Do you care if your boss is male or female? That is the question the Wall Street Journal recently addressed in an online article.
They based their question on some research from the Harvard Business Review which found that fewer Americans have a preference for a male or female manager. The research, which surveyed over 60,000 women and men, found that a small majority–54%– said they had no real preference as to the gender of their boss. Compare that with a similar study from way back in a 1953 Gallup poll, which found that only 25% of respondents didn’t care whether they had a male or female boss. By 1983, the workplace had progressed to where 36% had no preference for a male or female manager.
The most interesting result was when respondent were asked to rate their current bosses – most tended to favor bosses of the opposite sex, e.g. female bosses were rated more favorably by men and male bosses got higher praise from women.
Having worked for both males and females, as you would guess, there are pros and cons from both. The guys I have worked for tend to get right to the point on business issues and are less interested in your personal life, but then were also not as good at conflict situations or on feedback. The woman I have worked for were always balancing an active family life as well as work so the non-business discussions were always kid-centric. They also seemed a little more patient with business issues. But I tend to believe some of this is also impacted by which generation your boss comes from. For example, my male Baby Boomer bosses would tend to be less willing to offer ongoing praise and recognition. Their expectations were more this is your job; it’s what I expect you to do, so I don’t see any reason to constantly be providing you “atta-boys” for achieving what was expected.
My other career observation is that women tended to have more issues reporting to a female boss. Their personality differences seemed to be more accentuated. My female coworkers generally seemed less willing to “go-with-the-flow” and just focus on their job, ignoring differences in personality. But note that all of my comments are non-scientific and based on my 25+ years in the work place.
So what do you think? Do you have a preference? A male or female boss?
