The Female Boss

The Female Boss - A problem for men? When a woman takes the executive seat, she can usually look back upon a fairly lengthy career. Despite -or possibly because- of that, its still far from common for men to have a female superior. More often than not she faces suspicion, particularly coming from men, and has to dismantle the pre-established notions of gender roles, man:boss, woman:subordinate. Nevertheless studies have shown that frequently it is the female employees who find having a female boss difficult and not the men. Only markedly older male employees, who are confronted with a female boss at an advanced stage of their career, tend to feel irritated and disorientated in their perception of things. While the female boss encounters no difficulties in applying her professional skills and working with male colleagues, it is precisely female employees who find it problematic to work for a woman.

Women often expect a form of solidarity on behalf of a female superior

and have great difficulties coming to terms with a female who was formerly amongst their ranks being promoted to an executive position. In normal cases men have no trouble in accepting and acknowledging qualifications, which is why they are able to cope with having a female superior. Acceptance is of course relative to the line of business in question. Especially in male-dominated fields of work, such as construction for example, it is still incomparably more difficult for women to compete with male subordinates, whereas it is easier in those lines of business in which genders are evenly represented, for example in the banking sector. Setting these specifically male domains aside however, the female employees tend to find it more difficult to work with a female superior than the men do.

It is repeatedly said of women, that they manage a business with much more sensitivity than is generally the case with male executives, a fact which in itself should serve to convince men of female executive qualities.