A Case For Gender-Related Management Training

Today’s piece is a guest post by global talent management strategist and international executive search professional, Dorothy Dalton.  Dorothy is based in Brussels, but also works in the UK and Spain and is a Partner at Hansar Transition Services. She’s a certified coach and trainer with a focus on career transition and management, with a special interest in supporting organizations in the creation and development of the best possible talent pipelines.  She has written several interesting pieces about how gender differences impact workplace interactions on her blog, insights that she shares in this guest piece below.

Let’s stop being trapped by political correctness. Do men and women need different types of management training? I think so.

A number of spin off issues came from my recent research on bullying by women in the workplace – but several were particularly interesting.

Workplace Mars and Venus

One of them was that both men and women alike, shared the need for management and organizational training with a specifically gender related thread. A sort of Mars / Venus for work place skills. This wasn’t specifically just about sexual harassment, but basic communication, conflict resolution and managing expectations. This flies in the face of the common corporate gender-neutral, one-size-fits all management training that exists in most organizations today.

Many would view this as a backward step. But is it really?

Jane Gunn, the Corporate Peacemaker and author of the book “How to Beat Bedlam in the Boardroom and Boredom in the Bedroom”, suggests that “difference is the starting point for adding or creating value. What is needed most is to understand the value that each gender brings to the workplace and how each gender can learn from, rather than feel threatened by, the other”.

Differences are not negative. They’re just different.

Shouldn’t we just be acknowledging the existence of gender differences and recognize that we all need training on how to deal with them, rather than assuming as we do now, that we can all slip into business (gender) neutral on our own. Or worse, assume that the traditional training methods found most successfully in male dominated environments work one hundred percent across the board, when all evidence indicates to the contrary. This is amusingly and somewhat extremely illustrated by a bemused Professor Higgins in the song “Hymn to Him“, when gender differences were clearly incomprehensible and unhappily negative!

Historical perspective

It would seem from the people who contacted me at least, that there are indeed issues in all gender combinations in the work place, except almost predictably, in male dominated environments (men managing and being managed by men). This actually shouldn’t surprise me. Men have had centuries of experience. Outside a domestic situation, all male teams and organizations were historically and culturally the norm: military, sports, male clubs, politics, etc. where clearly defined structured hierarchies were in place and communication lines were usually prescribed and evident.

In a historical perspective, it was only comparatively recently that women have either been included or allowed full access to most business environments. So it’s hardly surprising that no one is used to dealing with women in these situations. And as they join the corporate world in ever increasing numbers, equally women are not used to dealing with each other either! There simply is very little historical precedent to call upon. In brief, men and women lack practice in dealing with each other at work which is intensified as women climb the career ladder and assume positions of responsibility.

Daily experiences

We all see and experience small signs every day on a minor level of gender miscommunication. Happily those times have changed, but miscommunication can be equally baffling today and cumulatively contribute to poor workplace dynamics. Men and women alike berate each other for many mismanagement situations which seem to have an underlying gender issue.

Both men and women enter the workplace with their academic and professional qualifications and experience, but also with engrained behaviour patterns and expectations derived from their separate chromosomes, personality types and relationship role models developed in lives and interaction outside a work situation.

Many women claimed that men needed special training relating to them in a business neutral way, believing that men are used to dealing with women as mothers, sisters, partners, daughters and less often as business peers and even less frequently as superiors. But conversely the same was said by the men about women! Jane Gunn also amplifies: “Almost every instance of conflict or dispute at work is the catalyst for, or is mirrored by, conflict at home. In the same way relationships at home have a dramatic impact on our ability to create a productive and harmonious work life“.

Other differences

Recognizing differences is no longer pejorative and doesn’t mean unequal treatment as it once did. Much is written about dealing with other types of differences in an organizational setting: cross cultural, personality (extrovert vs. introvert) high achievers for example. So why is it now de rigueur, or worse still, politically incorrect, to suggest that gender differences require special attention in an organizational context?

Blurred expectations

So when I think about it, it’s almost to be expected that there should be some blurring of both expectations and behaviour within organizations. Perhaps the real surprise should be that any of it comes right at all, given this real lack of experience in the overall scheme of things.

Real issues

The real issue is perhaps how do we all let go our socialized gender stereotypical behaviour and communicate in a business neutral way when we enter organizational life, when they can be so removed for many from the roles we play in other areas of our daily lives? The answer seems to be with difficulty. Every indication would also suggest that support in coping with this dichotomy would be useful.

Challenges

Ashanti A., Change Manager in the Hi-Tech sector in Los Angeles, shared one basic conundrum facing both men and women:  “As a female manager the biggest challenge in managing men is gaining the same respect and willingness to be a direct report that would be given to a male manager. As basic as it sounds- by nature no man wants to be told what to do by a woman”

Susan J., an Investment Analyst three years into her career in London, threw in this old chestnut: “women very often lack basic effective supervisory skills and go from one extreme to another, either mimicking male behaviour or being too soft”.

Ashanti also suggests that women need to be mindful not to fall into the “subordinate female co- worker role”.  So women instinctively pour coffee, arrange parties, bring cakes and fall into a “career/facilitator/placater” role.  Ashanti elaborates:  “Oftentimes because these statements aren’t aggressive or sexual in nature, they’re not deemed offensive or inappropriate- yet I would argue the latter”.

So how do we get down to these basics? As women enter organizational life in greater numbers than ever before, a review of current training practices seems to be the only solution.

What do you think?