Shazia Siddiqi is a technology professional at Fleetmatics in Rolling Meadows, Illinois. She received her MS and BS in computer science and math from Loyola University Chicago. Throughout her career, she has held various roles involving development, consulting, business systems analysis, project management, and process re-engineering.
I can still remember a conversation I had with a male coworker of mine much earlier on in my career. Our manager was a woman who was very particular about the processes we had to follow and the documentation we had to create for any of the projects we were working on. The mandate came from the CIO, and she made sure that her team followed the framework set forth. In our team meetings, I recall my coworker getting into fiery debates with our manager about how to manage risks for our projects and whether or not following the procedures set by the organization was critical or, as he thought, overkill. After one such heated meeting, he came to me to vent. He said that this is why he hates working for female managers. He went on to say that he had never had a good experience working with female leaders, and that he thought they always felt the need to prove themselves and were unnecessarily demanding of their subordinates—especially the male ones. I was taken aback by the conversation. First of all, I thought it was odd that he was openly telling me, a woman, about how he felt regarding female leaders. I also then had to ask myself whether or not I thought there was any truth to what he was saying. I had no issues with our manager, nor did the other three members of our gender-mixed team. We understood the need to follow the procedures set in place in order to reduce operational risk to the organization. So why did my coworker feel this way? Would he have been so opposed to following the procedures had the direction come from a male manager? And more importantly, why did he immediately attribute his differences in opinions with our manager to a gender issue?
Since then, throughout my various roles and career changes, I’ve worked with many other male and female leaders. In fact, I’ve even managed small teams myself. What I’ve observed is that, just like their male counterparts, female leaders have an array of varying leadership styles and approaches. I’ve worked with women who like to micromanage their staff and some who ask that you only come to them with issues. Some aren’t in tune with what their team is working on, some follow a methodology to a tee, some work on building a rapport with their team, and some don’t want you to speak to them until spoken to (I work the least effectively with that management style!).
However, what has been a reoccurring theme in my experience is that whenever there’s conflict between a female manager and a team member, her gender is almost always the first thing that’s pointed out. Very rarely do I notice gender coming up when a team member doesn't get along with a male manager. If I were to have a conversation again with that male coworker of mine from so long ago, I would challenge him to question why our manager’s gender was so easily brought up. I would ask him whether or not he’d feel comfortable with someone using his gender, race, religion, age, or background to justify differing opinions with his management approach. I know I wouldn’t.