The unwelcome women managers

People seldom differentiate between managers and leaders but there’s a huge difference there. And while with respect to leadership women may be fine though using different style totally I’ve never seen much loved women managers esp in middle management.I do not mean competent , they are more often than not competent and ambitious but i mean I’ve never heard of any mid level woman manager being admired inspirational and so on.There was some talk about opportunities ahead for women in the organization and also with some new women in the managerial hiring last quarter there’s been some incidents which made me feel like summarizing a few thoughts.
Somehow in software when i do a reality check women as managers are yet to be cherished by employees.From what i’ve seen around in all my previous organizations , whenever there is a woman manager there’s a instant dislike, suspicion and the foremost people to initiate or at least openly express these are the unfortunately women employees.
Most of these thoughts are from what i hear and then perceive from people around me rather than my individual experience which is a bit offbeat.
There’s an instance of a woman manager making a point about employees being on time. This stringent rule in a organization known for its flexibility in timings, certainly made one too many employees furious and ended up as a complaint against her.In a normal circumstance I also pretty much will join this complaint, when people make an issue about hours and timings.But what i dislike is why people link this as a issue that cropped up because the manager was a woman and women are like that, too rule abiding taking things too seriously and what not.
In another organization my friend is forced to come on time(being the only flaw explained in her one year of tenure because of which she did not deserve a promotion) even if there is no work by a manager who is a guy. Here they say he’s a horrid sadistic boss but they do not say , oh he is guy.
Frankly a lot of women are high strung and cannot relax with deadlines looming and in such a situation when your employees go around playing TT and have endless smoke and lunch breaks i guess it does get on their nerves.
From what i observed there’s a root cause.Women want to go home (or at least off work) invariably on time and quite a few like to do decent work if not great and so would like the things all in control and fine when they leave office.Men on the other are quite cool , a delay here a delay there - we can always stay late , come later and are so much relaxed.
So yes its very nice to have a boss who is cool and will never make a issue about timings and errors and wont like to be in know how of your whereabouts every minute,BUT its not very easy TO BE such a boss when you have employees you know are not all committed.
My short experience in that scenario of being a back up manager put me off management track quite well. I am quite a nervous freak myself and
have fondness for own personal time way too much and so yes its much easier doing your work however tough it is than getting a bunch of disinterested people committed to work.The worst part is any case is the personal slurs that people make if the manager is a woman. I am all for criticizing their over strictness or even their over ambitious drive in proving themselves and the picky nature, but whats terrible is to keep quiet when people make statementslike” Oh this is what happens when a frustrated single woman is a manager ” OR“She just got in through her husband’s connections” ORthe standard stuff about looks and character.
Also when a mistake is pointed out by a manager , they say oh he’s being too much. If she’s a woman manager well she’s picky - she’s a woman.Ok women are picky at times esp our brilliant technos hate it when a lady goes on picking issues with email and language.A guy as a manager wont do that.So there you go , another irritant factor against women as managers.
Then there are things I hear that makes you really feel cynical.You have all our great MNC’s promoting women in workplace and you have a senior manager in one of the greatest workplaces disliking women at workplaces.Of course he wont dare to go on record in his company .But thats the whole point - by making rules you cannot change attitudes.And imagine how that inbuilt resentment is expressed in everyday life in subtle saddism.
Women more often than not worry - it comes naturally esp if they strive for a perfect deliverable.Also trouble follows cause they ensure that you also worry about it and do something.Something that many people think is quite uncool esp if there is a chance to get away with it.
I really on a personal front (i.e about my managers) cannot tell the difference caused by gender of managers in concrete terms much may be because I take things individually rather than gender wise and my experience has been quite reverse i.e i have had more immediate managers aswomen rather than men.I have cribbed all my blog about them, but I doubt any of those issues would have disapeared if the manager was a guy.I honestly wonder if the rare few who read the past three years of crap on managers here guessed that my manager was a woman.
I’ve had good as well as bad from them - I doubt sometimes men as managers would have fought for me and my work with senior management with as much passion and conviction as my previous managers did.They had their own benefits and reasons for doing that but yet when I look at my current manager I suspect he would stand up for any one and fight .And yet I tell people that he’s quite cool - reason he never gets worked up over deadlines, will not care that i come in at 11 am almost every other day (OK fine thats my achievement - I finally convinced my woman managers too to live with that flaw of mine with a commitmentthat none of their expectations in terms of work will be affected )and is a quiet listener, a humble person with great commitment to the organization .
Ive seen others of this kind , loved a lot by employees, if the employees are good they make them work , if not then they themselves do the work but they do not take a stand and fight. May be thats being cool.
The problem though i guess comes at the end with such people.At the end of the day when you want something tangible while they do support you , people of such nature will start talking philosophy, rules and organizational commitment etc.They may want to help you but they really lack a passion to fight for their own selves how will they do it for anyone?I guess as usual i deviated from a general issue to a personal one, but such seems to be my limitation.