"I'm a woman who imitated the swagger of an entitled white male -- and it got results"

[ehrnst]

When students asked for alternatives to the assignment, I swallowed, paused, and said, “Not gonna happen.” They packed up and got the work done as I asked. I met a graduate student who was dragging her feet on her dissertation with, “Do you have what it takes? Then just do it.” She looked dumbfounded but turned a chapter in shortly thereafter. In a faculty meeting, a colleague ventured complex curriculum revision that I would normally have spoken at length against based on my extensive experience as a former associate chair. Instead I let people cast about with questions and concerns and then said, trying not to laugh at its simplicity, “We’re not gonna do it.” The subject was dropped.

I came to meetings late, and left early. I made jokes. Crucially, I started to meet colleagues for beers more in my faculty association, where I was a member of the council. I was one of the only women, and my status was quickly elevated to one of the power brokers and I joined the executive committee. I believe drinking beer and speaking with more jocularity helped me gain respect. Coach Taylor’s affect was effective for me at work.

The same was true at home. I responded to my kids’ entreaties with, “Don’t ask me that.” I opened dinner with, “here’s how it’s gonna go” giving each person a job and no room for argument. Our household is so dialogical, I was afraid no one would fall for it, but they did. Things ran my way.

I noticed many things. I wasn’t co-operating, I was dictating, and I used a lot less energy. No one asked followup questions, there was less negotiation, and I didn’t lose time wondering if everyone was OK with the decisions. Students were more productive, and I was more effective at getting what I wanted. I will never forget that my colleagues, with PhDs and argumentation in their bones, dropped a proposal after I uttered five words. Adopting white male southern swagger was pretty darn effective for getting my way.

https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/opinion/2018/10/13/im-a-woman-who-imitated-the-swagger-of-an-entitled-white-male-and-it-got-results.html

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Good for her. She got results and there was progress. n/t

[Blue_Tires]

2. LOL

[zipplewrath]

3. Short Term

She did a short term study and found out what almost any manager will know. The vast majority of people seek guidance and leadership. They will respond, relatively positively, to direction and decisive decision making. Not all people mind you but the VAST majority of subordinates. Children will also respond to decisiveness. They may throw a fit, but in the long run they will actually ultimately respond to direction.

However, there is a long term down side. People will begin to presume what you want. A phrase like "not going to happen" or "don't go there" will ultimately cause them to treat them as a permanent direction. They won't bring you thoughts/solutions/ideas because of the presumption that it will be met with dismissiveness. It also means that a peer, or possibly a subordinate with more experience than oneself may not offer worthy advice that you're about to go off the deep end without knowing it.

The trick here is a whole process. Early in a process one can encourage more collaboration. As the process nears its end, collaboration diminishes and it becomes more and more necessary to "just do it". To follow the football example she presented, when we are watching game films or going over the X's and O's, that's the time for discussion and collaboration. On the practice field it becomes less about collaboration and more about communication and clarification. By game time, it really becomes more about execution.

She has to remember that she was watching a fictional character in a fictional show. She might want to strike up a conversation with the actual coach of her college's sports team and find out the differences between fiction and reality.

[FSogol]

5. +1 n/t

[Mr.Bill]

15. Very well stated.

Much more eloquent than what I was going to say, which was if she continues to do this long enough she will find out why so many men fail at management.

I've held many jobs and changed occupations several times before retiring. I've had many male and female bosses. To say men act this way and women act that way is ignorant.

[zipplewrath]

17. It was interesting

I've worked for women who avoided collaboration out of an apparent fear of being seen as "weak". It's a great way for a project to go south really fast. In any reasonably large effort, no single person has all the answers.

[MineralMan]

4. Decisiveness can overcome inertia.

Or, it can reinforce it. "We're not gonna do that!" is a relief to most people, who don't really want to take a new direction anyhow. The response is "Thank goodness." "Just do it!" can help overcome inertia that is blocking action. The response is "OK, I'll get started."

Inertia is the primary reason things don't get done or don't change once they've gotten started. Sometimes, just a few words have great impact.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

6. Just sounds like she decided not to take anyone's shit --- that's not an entitled white male thing

That's a personality thing. Some people are just like that. Not a white thing. Not a male thing. Certainly not a southern thing either.
This is typically the way I operate and I'm a white woman from New England. Woman like this are typically referred to as bitches. Yeah, I'm a bitch, but it's effective. I don't really care.

[Talitha]

23. When anyone calls you a bitch, look at them and say...

I'm proud to be a woman who's:

Being
In
Total
Control of
Herself

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

30. Yeah, that's the way I see it. :) n/t

[Raven123]

7. Interesting article. Offers another view on how assertive women are regarded

During the Kavanaugh hearings, I read and heard a lot of opinions about how a women candidate would have been regarded negatively had she behaved like Kavanaugh. It appears something was missing. The author’s study of one doesn’t disprove those arguments, but it would be interesting to learn more about why she was successful.

[lunatica]

8. Being a dick is effective if you also happen to be the boss

Who knew?



If she were in a subordinate position? Not so helpful.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

31. Yeah, great way to get fired.

You have to know when you can get away with that and when you can't.

I would also say being a total dick is not effective way to be a boss either. There's times when you just have to let people know you are in charge and they are just going to do what you asked, but that better not happen all the damn time, as in that's pretty much the only way you deal with people. If you are like that, you'll seem like you don't actually listen to or care about the people that work for you. You'll seem unfair. People will hate working for you. There's a time and a place for it. You do it too much and it is an abuse of power. You actually start to lose people's respect then. I feel that is Trump's problem. He bosses too much and listens too little.

[Neema]

9. Assertiveness/decisiveness is great if you have the goods to back it up.

It may be effective for getting your way, moving up in an organization, and getting in good with upper management. But if you don't actually have the skills/ideas, it can bite you in the ass. And it can breed resentment if others' contributions/ideas (especially better ones) are constantly shot down in the name of decisiveness.

I've worked in places where people have taken that approach (men and women). And it did work for them, for awhile. Until it didn't.

A woman came after I'd been working at this one job for about 5 years. She started by really getting in good with everyone at her level, but quickly moved on to the upper management, inserting herself into meetings, getting buddy-buddy with the "right" people. Before long she was my boss. And she had no fucking idea what she was doing. She talked a great game, and was super confident, assertive and decisive. But she she either stole the ideas of those below her and passed them off as her own, or ignored those of us with more experience and better skills for her own "brilliant" ideas. Then one day the company got sued for stealing a design from another company (which she did, blatantly, and passed off as her own) and an entire product line had to be scrapped and redesigned. And the people she used and stepped on while ascending sure as hell weren't going to help cover her ass when she got caught.

[zipplewrath]

19. Been there

I've seen way too many "fast trackers" ascend way too quickly, developing no real expertise at all. Then, they find themselves impressed with themselves and dismissive of those they "past by". That will ultimately bite them one day. To some extent subordinates will "give them the rope with which to hang themselves". If you find yourself "passing by" someone, there are a few possibilities for that, most have nothing to do with your own excellence.

1) They are happy in their jobs and have no interest in doing the work necessary to get recognized for advancement
2) They have been inappropriately overlooked and have way more talent than their position suggests.
3) They are so valuable in what they do, no one is going to promote them to some management role.
4) Their advancement was delayed by other life events (children, disease, delayed start to education, job transfer, etc.)

By the way, some people get "overlooked" because they are so good at their jobs, they make it look easy. In some cases, people who are overlooked have worked thankless or over challenging assignments and know alot more about dealing with difficult problems than most people.

[Neema]

22. I didn't want to move up and sit in meetings for 6 hours a day.

And, at that job, that's what moving up meant. Not just sitting in meetings but spending most of that time stroking the CEO's ego.

I didn't get into my field to do that. I didn't have a problem with others moving up when it was deserved, because I sure as hell didn't want to do it. But in her case, nope.

In fact, years later, when me and most of my department were laid off (at the end of 2008 when everyone was losing their jobs), I remember seeing this women walk into the room. We all knew what was coming and most of us were so sick of that place we weren't terribly upset, but the thought of her being the one to tell us was just too much. I was so relieved, even gleeful, when I found out she was being canned too. Haha. Later I talked to the others and they felt the same way.

[bullwinkle428]

28. This is a great post, and reading it has been helpful as far as calming

some of my own personal insecurities relating to my professional life!

[zipplewrath]

29. Never

Never let your self esteem be defined by your employer. Their objectives and yours may rarely be aligned. Even more so, they rarely CONSISTENTLY remain aligned. I've gotten some of my best reviews, during my worst years, and the reverse as well. You are charged with your "work life balance". Your employer most likely, in the long term, does not really pay attention to that. I'm currently reaching the end of my career and suddenly my employer is in a panic that I might retire. I'd love to find a way to point out this concern should have been expressed years ago.

No one ever went to their death bed saying they should have worked more or been more of a suck up at work.

[Neema]

35. Always remember they aren't doing you a favor.

You are working for them and in return they pay you. Will you always be perfect at your job? No, who is? If you work hard, ask questions when needed, treat everyone with respect, go the extra mile on occasion but also take care of yourself when needed, then you're doing your job.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

33. Yes, I am totally for having the goods to back yourself up.

You have no right to be assertive if you don't know what you are talking about, but be authoritative when you do know what you are talking about. When you don't know, the right thing to do is to defer to someone who does. Someone who is a good leader would do this.

[cwydro]

10. I know, and have known, plenty of women who are confident and assertive.

White women, black women, Latina women.

They’re not “imitating” any man. That’s just who they are.

[NewJeffCT]

11. Agreed

I married two of them. My ex-wife (white) and my current wife (Chinese) are both confident, smart and assertive.

With my current wife, I think it's also cultural - because there are fewer women in China in her age range due to the negative side of the 1 child policy, women in the more modern eastern part of China have generally been expected to succeed in college and in the business world. So, she's grown up with the idea that it's not unusual for women to be leaders in education and at work. (of course, it hasn't carried over into women in Chinese politics yet...)

With my ex-wife, I think she may have been shot out of a cannon when she was born... or maybe a cross-fire hurricane?

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

34. Yeah, that's what I mean. That quality doesn't just belong to men.

No one should tell a woman she is acting like a man when she is just acting like herself. Same thing goes for men to. People say men who are nurturing to children act like women. That's not a quality that belongs to women either. Those are just qualities of different people with different personalities. There are no male or female personalities.

[oberliner]

12. What part of her imitation was white as opposed to black?

[Separation]

14. She wasnt assaulted in the garage area

By authorities for standing around and looking like she was up to something?

Just spitballing.

[oberliner]

16. She says white male football coaches have a swagger

Don't black male football coaches have a similar swagger?

Mike Tomlin, for instance?

[Separation]

20. Lol I couldnt tell you

I have no idea who Mike Tomlin is, or any other football coach for that matter.

[LanternWaste]

32. No one has argued otherwise.

"Don't black male football coaches have a similar swagger?"

No one has argued otherwise. You appear to be the only one making that argument.

Saying a stainless steel cup holds water is not a denial that a thermos bottle also holds water.

[Lucca2]

13. This isn't progress.

As an older woman, this piece dismayed me. It is not progress to be an asshole like the oppressor. It's lazy thinking; it takes more work to be collaborative and creative, but the outcome is democratic.

[malaise]

21. Ditto

[Pacifist Patriot]

24. Agreed

[Nasruddin]

18. built-in?

I'm not surprised - I think this might be built in to our psyche.
We are total suckers for this kind of confidence vamping.
It doesn't work for everyone who tries it tho - what makes it work or fail?

[SoCalDem]

25. Surprisingly, there is a happy medium

I have worked for many female bosses, and what one told me, rang true..

when her employees came to her with excuses or entreaties, she would often say, "I'm not your momma..You will have to figure it out...you are a grownup"

She also told us that if we came to her and asked for help BEFORE things got totally screwed up, she'd be happy to advise us.

[PoliticAverse]

26. Summary: If you act as if you are in charge people may act as if you are. n/t

[3catwoman3]

27. Some of us are by nature more assertive and some more reticent.

Then, of course, we get socialized in a variety of ways by people and experiences. I am by nature reticent, and grew up in a family where, if not exactly “seen but not heard,” it was quite clear that opinions that varied from those of our parents were not encouraged, and actively suppressed. I can’t count the number of times that I heard, “Martha, don’t SAY that!” Or “Martha, YOU don’t think that!” It seemed that to have a different opinion from my parents was taken as a personal rejection, not merely a difference of opinion.

It took me ages to have confidence in my own opinions, and, to this day, I totally suck at standing up for myself. I’m 67, and I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable with anything that feels even remotely confrontational to me.

I’m sure I’m not alone in this. Add to this, IMO, that females are often socialized to always speak politely and gently so we never offend anyone, and it’s no big surprise that a lot of women hang back and keep our mouths shut.

I like the statement above that if you act as if you are in charge, people act as if you are. I wish I were better at this.