Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead... But Gutsy Girls Do (12 page)

In a study by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), executives were asked to respond to the statement, “Tell me about a time you tried something and failed.” All of the women responded in detail, but half of the men said they could not come up with a single example. “It's likely that both men and women make the same number of mistakes,” notes CCL director of leadership technologies Ellen Van Velsor, “but women agonize more over them.”

Countless studies on attribution have revealed that men tend to blame outside forces for their setbacks, whereas women assume the problem lies totally with them. Is it any wonder? Dr. Myra Sadker and Dr. David Sadker found in their research on schoolkids that teachers often explained away boys’ poor performance (“Maybe you were tired,” or “Maybe you didn't get enough sleep”), while rarely offering the same kind of out for girls.

Now it would be nice if you could just say to yourself, I'm not going to let it bug me anymore, but that's a tad unrealistic. One gutsy girl I know who runs a major division in a company says that she realizes she can't change years of ingrained behavior so she allows herself five minutes of self-flagellation and then she moves on.

What
men
do so well is find their own special words to position any setback. It's something society seems to program them to do. My brother Rick told me the most enlightening tidbit the other day. He was shopping for a new suit and after trying on a few jackets, it became clear that because he'd gained a few pounds he wasn't going to have much luck with a standard cut. The salesman looked at him with a smile and said, “I think you'd do better with the
executive
fit.”

Now when women gain weight we have to head for stores like Forgotten Woman. But guys get the
executive
fit.

They play the same kind of word game with setbacks. For instance, they never say, “My idea got shot down.” They say, “We decided to go in another direction.” Try this wonderful re-labeling game yourself.

What works for me, I've discovered, is to go on an information-gathering mission.

I learned this strategy during a night of newsstand hell after I'd been at
Child
magazine for about seven months. My first four covers had sold really well on the newsstand, and I was happy to know there were some basic principles for success. But one day, to my dismay, a piece of paper arrived from Circulation indicating that sales estimates for the last issue were being revised significantly downward and that projections for the most recent issue were very low.

That night I couldn't stand thinking about the situation any longer so I took the ten previous covers of
Child,
laid them on my bed, and began trying to analyze what worked and what didn't. Did girls sell better than boys? Were cute clothes better than trendy ones? Did a little drool on the mouth turn off the buyer or endear her? Did a big behavior line on top, like
HOW TO TAME A TEMPER TANTRUM
, help sell better than a health one, like
ARE VEGETABLES SAFE FOR KIDS
? No clear pattern was emerging yet, but at least my juices were flowing, and I knew that I'd eventually figure it out. Also, the research had given me something to do other than agonize.

The next day, I arrived at my office feeling galvanized. Do you know what I discovered? That there'd been a typo in the circulation news I'd gotten and that the two covers were actually projecting to sell very high. Fantastic news, but I swear that my greatest relief was not from getting the revised sales information What delighted me was that I had finally found a way to deal with bad news: Get more information.

You may be reluctant, as good girls often are, to poke around for fear of what you'll turn up. There's probably a sense that the facts will confirm your worst nightmares or be even worse than you imagined. A good-girl friend of mine told me that after a big screwup she was afraid that if she looked too deeply she would find a piece of paper that said,
It's all your fault, babe.

But what often happens when you start to investigate is that you learn there were other forces at work. And even if you are culpable, the facts you get are the first step to solving the problem. Besides, all the busywork does a beautiful job of preventing you from agonizing.

LEARNING TO LOVE CRITICISM

An unavoidable part of your job is having your boss criticize your work at times No matter how talented and capable you are, there will be instances when you screw up, go down the wrong road, or simply handle a problem in a way that may be perfectly okay but is different from how your boss would handle it. Your boss will then say the most ominous words in the world: “Could you drop by my office?” She may be a yeller and a screamer and thus you're about to have your day ruined (see Chapter 12 on looking for another job). Or she may be the rational type who will sanely bring the problem to your attention and discuss the need to fix it or prevent it in the future.

Though the latter approach is, of course, preferable, a good girl hates criticism no matter how it's delivered. That's because, like so many things, she takes it personally. The criticism is not simply about her work, but about her. (“If I were really good, I wouldn't have screwed up”) If the criticism comes from a boss whom she feels very connected to, it's a double whammy. (“If she likes me, how can she say that?”)

When you take criticism this personally, it's likely to trigger a defensive reaction. You may get sullen, prickly, tearful, or argumentative.

This kind of defensive reaction causes two big problems. Often, the more strongly you resist criticism, the more aggressive your criticizer becomes. The boss ends up saying something stronger and sharper to drive her point home better—and that's likely to leave you feeling even worse.

There's a long-term repercussion as well. According to Pepper Schwartz, professor of sociology at the University of Washington, studies show that bosses avoid giving criticism to women who take it too personally. “Rather than face your reaction,” she said, “they decide over time not to say anything. But then you don't hear what you need to hear. It's through criticism that you grow and learn and improve.”

When I was in my twenties my boss told me I dug in my heels too much when he offered criticism. It won't surprise you to learn that the first reaction I had in mind was, “No, I don't!” But a little voice whispered that if I knew what was good for me, I'd stand there and nod my head in agreement. Over time, I've learned two techniques for responding to criticism.

The first I picked up from one of the gutsiest girls I've ever worked with. When her boss criticized her she would listen carefully and then she would play back exactly what her boss had just said. She'd say something like, “Steve, it sounds that you're very concerned that I haven't been such-and-such. I can see how you might have thought that.” At first this tactic struck me as not only nervy, but dangerous. Why draw even more attention to the criticism by repeating it? It might add to the legitimacy of the boss's complaint by making it appear that you were pleading guilty.

But that's not what happens. When you repeat back what your boss has said, you immediately dissolve the tension in the room because you've given your boss credit for her perceptions. As a boss I'm always expecting an employee to get defensive about criticism, and it's a relief when she seems open to what I have to say. Believe it or not, it also takes the sting out of the criticism once you've articulated it yourself. It's a little bit like lancing a boil.

Your next move is to offer a solution. Ideally your boss will have a few suggestions, but many bosses just aren't good at that. They're so relieved to get their gripe off their chest that they'll just let it lie there on the desk in front of you like an ugly slab of raw meat It may be up to you to offer a game plan. This, too, helps take the sting away because you've moved on to a more positive course. Spell out what you might do to improve and put it in steps, if possible—with a timetable.

If you're feeling upset or ready to burst into tears, tell your boss that you have some thoughts about improving, but you want to think about them with a clear head and you'll get back to her. There's been so much written on why women shouldn't cry at work, but what those articles generally fail to take into account is that crying is often a reflexive reaction you can't easily control, I've never been I crier, but friends of mine have told me that they've felt their eyes tear up when they least expected it and there's almost no way to stop. That's why the best approach is to leave (leave, not flee) the scene and come back later when you're feeling less emotional.

What if the criticism isn't warranted? I think you still have to acknowledge the perception. (“I can see how you would have drawn this conclusion….”) Then offer a game plan on correcting that perception.

WHY YOU MUST STOP BEING A “BARNEY BOSS”

Playing the pleaser role at work doesn't just involve your boss. It's also about wanting to please the people who work for you.

I don't think I'm stepping out of line here to say that many women feel a nurturing side of their personality take over when they finally have people reporting to them. Whether it's twenty-two-year-olds just out of college or women in their thirties struggling with what they want to do with their lives or fifty-year-olds facing a midlife crisis, I feel an urge to help them, guide them, yes, I admit it, even mother them a little. I once had a smart young woman working for me who was in the throes of a painful divorce and she told me that a pivotal moment for her had been a dream she'd had that involved me. I was driving a car, with her as a passenger in the front seat and her husband in the back. The back of the car had suddenly broken off and I had driven away with just her, leaving the husband (a real bozo, incidentally) lying in the street. She felt the dream had told her that everything would be okay, that I'd take care of her I have to say that when someone tells me something like that, I go to bed with a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Taking a mother hen or earth mother approach to being a boss suits the good girl just fine. She gets to be in charge, but she gets to be nice, too. She may run an area or department in which everyone has a voice, nobody gets scolded, and all the cards are on the table. She wants her subordinates to think of her as the best boss they've ever had.

You
could
call it the
Barney and Our Gang
approach to being a boss: “I love you, you love me, we're a happy family.”

To be perfectly candid, when I was first a boss I chose a Barney style, not simply because I felt comfortable with it, but because I thought it would get me results. The nicer I was to my employees, the better they would perform. I assumed— and the more loyalty I would engender.

Does the Barney approach work? There's been a lot written lately on the value of women's nurturing style of leadership. But I've come to believe that, though you don't want to be known as the Queen of Mean, the Barney style doesn't work either. Watching Barney gives you one of those terrible lows you feel after eating too much sugar, and playing Barney the boss will do the same to your staff.

All I have to do is think of the most dynamic, exciting bosses I've had. Yes, they were nice, but they were never overly nice. Yes, they were fair, but out of the blue they could seem perfectly arbitrary. At times they were moody, unpredictable, leaving one wondering what they really had on their minds. Though they offered compliments, they were select in their praise. They had favorites and they fostered competitiveness. And they never once tried to be my best friend.

My philosophy has been influenced not just by my experience with bosses, but also by what I've learned from being one. What I've come to see after fifteen years of having people report to me is that the earth mother tends to produce a certain type of worker: slugs If you are too nice or too generous or too lenient, your employees will gradually stretch the rules because they know they can get away with it. They arrive late, leave early, make personal calls, eat lots of messy snacks at their desks, chat with friends, disappear for what seems like hours, and hang posters of Fabio at their work stations. They may also gradually lower their work standards, figuring that if you didn't say anything the first time you won't now. Like children, they keep pushing to see how far they can go.

Messy desks and Fabio pictures aren't the only problems. If you're an earth mother to your charges, they will soon be finding ways for you to take care of more and more of their needs. They will take up your time talking endlessly about their dilemmas (personal as well as business). They will ask you to solve their problems, and hand in work that you must finish or fine-tune.

A good girl worries that if she isn't real nice, she'll be viewed as too tough, mean, perhaps even bitchy. Someone once said that a guy earns a description as ruthless for bombing a small country; a woman earns it for not returning a phone call.

And yet people crave a certain “bossiness” from their bosses, even female ones. Without it there's a lack of excitement and momentum, no healthy sense of reward and repercussion “The truth is,” says sociologist Pepper Schwartz, “people want to be directed. It relaxes them to know that someone is leading them. Without that authority, you make people nervous.”

Be thoughtful, but don't be a pushover. Be fair, but ultimately do what
you
want, based on what you think is best A few other pointers:

1.
Create house rules. Employees actually like having rules. I don't mean hardass, obnoxious rules but sensible basics about expense accounts, vacations, protocol. You should periodically send out refresher memos or changes in the status quo. These memos are not only titillating because everyone analyzes them, but they also convey a sense of order.

2.
Don't always aim for consensus. Linguist Deborah Tannen, Ph.D., author of
You Just Don't Understand
and Talking 9–5, says that men are driven by a need to achieve and maintain the upper hand, while women seek to confirm and support—and to reach consensus That's certainly the good-girl way. You strive for consensus among those who work for you so that everyone will feel happy, “empowered.” and committed.And yet any bold, gutsy idea is bound to have dissenters. If you try to make everybody happy, you will end up diluting the idea or throwing it out.Nothing has taught me more about the danger of consensus than creating magazine covers. You soon learn that some of the best-selling covers are those that people scrunch up their noses over. One of my most successful covers at
Child
was a shot of a little boy I discovered in the lobby of my apartment building. I thought that the picture the art director and I selected captured him looking a little perplexed and tender as he crawled across the floor, but five people I showed it to at the magazine announced, to my complete chagrin. “He looks grouchy.” Fortunately, I wasn't influenced by their opinion.If you've got a great idea backed up by solid research, present it to your staff with confidence and don't look to them to “approve” it for you. That doesn't mean you want only yes-men and -women working for you. I've had several bosses over the years who didn't want to hear any negatives, and, in the long run, they suffered because they got no feedback on the ideas of theirs that didn't work. In the early stages of an idea you always probe to find the possible downside. But once you've made your commitment to a concept, present it to your staff as a fait accompli. There will be people who scrunch up their noses or look miffed; simply thank them for their input and move on. Psychologist Judith Jordan says that ultimately these people may like you more despite their initial protests: “If you show respect for their opinion, but acknowledge that your instincts are taking you in a different direction, you model something very important for them—that you trust your gut and go with it.”