In this article from "Der Spiegel" it says that women became too hard in order to be competitive in a men dominated business. The article is already a little bit older. Do you think anything has changed? The author mentioned that companies want softer leader and spend 10k-20k on seminars for their female managers to become softer and nicer to their colleagues.
Do you think it is HRs responsibility to look out for things like that? To sponsor participation in so called "bully broad-camps"? Should a company try to change its employees in such a personal way? Also, why should women participate and men shouldn't?
Unfortunately this article is in German:
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-21057482.html
To be honest, I must admit that I am not quite sure whether I should take (the first half of) the article really seriously. To a certain degree, the approach of using "bully broad camps" in order to "educate" (only!) female managers in how to being nice to their employees and superiors seems a little discriminating to me.
AntwortenLöschenIt might be true that women sometimes feel the need to - since management positions are still dominated by male individuals - adapt to more male-like management styles in order to being truly accepted in a managerial position. But what exactly is a male-like management style? Isn't it only cliché that male managers are inherently stricter and straight forward in business while women are more friendly, caring and personal/emotional?
The article points out that career women have learnt how to be ruthless in order to achieve their goals and to assert themselves against male competition.
The question however (at least for me) is, whether it is really necessary for a woman to outdo her male counterpart in order to earn acceptance as a manager or if this is solely what society thinks and expects - that women are generally less qualified for managerial positions (be it on an educational, personal, emotional level etc.) as opposed to men and thus have to prove their competences prior to truly being acknowledged.
Principally, I do not think that businesses are searching for “soft” leaders. Terms describing management requirements more accurately are probably being “human” or “sensitive”, since social responsibility, diversity issues and the individuality and value of each and every employee (all requiring a manger to be empathetic) have enormously gained in importance.
Of course it is vital for a team or working group to have a superior with whom (most) employees can easily get along. However, it is probably not a manager’s responsibility to be “everybody’s shoulder to cry on”. Sometimes, a certain degree of distance and respect between management and subordinates is quite productive. And this respect is probably not established by being too soft. In fact, the right balance between strict and soft is decisive.
That female managers experience failure more frequently because of falling out with their employees due to being too strict and aggressive (in the article it says: “(…) deshalb scheitern, weil sie es sich mit zu vielen Leuten verdorben haben”) is in my opinion a little far-fetched.
First of all, I have to agree to Ulrike's opinion. I thinks it's quite racist to only send women to such trainings. I'm pretty sure there are enough men in management position having the showing the same behaviour.
AntwortenLöschenBut in general it is "expected" from men to behave more "aggressive" while women are still perceived to be nice, sympathic, helpful, silent and peacful.
Unfortunately I can imagine that women have to pick up some of the decribed manners in order to assert themselves against their male competitors. In the article it says that the women participating in this training come mainly from the technology sector. I guess this is still a male-dominant sector and therefore women "have to" get more aggressive in order to asset themselves.
Personally, I don't think this is the right strategy if it is done too aggressively and too direct as you can easily upset somebody. Women are clever - don't underestimate them. Probably they can find other ways to make it to management positions and to defend themselves being the right one for the position.
As Ulrike mentioned, the right mix is essential. Your manager should not be your best friend but also not somebody you should be afraid of.
But finding the right mix is most of the time really hard.
So a "normal" training in "How to be a good manager" are likely the most effective ones.