Has a male boss ever told you to be "nicer"?

[Anonymous]

Yes, I have. When I was younger, I was totally anti-feminist, didn't believe sexism was still a factor in the workplace, etc. As I've moved up into senior manager roles, I have totally changed my tune. The cultural expectations of women become a big barrier in the workplace.

[Anonymous]

So OP. What are the races of the main characters in this plot?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you reflexively scream sexism at every opportunity? I have told many a male and female underling to be nicer, work better together, get a attitude adjustment, etc. This isn't a gender thing necessarily.

Um, nope. Without going into all the details here, my example involved sending a matter-of-factly email staff person who had shared private info outside of the company -- a big deal b/c we are publicly traded and are involved in a transaction. (Yes, I am the compliance officer, so it is my job to watch out for these issues.)

My email was straight-forward and said, basically, this type of thing can not happen again and here's why. The boss told me I should consider being nicer because this wasn't received well. I then asked the boss if he had read the email b/c I didn't think there was anything out of the ordinary about it. He told me he hadn't read it, but that the employee was upset. I told him the employee was probably upset because he realized that he exposed the company to a serious issue (not because I was "mean" to him). I sent my boss the email, and, upon reading it, he acknowledged that it wasn't bad…but that I should still consider trying to be nicer in because that employee was upset!

Flash to the next day. In a meeting with that same boss and some other male execs. One of the execs starts screaming at the top of his lungs, shouting to a staff person that "you really f-cked that up" and threw a plastic cup of water at the wall. There was no admonition to that exec about being nicer.

I know its easy to assume the woman in these cases is really the mean bitch, but honestly, that wasn't the case here. So, I was wondering how others have dealt with it.

Wow! Would never have used email for this--would have spoken to employee in person.

Also, depending on your relationship with your boss, I would have asked him if he every had asked cup throwing exec to tone it down. I also would have considered the judicious walk out, which, when reserved for very bad behavior, can be every effective.

So gsing you missed the whole publically traded, transaction, complaince part. Her job is to protect the company and then her ass. She had to document the admonishment in writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would say, " 'Nicer' implies there are emotions involved. There are none. I was trying to move business forward, and that's what I'm here to do support the business." People don't often like to hear that, but as I say, we're not running a day care, we're running a business.

Men often try to appeal to emotions when dealing with women, it becomes our responsibility to take that type of communication off the table.

I agree completely.

100% agree with PP. My other thought was to stop taking criticism so personally. Listen to it, learn from it and move on. No apology needed to the staffer, don't avoid him, etc. just be professional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In a job at a senior executive level (i.e., the type of job where you have to be there bearer of bad news, tell people things they might not want to hear, etc.). Recently, the head of another department (but a "boss" nonetheless) told me that a more junior person felt I was "aggressive" and that I should be "nicer." Yes, I am a woman.

I'm not one to reflexively suggest sexism…but in this case I simply cannot imagine a man being "accused" of being aggressive and actually told to be "nicer."

A little backstory: I knew of the incident he was referring to - after a system crash, a staffer came in to "help" solve the system problem (after multiple attempts to get this staffer to be bothered to help) but instead of fixing it, staffer made comments about the history of the systems etc. In that moment, I said - in an authoritative way (not aggressive at all in my opinion) - that the history didn't matter, but I just needed to get the document out quickly. (I've worked in truly aggressive environments and, for the sake of this conversation, let's just agree that there was nothing "aggressive" about it. It was a more senior person setting a clear and direct expectation.)

I'm a relatively new employee. This same staffer has been unwilling from day one to provide basic company information necessary to ramp me up (at a fairly high level). I've hit my personal limit with this employee, but have simply tried to "work around" this person rather than engage/discuss/argue. However, I found out today, that this staffer went to a senior executive and characterized our meeting as "aggressive" and clearly planted the seed that there was an issue with me (without, of course, accurately describing the events in question).

How would you handle this?

Yes.

I substitute patient, plodding insistence for being aggressive. I don't get upset or sharp or angry. I just calmly insist that something I want has to happen and I never, every let go, until I've taken it as far as I can take it.