focused and concentrated on getting the job done rather than dealing with relationships.
(Men believe that) that bottom line dollars are the only game in town. Their key motives and preferences in life appear to be around revenue, budgets and profit."
and that “men have the upper hand when it comes to focusing on the bottom line”
So in other words, it seems like that in roles where results are objective and measureable men have an advantage. “Well, Sally’s team seems really empowered but Bob’s team was 20% more efficient. Who should we promote?”
I would also expect that is a reason why women tend to end up in roles like HR or public relations. Because their management style is more condusive to those sort of “soft” services that are not as bottom-line driven
I am an engineer in a small group of engineers. My boss is a woman, also an engineer. She does make as feel really empowered, but at the same time we are the most productive enginering group in the company: No other group as as good a reputation as we do when it comes to meeting our deadlines, and for doing what we do for as small a budget as we have.
As you touch on in the OP, I think it’s really a matter of perspective. Assuming a stereotypical member of either sex, each will have certain benefits and downsides. So, in some circumstances, those benefits may favor management in some fields over others for one sex. I think it’s also a difference in the employees that you have, which of course differ from field to field. For instance, I work well under deadline pressure, but I also don’t do well with strictly negative reinforcement and bottom line judgment which, I would assume, tend to be characteristics a male manager would bring while a female manager is less likely to push a deadline hard, but more likely to give positive reinforcement and look at other things besides the bottom line.
So, really, I think it’s just a matter of what characteristics you need in a manager. For some managerial positions, interpersonal relationship building is very important, while for others, some other typically male characteristics, like quick decision making, may be more valuable. So, really, I’d say the correct answer is that women are better managers than men in some cases, and men are better than women in others. As for who is better for a particular job, it’s all about who has what characteristics you need.
Gross generalization, but I think in terms of getting the job done, both are okay.
The difference is if interpersonal problems break out.
A man in charge: Bill, you’re #2. George, you’re #3. Sally, you’re #4. Deal with it. Work it out. Get it done.
A woman in charge: Well Bill, you’re not working out so I’m going to talk to Sally who is going to talk to Lakisha, who is going to talk to Betty, who is going to talk to Mary, who is going to fire you. Sorry. Buh-bye.
I’ve had many of both.
If I divided up by gender, I would have better male managers “in general”, it’s pretty tight though, since my top two were women. It’s just that the other women were are sort of at the bottom.
When I hear there’s going to be a change in management, I don’t think about it in terms of the gender, you could say I’m anxious either way; what surprises me are that most of the women I work with are openly disappointed to hear it’s a women. That kind of pisses me off. It’s really all about the individual as far as I’m concerned. Sure both may have their unique ‘pros and cons’, but diversity is good.
Depends on the woman or man. Let’s face it, many, many, MANY companies promote the wrong people. Gender doesn’t really matter, it’s who’s best qualified.
Here’s two quick personal examples:
Woman - Lidia was the finance manager at a small facility I worked at. She would call her accounting friends-- MEN-- to find out what to do in big situations like company taxes, but would cry and yell at clients who complained they were paid late. English is not her first language, so when she gets stymied trying to translate, she’d end up hanging up and letting our CEO handle it.
Man - Eric was a wannabe Alpha-male at another company I worked for. He was President/Manager. He played on his energetic attitude, his bank account and his blue eyes for the ladies. Around the office, his conversations led me to believe he refused to grow up saying (real quote), “Dude, check this fucking shit out. This fucking guy, he tells me to fucking move my car or he’s gonna fucking tow it. I told him, 'Fuck you, dude, I ain’t fucking moving it…”
Now, switch the genders of these two managers… any better? Nope.
Both of these managers really need to be replaced, and gender isn’t relevant.
(Ever notice the people who hire and promote idiotic managers don’t get fired until they make, like, 10 or 12 mistakes?)
I think both women & men are bad managers. Anyone who tries to manage by conforming to a stereotype of being more masculine or more feminine will cock it up.
I would hope the research was measuring people against qualities that have been found to result in predicting better business outcomes in the long term.
its possible they were so naive as to forget that making a profit needs to be in there somewhere, but I think its unlikely.
I do think that different areas require different management styles though, so it wouldnt be as simple an issue as ‘women being better’ or vice versae.
The other thing is I wonder if this simply an indicator of women having to be better in order to get to be a manager in the first place. Ie no inherent gender advantage, just a survival of the fittest outcome.
What I would agree in general with though is I think managers often get promoted on the basis of traditional ideas about what makes a good manager, rather than on the basis of what the research says. Any counter intuitive qualities are likely not to be valued, and gender is one obvious area where that might happen.
I’ve had a fair few managers. IME the better low-level managers were women or older men, and the better higher level managers were invariably men. That said, I’ve a friend who’s bumping Board level and she’s very, very good.
I suspect women’s managerial skills (plotted to a wide range of attributes, some traditionally ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’) would be either a much broader curve, or a trimodal distribution.
I suspect that over that last quarter century there have been more “horrible” and more “excellent” female managers than male. (Both the best and the worst bosses I have had were women.)
I believe that within the next decade or two the curves will come to coincide, as males and females with similar early education and socialization come into enough managerial position to re-set the curves.
From my unprofessional observations, men are better at solving a particular difficult critical problem, and women are better at seeing and working toward a “big picture”, or working on a set of problems that aren’t necessarily strongly related. Men have a harder time comprehending what’s being said to him over the phone if they’re also typing up a separate memo to their boss, for example. But if they’re able to focus on just the phone call, men will be able to convey important information more briefly and clearly than women. Men will act upon information more quickly than women, while women will be more likely to find a potential future problem with a particular course of action. Men are more reactive, and respond to crises more assertively. Women are more proactive, and although they might have a harder time getting through a crisis, they end up going through fewer of them overall because they make fewer rash decisions.
I think men and women are not necessarily equally suited for equal jobs. The reason women end up in public relations and men end up as stockbrokers are because the differences between the genders manifest in ways that give one an advantage over the other.
All of these generalizations are completely overruled and discarded depending on the individual strengths and weaknesses of a particular man or woman, though. Of course none of these observations necessarily apply to individuals, and nothing in here precludes a woman from making a better stockbroker than most men, or a man from making a better public relations executive than most women.
My experience is almost exactly the opposite. I’ve worked for several male and female bosses (some directly, some a level or so of management higher, but still involved enough that I could see what was going on), and that definitely doesn’t generalize well to what I’ve seen.
But I think you hit the nail on the head when you said:
I don’t think we can make generalizations about men and women managers – every individual is simply too different.
THIS. I have worked for bad managers of each gender. IMHO, crappy managers are the majority. It is the Dilbert principle. Folks are promoted to a level where they can do the least damage to the organization. This is why I am self-employed.
In my 20+ years of being ‘pofessionally’ managed. ancedoteally, i’ve had 3 managers from hell. 2 were women. i’ve had only two female managers. i’ve had a couple of great managers that were all men. i’ve had several mediocre managers that are male. i’ve worked with but not reported into several anagers that sucked of both genders.
draw your own conclusion.
given my paxt history, i would definatelt double vette any female manager.
Of course, probably too complex to allow for useful generalizations. But IME there are differences between how men and women manage. Whether one or the other is better depends largely on the people being managed.
IME, if you were to draw a continuum with “touchy-feely” on one end, and no-nonsense “get the job done” at the other, I’d say that as a whole the women mangers I’ve known/had have been closer to the touchy-feely end than most if not all of the men.
Of course I am only able to say which I prefer. I definitely prefer a manager whose concern is simply getting the job done, rather than how people feel about getting the job done. But I readily acknowledge that is my bias.
Another generalization - the folks I tend to be closest to at work are the highest producers. Whether male or female, the higher producers tend to have less interest in “soft” training/awareness exercises and practices than the - ahem - deadwood. And personally, I couldn’t give a damn whether or not the underproducers feel good about themselves or their work - I just want them to do more of their share of the fucking work. And I don’t see that their “personalities” bring anything to the office sufficient to make up for their lack of production.
Is there any pattern in the perception of employees toward managers of the same gender? Opposite gender?
I am a woman, and the best managers I’ve had have also been women. I’ve also had good male supervisors, but ALL my truly shitty supervisors were men. I’ve wondered for a long time if I unconsciously favor female bosses because I’m female, or if it’s just a coincidence that, so far, my awesome bosses were female.
What you are actually referring to is the “Peter Principle” (named after Dr. Laurence J. Peter) of which the Dilbert Principle is a sort of parody of. Basically the principle is that employees who perform well at their job are often promoted, however the new job often requires different skills the employee may or may not have. I do not personally believe this to be true. People do not have a static set of skills and can learn to adapt to different jobs and work environments. They will typically rise to a level where they are merely medicore. If they gain the skills to move ahead, they typicall will and if they are incompetant, they typically get fired or become frustrated and quit on their own.
By what criteria do you evaluate whether or not your manager is effective? And how does that map to the criteria by which the success or failure of your group is measured?