Women in the Office Just Don't Get Along!

 

Yes, I heard that from a senior leader of a small company with whom I was advising who was addressing moral difficulties in his office. He continued, "guys do not have the same difficulty in getting along with one other, and this is what happens when you have an office full of women."

Whoa! As an expert on women's empowerment issues, as well as a Human Resources professional with many years of experience, I was astonished and disappointed by this broad generalization and his evaluation of the difficulties in his office. I was shocked that his initial response was to pin the problems his organization was having at work on a particular "gender. Of course, I couldn't help but go more, asking him what was directly contributing to these morale concerns and delving into those reasons. In other words, what were the real behaviors displayed, how, and most importantly, WHY? He said, "Well, one of our managers was trying to talk to her employee about performance difficulties when she snapped at her, threatened to quit, and now wants to resign."This would never have happened if it had been males involved," he said, "since they are more sensible."

Please wait! Talk about a contentious remark! Perhaps I could have answered, "Well, if it were guys, they'd go home, get a gun, and shoot the person who gave them the criticism!" But that would be incorrect. In my honest opinion, this is just as incorrect as the generic generalization about women. But responding to negative comments with more derogatory comments is never the solution. The more logical approach was that I proceeded to peel back the layers of this onion, and lo and behold, the manager in issue was newly promoted into her post and had no experience delivering constructive criticism to her subordinates. Second, the employee she was giving feedback to had only been with the organization for less than 60 days and was still struggling to grasp new job concepts. To cut a long tale short, they were both feeling burdened by their new obligations, which created a perfect storm that manifested as tension on both accounts. After examining the intricacies of "why" this occurred, it became evident from an HR standpoint that the main problem was a lack of training and effective onboarding for both employees in their respective jobs. The bottom line was that the organization failed to equip the manager with the tools and found she needed to successfully deliver feedback, and she floundered in her attempt to "figure it out" in the absence of sufficient guidance and support. Furthermore, the organization failed the employee by failing to do continuous check-ins to assess her level of ability and comfort in her new work. They were both feeling unsuccessful, and it was showing on the outside, causing bad morale throughout the organization. I believe that anyone, male or female, would have had a reaction to this lack of support.

This circumstance, on the other hand, really spoke to me since, as you now know, it had NOTHING to do with "women not getting along." But, alas, this is genuine sexism, and it is very real and certainly still prevalent in the workplace in 2018. Surprisingly, when I relayed this incident to other of my female coworkers, several of them had the same sentiment as the senior leader. This was the most startling finding to me: that women (especially younger women) have bought into gender stereotypes and feel that women are irrational, emotional, competitive, and incapable of getting along. That day, I did my share to educate that senior leader and assist him in laying the groundwork for future new and freshly promoted staff. But I don't think that was enough.

The entire incident made me realize that sexism is a problem that has to be tackled more generally, and I feel obligated to raise awareness that this type of thinking still exists in workplaces all around the world. However, mere awareness is insufficient. It's time to show that we won't tolerate these outmoded generalizations and to address them when we hear them, both in and out of the workplace. We must all do our share to educate males that this thinking is no longer acceptable, as well as to empower women to speak up and become outspoken advocates for equal rights. Only then will we be able to overcome these antiquated ways of thinking and move forward.