Do Men Make Better Bosses than Women?

I support women's empowerment and I want the glass ceiling gone. For a long time I took it as given that women can lead just as well as anyone. Then came six-plus years of office work, and somewhere in there the question crept in: are men sometimes the better pick for a boss? Something that happened at my job recently pushed me to sit with that question seriously. I didn't like where I landed. There are certain leadership roles where, in my experience, a man ends up being the better fit. That's uncomfortable to write, and I think it's honest.

What gets me is the way women so often fail to back each other up at work. We have more room to move now than any generation before us, and yet the infighting keeps handing people ammunition to repeat the same tired assumptions about us. Those assumptions slow everyone down. Below are the four I run into most.

First: that women are too emotional. Odd thing to put at the top of a list, but it's near the center of why a lot of women never get the promotion. In an office, people watch you. Your manager watches you. They clock how you respond when something goes sideways. Nobody is handed a title purely on output. The decision folds in how you perform, how you get along with the people around you, and how you carry yourself when there's a mess to clean up. A reputation for not being able to work with others will follow you.

Second: that women are catty. I can't really wave this one away. We can be. Some more than others, and the more women there are in a room relative to men, the more of it seems to surface. Why? The competitive drive is there in women the same as in men, but it tends to come out sideways, aimed at tearing down whoever reads as the rival. The rival is usually the one who seems sharper, better looking, or more in favor with the people upstairs. Everybody wants the top spot, and the person already near it will go a long way to stay there. If you're the target, don't hand them a reaction. No anger, no scene. Catty behavior exposes itself over time, provided you refuse to feed it. Be the adult in the room and let your work stay untouched by it.

Third: too many hens, not enough roosters. A heavily female office with only a few men can get strange. Insecure women tend to chase attention wherever it's on offer, and often that means the men on staff. Watch for it next time you're in. My own section has a small handful of men, and women from other parts of the building will route around the women in my group to go straight to those men for guidance and acknowledgment. They read the men as more professional, more open to collaborating, more willing to pass along what they know. If a woman treats you differently than she treats a man, try not to take it as a verdict on you. It's a sign she's wrestling with her own balance, and that's about her, not you.

Fourth: women drag their personal lives into work. Succeeding in a corporate job leans hard on keeping home stuff at home. If the problems in your private life run you, the problems at your desk will too. People carrying that weight sometimes take it out on the people nearby: the dirty looks, the eye-rolling. The one I see most is the silent treatment, coworkers who simply stop speaking to you. Don't sweat it. Keep talking to them when there's something you actually need to communicate, and let their behavior keep announcing itself. Don't answer it in kind.

None of this describes every woman, obviously. These are just the patterns that come up again and again and keep women out of the lead. I almost never watch men squabble over a woman or jockey for her notice. The way out, for a woman, is to audit your own conduct and change what needs changing. How you present yourself counts for a lot. You can blunt someone's hostility by staying warm and professional even when they aren't. And there's always someone watching, so keep that in mind.