> i think women CEOs need to take on some atypically aggressive and assertive business characteristics that are unbecoming of either sex but are typically more acceptable in society for men to step into.
I agree. I'm going to come out and say it, it's difficult for a woman to step into any kind of leadership position and do the tough things without being perceived as a "bitch".
One thing I've observed in women who might be perceived as successful in those roles is that they're able to find the right way of being in charge and overcoming those perceptions. I think it's a subtle attitude or behavior change, and it seems to be a fine line.
But I'll also say that for men, they risk being perceived as "an asshole" in much the same way. And demonstrating assertiveness and leadership, being tough when it's needed it also a similar skill. I just think that men have more societal support and a few thousand years more practice and training to figure it out.
Women have far fewer role models to pattern after.
That is a very fine line to walk, and if you just appropriate that characteristic out of context you are asking for trouble. Steve Jobs was extremely skilled at what he did and for the most part kept the "moral high ground" and was fighting for what he himself had largely built.
Don't judge a CEO on their personal characteristics, judge them for what they do and stand for. The new CEO of Coca Cola said he needed to figure out how to get more people to drink Coke. Fuck him. There are a lot of CEOs who are not just really bad for their companies but really bad for the world. For the most part, I think Steve Jobs was ok and the world is better because of him. It is ok to stomp on toes but not simply for the sake of stomping on them.
There will be some really good female CEOs. I predict all of them will have actually built their own company.
Fine, throw out the word 'asshole' and replace it with 'unlikeable'. The point is that men can be unlikable and still command respect. Women are much less likely to be met with that reaction.
To my (non native speaker) ears, "asshole" sounds less offensive because it's gender neutral. An asshole can be a man or a woman, but only a woman can be a bitch. So calling an aggressive or ruthless CEO "a bitch" sounds slightly more offensive and sexist to me. Maybe I'm wrong.
No one respects an asshole or a bitch if that is all they are. If you are one of these and great at what you do, people will often accept your character flaws. If you are an asshole and do not know anything, then you will soon end up with people who either have no other choice, or those actively trying to leave. Neither one of these will help you build a great company.
perhaps nature/evolution/biology has a lot to do with this, not just societal views.
people see an aggressive male and say "oh, that's just his nature" and the opposite for agressive women, "oh, what's wrong with her?". the converse is equally true: men who are overly submissive are considered to have "issues". testosterone makes males more aggressive as a gender, they are designed to fight and compete. i think blaming everything on cultural norms and sexism doesnt give enough credence to this.
i've always wondered why no one from "everyone is 100% equal" camp takes issue with male/female segregation in sports/olympics.
People at least pretend to respect aggressive men because they don't want to get beaten up. It's like at school where people are afraid to speak ill of the bullies. On some level I think we internalize this survival instinct.
Blaming it on biology is basically a creative way of giving up on the problem, though. A submissive man will always be a man with "issues" because of "biology" and "nature".
Amazing, given all we've achieved to move beyond the biology and nature we had for tens of thousands of years, that we're still incapable of seeing an aggressive woman as 'normal'.
men and women are not the same. they certainly deserve the same treatment, but no amount of legislation or arguing will change the fact that they are biologically and chemically different, their brains are wired differently through hormones, chemistry. yes, culture can change this wiring to some degree, but it will never make the sexes equivalent and interchangeable. no one is "blaming" biology. it is not an "creative" way to treat people differently. the differences are there and have been there for tens of thousands of years and will continue to be there for thousands of years. disregarding biology is no less harmful than "blaming" it.
That's a straw man opener, for sure. No-one is arguing that men and women are the same. What I am saying is that women and men are equally capable at being great business leaders. They are equally capable of assholes while doing so. But men are far more likely to be given a free pass on behaviour like that than women are.
There's nothing evolutionary about that. Someone's perception of you is not coded into your genetic pattern. It's cultural. A hundred years ago you could have easily claimed that women shouldn't have the vote because of tens of thousands of years of biological differences. What makes that argument any different to this one?
> Someone's perception of you is not coded into your genetic pattern
I agree. Though perception is not the same thing as caring about your perception. Being perceived as assholes (and enablers of child labor, pollution, etc) doesnt stop men from striving to be CEOs of huge international conglomerates. I do believe that there is a societal issue with appointing women as CEOs of existing enterprises (rather that women being CEOs/founders). This fear may be founded in "can this woman rise to the sufficient level of asshole necessary to always make shareholder-value-enhancing decisions?". maybe it is the higher morality of women (a good quality by anyone's standards) that acts as a glass ceiling in business.
> A hundred years ago you could have easily claimed that women shouldn't have the vote because of tens of thousands of years of biological differences. What makes that argument any different to this one?
no one is preventing women from giving up raising a family to dedicate themselves to business. i doubt that the disparity between male and female CEOs can solely be accounted for by oppression or the perception that "trying isnt worth it because i'm a woman"
> Blaming it on biology is basically a creative way of giving up on the problem, though
I think you're missing the point. If we acknowledge that there are differences then we can come to terms with the fact statistically men will always be more likely to be CEOs - that doesn't mean we should stop fighting sexism or whatever other issues we have culturally producing prejudice - but it does mean that we may not need to strive for some kind of ... statistical parity.
In another comment you say:
> What I am saying is that women and men are equally capable at being great business leaders
You have no way of knowing that. That's a pure guess on your part. We know that women and men have different brains on the biological and chemical level so, all things being equal, surely it would lead to a least SOME difference statistically on which gender ends up being CEO. The question after that is of degree and does our current gender ratio predominantly represent a biological or cultural phenomena.
Since we historically have a lot of different cultures, and all seem to produce significantly more male leaders than females on, I'd say the biological argument has a lot of weight. I could be wrong!
It's almost as though you have no idea that emergent effects and networks effects exist in complex systems, and interpersonal relations have no bearing on sociology.
I suppose you also believe that viability for US presidency is largely a genetic biological trait, since so many Bushes and other White Anglo-Saxons Protestants have gravitated toward it.
It's important to be a successful CEO. If you're Steve Jobs at Apple's height, you could sacrifice children during the weekly round-up and people would nod sagely and talk about how doing that is part of what makes such a great CEO.
Not sure. It is probably about delivering results. If you get these by being a dictator this reflects of cause on your personality even more than when you are just deflecting it on "the team".
I suspect this is an industry-specific thing -- I don't see a lot of public hate for Fortune 100 CEOs Marillyn Hewson or Phebe Novakovic, both leaders of companies much more significant than Yahoo.
You learn to just embrace the bitch label. It's the only way to get through it -- you're going to get called one whether you are or not, so you might as well own it and make it work for you. I'm actually a very nice person and treat my employees wonderfully but I've been told scare the shit out of certain people who don't know me very well. My reports have actually told me they love my reputation; they promote it so that 1) they get what need from other departments easier and 2) they don't have people fighting to get their jobs (I have by far the best department/division/employees).
despite you getting downvoted, there is some truth in this. but mostly at the very top of the food chain, where your sole accountability is to your shareholders which is expressed in terms of $$, nothing else.
Several psychological studies indicate that adjectives like "ambitious" are often perceived as positive when describing men but negative when describing women. That does make the female leader's role more challenging.
> it's difficult for a woman to step into any kind of leadership position and do the tough things without being perceived as a "bitch".
I disagree that leadership is about being a bitch or an asshole.
Yes, it's widely said that Steve Jobs was an asshole. But people "got" where he was coming from. He was a perfectionist. I'm pretty sure he didn't alienate all his friends.
In leadership you have to be able to take tough decisions; but it's not about being tough with other people all the time. You might have to be tough with someone occasionally, it's a tool you might need to use.
Take Martha Stewart for example. Tough bitch ? Successful CEO ?
I agree. I'm going to come out and say it, it's difficult for a woman to step into any kind of leadership position and do the tough things without being perceived as a "bitch".
One thing I've observed in women who might be perceived as successful in those roles is that they're able to find the right way of being in charge and overcoming those perceptions. I think it's a subtle attitude or behavior change, and it seems to be a fine line.
But I'll also say that for men, they risk being perceived as "an asshole" in much the same way. And demonstrating assertiveness and leadership, being tough when it's needed it also a similar skill. I just think that men have more societal support and a few thousand years more practice and training to figure it out.
Women have far fewer role models to pattern after.