Men prefer women team-leaders?

Lily is a team-leader who is absolutely convinced that men prefer having women in charge and work better with a female leader – and the same thing goes for female teams with a guy in charge.

“Before my promotion I was part of a mixed sex team with a man in charge and while I liked having a male leader, the guys didn’t,” says Lily. “I’ve also worked with a female boss and that was a disaster, too.”

“I know it’s not politically correct to segregate the sexes,” says Lily, “but one-sex teams under an opposite sex leader really do seem to work well.”

"Imagine the scenario if a man were in charge here. It just would not work,” says Lily. “My experience shows me that men like having a female supervisor or boss.”

“It’s the natural order,” laughs Lily. “Men do things for a female in charge that they just will not do for a man.”

“And not just any female,” adds Lily. “A woman needs special qualities to appeal to men, and I have those qualities in heaps."

"Most of the guys on my team are married and the poor dears don't get much attention from their wives at home,” explains Lily. “I consider myself to be performing a necessary duty when I flirt with them and listen to them.”

"I am their confidant. They tell me everything. They come to me for advice and I dole it out. I have a box of Kleenex on my desk that dries at least one pair of teary eyes every week. And I get to give lots of hugs."

“What man doesn't like to be made a fuss of?"

"If management stepped in tomorrow and moved a bunch of girls into the team, or moved me to another section in the company, I would quit," says Lily. “And the guys wouldn’t like it either and would probably quit, too.”

"I don't believe management would do such a silly thing, though, because I get results out of my guys,” says Lily. “They get on well together and meet targets simply because I am in charge."

Read more by Lily on this issue:


big fish in a small pond

flirting at work

disabled and discouraged

Colleen is 26 and was confined to a wheelchair two years ago after an automobile accident left her a paraplegic. She desperately needs to find a job so that she can afford a specially-modified place where she can achieve a more independent lifestyle but the social barriers that ostracize her from mainstream life are more crippling than her disability.

"I'm philosophical about my fate," says Colleen, "it was my fault, nobody else was to blame, and when things get me down I recall all the good memories of my life before the accident and I feel better."

Colleen shares a community-run house with a variety of similarly ‘imperfect’ people - some old, some young, some mildly disabled, some severely disabled.

Carers and assistants are resident in the house, and all meals, washing and general housework are done by them.

"Community living is better than living at home and being a burden on my parents," says Colleen, "and it’s great having friends around me 24/7."

"We’re a family here, but it’s nevertheless an institution and I yearn for the day when I can afford a specially-modified place where my friends and I can achieve a more independent lifestyle - and hopefully find a boyfriend."

In order to afford such a place, though, Colleen and her friends have to find a job and earn some money, and this is becoming an impossibility for them.

Unfortunately, in life, and on the job hunting scene particularly, Colleen accepts that everyone demands physical perfection.

She makes the point, however, that she is not suffering from physical disability.

"I am not ill," sighs Colleen, "but I am suffering emotionally from the social barriers that ostracize me from mainstream life."

Colleen is often only limited in employment by the physical barriers of the workplace.

"If there are steps in the building or if there are no special toilet facilities," says Colleen, "I am excluded from employment immediately and legally."

Colleen wonders whether trying to find employment is worth all the humiliation she has to go through. She’s wondering whether she should settle for a welfare check and give up her dream to become fully independent.

"In today's employment market when people with 100% ability are being laid off jobs and spending months, if not years, looking for a new job and still not getting a job commensurate in pay and conditions to the one they once enjoyed," says Colleen, "I guess I should accept it as a fact of life that those who have disabilities - especially if the disabilities are easily visible or discernable - are totally out of luck."

"When times get tough," says Colleen, "the weak and vulnerable do indeed get trampled upon."

"Even on the streets I get trampled on," laughs Colleen. "One day I wheeled down the road to test my skills and got stranded on the sidewalk with a parked car blocking my path."

"Luckily a woman came along and assisted me by knocking on all the houses to see who owned the car."

"The car owner was soon found and he was very apologetic," explains Colleen, "but as soon as I wheeled by, he drove right back up onto the sidewalk and I screamed at him! He had a garage but he was too lazy to use it."

"I suppose old women with walking frames have the same problem when out walking, so even age is becoming a disability in our society," sighs Colleen.

"I think, too, that one of the many barriers to employing older workers is the belief that their health is not going to be as good as that of a younger person. An older person who takes a few days off sick for a common complaint is going to be treated very differently from a younger person having the same complaint and taking as much, if not more, time off work. It is going to be a definite black mark in their employment record. As unfair as the practice is, the HR clerk will mark their file ‘physically unfit’. For this reason, many older workers refuse to disclose their health problems and consequently take terrible risks in the workplace."

"With that sort of petty discrimination going on against older workers," says Colleen, "just imagine the uphill battle a disabled person has in finding and keeping a job. For me, just getting up, dressed and transported to an interview is a logistics exercise worthy of a military deployment."

"What is interesting about this whole disability issue," says Colleen, "is that those who have invisible disabilities - or disabilities that are not readily discernable, such as diabetes, epilepsy, mental illness, etc - are often able to circumvent the barriers to employment even though some of these disabilities are far more of a risk than the ‘visible’ disabilities.

Everyone has a workplace story about some co-worker who went into a diabetic coma, had an epileptic fit or went berserk. Very few people have a workplace story about a person with a clearly visible or discernible disability, yet we are the ones who bear the brunt of discrimination."

"I am receiving help from specialists to get me back into the workforce," says Colleen, "but I feel that they are just knocking on closed business doors behind which closed business minds reside."

"There is an ‘industry’ built around providing help for the disabled," explains Colleen, "and the people employed in this industry naturally have a vested interest in keeping their jobs. And therein lies a conflict of interest."

"If the ‘disability’ industry admitted that it really cannot help us find jobs," says Colleen, "then it would be cutting off its nose to spite its face. We are the bread and butter of the disability industry, and some of the guys employed in those places are being downright cruel in continuing to encourage us to seek work in the face of total disinterest from employers."

"Officially, as a society, we are committed to funding the training, counseling and employment placement of disabled citizens," says Colleen, "but think about it. Is it really kinder to give hope of a mainstream job, building up expectations beyond reality; or is it kinder to admit that if a 100% able-bodied person is having trouble finding employment then disabled job-applicants like me have no hope whatsoever?"

good communication skills?

One would think that a hearing impaired person would have little difficulty finding appropriate employment, but Kaye, 23, is having a lot of trouble finding a job where her disability won't be a barrier.

"Hearing loss is an invisible disability and nobody but a perfectionist would pick up a difference in speech or communicative ability," explains Kaye, "yet when 99.9% of job advertisements insist upon good communication skills, a hearing impaired person is being unfairly discriminated against."

"Very often the jobs do not require anything more than the ability to say good-morning and goodnight," adds Kaye, "yet communication skills remain one of the top desired skills required by employers. Isn’t that crazy?"

"I wear a hearing aid and I can hear as well as a hearing person," says Kaye, "but apparently I can't speak as well as a hearing person because I wasn't taught to speak early enough."

"I think I sound OK and so do my family and friends," says Kaye, "but to everyone else I sound strange when I speak and this really upsets me."

According to Kaye, the most frequently used phrase in job ads is good communication skills.

"If it's not in the current job advertisement you are looking at, then they've forgotten to put it in," says Kaye.

“Either that, or you've hit upon a gem of a job that does not require you to answer telephones!”

What does the phrase mean?

Kaye was once told in confidence by a recruitment specialist that it is deliberately used in job advertisements because too many applications come from people who cannot speak English very well. In other words, it is designed to discriminate against foreigners.

However, Kaye believes that good communication skills simply means an ability to answer telephones, and because of her disability she feels that she is not the ideal applicant for this type of job.

"You don't expect a visually impaired person to be the ideal person to do proof-reading or editing," says Kaye, "and similarly a deaf person isn't the ideal person to do telephone work."

"Of course, an ability to speak clear English - or whatever language - is paramount in this type of job," says Kaye, "but if a job advertisement has good communication skills right up there with qualifications and experience, then no matter what they put for the title of the job the actual job is nothing more than a receptionist or a customer service representative."

”Also,” adds Kaye, “just about every job requires you to communicate with others but not everyone is a good communicator in that they can speak clearly, properly and intelligently."

"I have a communication disorder," says Kaye, "but being deaf doesn't make me stupid. I can communicate clearly, properly and intelligently. Once people get used to hearing my voice, they don't notice that I speak differently."

“I feel rotten when I see just about every job advertised as requiring good communication skills," says Kaye.

"I feel that as long as you can communicate - be it with spoken words, written words or hand gestures - and do it well, then you are a good communicator."

"The art of communication is to get your message across. If you can do that, then you have every right to apply for a job requiring good communication skills," says Kaye.

However, after several bad experiences Kaye prefers to avoid jobs that specify good communication skills.

"Sometimes when I telephone to enquire about a job the person at the end of the line is downright rude to me," says Kaye, "and sometimes when I make it to an interview I am treated very badly."

"I see no reason to state upfront that I am deaf," says Kaye.

"Why should I? Does a person with herpes feel that he or she should mention that fact at an interview? I don't think so!"

"What happens when people first hear me speak is that their eyebrows go up and they look at me quizzically, like I'm stupid or something," explains Kaye.

"My hair covers my hearing aid so they don't know I'm deaf."

"I want people to accept me as I am, not to pity me or drop me in a box to be treated differently to everyone else," adds Kaye. "So I deliberately hide my hearing aid."

"I don't hide it out of shame. I hide it to give people a chance to treat me normally."

"Unfortunately," says Kaye, "I've yet to meet anyone in my job hunting efforts who treats me like a normal person."

"Sometimes I feel that deaf children born into families who accept deafness and don't try to teach their children to speak are better off than those of us who went through the hoops in order to make us 'normal'."

"Sure, I appreciate that my parents were doing what they thought was best for me," adds Kaye, "and I love them to bits and I'm grateful for a loving home - but I'm not happy."

"I never learned how to sign," says Kaye, "so I can't communicate with deaf people who sign and they don't accept me either."

"I'm neither accepted in the hearing world nor in the signing world," sighs Kaye, "but I know which world I would prefer to be in had I been given a chance to be in it when I was young."

female job applicant risks

Debbie is angry that male job applicants can get away with things at interviews that females can't, and that women have additional difficulties when they're interviewed by males.

"Unless the guy is gay - and more interested in your clothes than your gender - the male interviewer is more likely to be checking you out as a bedmate rather than a valued employee," says Debbie, "and the guys old enough to be your father, happily married with four kids, are often the worst."

"That's not to say, of course, that female interviewers don't act in the same lascivious manner towards male job applicants," adds Debbie, "but there is a significant difference. Let's face it, female job applicants are going to feel a lot more intimidated being ogled by a man in a position of power over them than a male job applicant would be in the reverse situation."

"Also, a woman's appearance is far more important than her credentials," sighs Debbie. "If a guy has good credentials he can front up at job interviews with a day old stubble and smart casual clothes and get away with it but women are always expected to be immaculately groomed and wearing the dreaded interview suit, whether or not the job requires formal clothing."

"And while some men can get away with outrageous behavior at interviews - one guy I know jumped on the interview table and danced his way into a tech job," says Debbie, "women are always expected to behave themselves."

Debbie is at the stage of her job search where she is reaping the rewards of laying a solid foundation before she presented herself to the world. She took time off to enjoy herself after leaving college, and then she set about a very systematic job search.

She wrote a great CV, networked like mad and targeted the jobs she really wanted. The interview calls came in thick and fast. In the first week she had four interviews, the second of which was absolutely awful.

The job was advertised as a personal assistant to the manager of a golf distribution company. It was a small company and Debbie liked that. Plenty of opportunities to take on responsibilities, become indispensible and earn big money.

"As I left the elevator and walked up the corridor to where the office was situated," says Debbie, "I noticed a very small man who leered at me lasciviously as I passed by. His eyes went up and down my body like he was measuring me for his bed."

Thinking no more of it, Debbie entered the office and presented herself to the receptionist. She was then ushered into the manager's office and told to wait a while. Passing the time, Debbie picked up some golfing magazines and tried to figure out why it's such a popular game for guys. She then got up and tried a swing with one of the clubs that was lying around the office, and just then the door opened and the manager entered.

"It was the guy in the corridor," laughs Debbie. "The slime-ball took my hand and caressed it rather than shook it, and then motioned for me to sit next to him on the sofa. It was going to be one of those intimate interviews!"

"He was not at all interested in my credentials," says Debbie. "He told me he needed 'mothering' and looked at my chest to see whether I would qualify. I nearly died with embarrassment."

Realizing that she could never work with this man in a million years, Debbie excused herself from the interview and made a hurried exit.

Unlike Debbie, most male job applicants would take it as a sign of success if a female interviewer flirted with them, or looked them up and down, even if the lady was old enough to be their mother or grossly unattractive.

Female job applicants, on the other hand, want to be judged on their merits not on their their looks - unless, of course, the job depended upon physical attractiveness and socializing with the boss was an expected part of the job.

In Debbie's case, the advertised job did not say anything about social activities, event management and that sort of thing so she had no reason to expect that it was going to be anything other than a regular job.

If that were not bad enough, then a female-female interviewer-interviewee situation is fraught with difficulties, too.

"Not necessarily worse than a male-male interviewer-interviewee situation," laughs Debbie, "but it often is because female interviewers are notorious for noticing those little slips in grooming in other women and asking those highly touchy questions that male interviewers overlook. They are are also likely to be less courteous than male interviewers."

"Frankly, even with the prospect of being ogled by old men and accepted or rejected on my attractiveness," says Debbie, "I prefer to be interviewed by males."

"Female interviewers know our secrets," explains Debbie, "men don't!"

a shafted mentor

Lorraine is angry that the time-honored practice of mentoring is being abused by toxic employers as a method of getting rid of older staff after sucking their brains.

“Mentoring was never intended to be abused in this way,” says Lorraine, “but I got shafted and once all of the older staff members have been given the push, who is left to do the mentoring?"

"Surely not the bright young things?"

"How long does management expect them to stay? And when the bright young things have moved on, they take the old mentor's brains with them without passing anything on to the latest recruits."

"Smart companies recognize the value of senior workers as mentors and do not make demands or cause senior workers to fear for their jobs," says Lorraine.

"A mentor's role is a lifetime role and smart companies recognize that experience cannot be replicated in a younger person."

"For one thing," says Lorraine, "young recruits actually appreciate being mentored by a senior worker. They feel uncomfortable being shown the ropes by someone not much older than themselves."

"And, frankly, when the mentor is young, there is not so much enthusiasm for the job because having sucked the brains out of a senior worker and caused the older woman to be sacked, the younger mentor is smart enough to know that it does not pay to share too much with a new recruit."

Read more about Lorraine:

mentoring leads to replacement

old vs young managers

monday morning meetings

Penny is a team leader and quite apart from the bitchiness and prejudices that run rife in team environments, just about everyone, including Penny, is in agreement about hating team meetings.

"There are two types of team meetings at my workplace," says Penny. "One is the department team meeting which I run myself and wish I didn't have to, and the other is the management meeting which I hate with every fibre in my body."

"The management team meetings are dreaded enough," says Penny, "but holding them on the first Monday of every month at 8am makes them absolutely miserable."

"Who is at their best on a Monday?" asks Penny. "I am most certainly not - and especially not at 8am. I don't come alive until Wednesdays - and 8pm - and judging by the amount of participation in the monthly Monday management team meetings at my workplace I am not alone in my misery."

"I'm not sure whether the CEO's predilection for early morning Monday meetings is a trait that separates the wheat from the chaff, or the CEO from us."

"One of these days I am going to move a motion at the monthly management meetings to hold them on a Friday afternoon at 4pm when everyone is alive and excitedly looking forward to the weekend," says Penny, "and see what happens."

"Let's face it, even though our minds would be more on the impending weekend frivolities than whatever the CEO has to say, surely he would appreciate a more lively gathering of staff than what he gets on Mondays at 8am?"

"But then, of course," adds Penny, "our CEO is no fool. You see, I've figured out that the object of these monthly 8am Monday management team meetings is for us to be seen and not heard."

"Only one person gets to be heard, and that's the CEO. Choosing Mondays at 8am for the meetings was his way to make sure that nobody has a brighter thought than he does!"

"Our CEO is a Monday person and looking at dead early Monday morning bodies must make him feel superior."

"Okay," concedes Penny, "in the company hierarchy he is superior to us but in real life he's just a bag of skin and bones like everybody else. Actually, he has a lot more skin and bones than everyone else but that's another story!"

"Anyway, what's the point of having management team meetings at a time when very few people feel inclined to put in their two cent's worth? Is it just a head count?"

"At the department team meetings that I run, they are haphazard get togethers of team members and whoever feels like participating or opting out can do so," says Penny. "There is usually a lot of noise and bickering and sometimes agreement is reached on some change that needs to be made but mostly it's not."

"My job as a team leader is to make decisions when agreement cannot be reached," says Penny. "I try to be democratic but when things get out of hand I end the meeting and lay down the law."

"In stark contrast to my department meetings," says Penny, "the tone of the monthly CEO team meetings is stern and foreboding but the outcome is invariably the same. An awful lot of company time is wasted doing absolutely nothing constructive!"

"At these meetings the CEO praises us on targets reached and encourages us to push our teams harder and harder, and generally waxes lyrical about future growth and expansion."

"At the end of the presentation, there is a call for questions and any issues that need to be raised."

"A few brave souls try to make out they understood what the presentation was all about," says Penny, "but they always make fools of themselves by showing they have not."

"Mainly, everybody just sits there like stunned Monday mullets."

"Given half a chance I could probably run the place more efficiently than the CEO," says Penny, "but I wouldn't want the responsibility. I have a life outside of work, being a team leader is stressful enough and, as mentioned before, I am not a Monday person."

"My job as a team leader is stressful because the nature of the work my team does requires a high level of individualism and creativity," says Penny. "My guys are not subservient team players who bow and kowtow to me and I have to deal with a lot of clashing egos.

"Similarly, I'm not a subservient team player either," says Penny," so I hate it when our CEO herds us like sheep into those awful early morning monthly team meetings."

"In this respect, the guys on my team have a far easier existence than I do," sighs Penny. "I may get paid more than they do, but whenever the CEO meetings loom ahead I often ask myself whether it's worth being a team leader to have to put up with what I have to put up with."

boat rockers v job survivors

Yvonne is 52, married with adult children living independently, and she recently quit a job in the telecoms industry requiring staff to take pay cuts. She could afford to do so because she's been a boat rocker since birth and that, perhaps, is the difference between those who do well at work and those who merely survive in their jobs.

"I didn’t see the CEO at my last job taking a pay cut," laughs Yvonne, "and be damned if I was going to be treated as less valuable than he was."

"I found a new job very quickly," says Yvonne, "and while the conveniences at my new workplace are not as good as they were at the old place, the money I’m earning is very good."

"Let’s face it," laughs Yvonne, "My old workplace’s gymnasium was a great convenience for staff, but with the money I’m earning now I can afford to buy my own home gym!"

Yvonne is a careerist as opposed to a job survivor. The difference between her and her co-workers who stayed and took a pay cut is basically that she values herself more than they do.

"Having a second income coming in and kids living independently does help," admits Yvonne, "but I’ve always valued myself highly and demanded high pay and respect. Even when the kids were young and Jack and I were on struggle street, I’d hold out for what I thought I was worth. And I got it!"

"Maybe it has something to do with being the eldest kid in my family," confides Yvonne. "I always took charge and got the first pick of everything. My younger sisters got my hand-me-downs. I just grew up accepting that I deserved the best and maybe that accounts for why I’d never accept less than what I think I’m worth."

Careerists, according to Yvonne, actually make a point to rock the boat at work - it gets them noticed. They are not people pleasers - they please themselves. And because they do rock the boat, and they do please themselves, these women share the typical success traits of men. These traits propel them up the ladder of success, into six-figure incomes, very quickly.

"And I got there not by working harder than anyone else," laughs Yvonne. "I got there by believing I’m worth a six-figure income and by being prepared to risk all if any company I worked for didn’t share my beliefs."

"Basically," says Yvonne, "female careerists take charge of their careers and that means taking risks. Their security needs are not as high as the personal values they place on themselves."

Some of Yvonne’s old co-workers were reasonably wealthy women, or had husbands earning good incomes, but they were more interested in job security than their own personal worth.

"I’ve always been a risk-taker," laughs Yvonne, "and if you don’t put tickets on yourself then nobody is going to put them there for you. You’re only worth as much as you think you are."

"I don’t think anyone can be a careerist without taking risks," explains Yvonne. "If it was job security I wanted, then I’d need to develop job survival skills. I have no job survival skills whatsoever. You would never catch me bowing and kowtowing to anyone."

"I think that even if I were a single mother with half a dozen kids to feed I’d still take risks," says Yvonne, "because that’s how I am. That’s my make-up, my personality."

"I started off at the bottom of the employment ladder as a young girl," admits Yvonne, "but I knew instinctively that successful career women don't stay there any longer than they have to."

"It's nice and safe down there," says Yvonne, "and that's where many women stay and survive in their jobs for years. But it’s not something I can do."

Yvonne concedes that it’s not particularly safe at the top of the employment ladder either, but by using intuition to their advantage, having high self-esteem and by developing superb negotiating skills and being prepared to risk all, she believes that female careerists can go from strength to strength.

"Job security is not high on my list of priorities," confides Yvonne. "Being paid what I’m worth is what it’s all about."

Like men, female careerists judge themselves by the amount of money they earn, and if they don't get regular raises they kick up a fuss. They don’t take pay cuts and they don’t compromise themselves in any way in order to hold on to a job.

The social fabric of the workplace is important to the career women as a tool rather than the crutch it is for the many women who tend to congregate at the lower levels, where camaraderie is high.

"The higher up you travel," says Yvonne, "the less likely you are to enjoy the company of co-workers - but that’s not a problem for me."

Yvonne believes that another fundamental difference between female careerists and job survivors is that careerists don’t go to work to make friends. They work to make money. They are highly competitive women and they use their superlative intuition and negotiating skills to get what they want and to get people to do what they want them to do.

"I’m a believer in karma," admits Yvonne, "so I’ve never resorted to back-stabbing or ratting on people in order to get what I’m worth. But believe me, this sort of evil stuff does go on and those who practice it don’t sleep well at nights, knowing that they have enemies."

"I’m smart enough to know that the place to make friends is outside work," says Yvonne. "I’m not ruthless, greedy or mean to anyone. I work for money and I want to be paid what I’m worth. It’s as simple as that."

Yvonne's story first appeared as value yourself highly and is reprinted with permission.