So much of our happiness and success in the workplace comes down to one person: our boss. They hold the keys to greater challenge and autonomy, as well as more practical conveniences, like ability to leave for a doctor’s appointment or take a day off. Many corporate policies leave a great deal of discretion to the manager (as they should in most cases), so a supervisor’s vision of work can greatly affect an employee’s life at the office and at home.
A great deal has been written portraying female managers as alternately bullying or motherly; perpetuating these stereotypes has done little to improve the lives of employees or forge new paths for female corporate leaders. However, I frequently hear from women who have female managers who believe strongly in “paying dues.” It seems that many women who have gone through maternity and motherhood on the job fundamentally believe that struggle is part of the experience.
This idea of “paying dues” crops up frequently (men use it too), but I don’t know that it has served to create a better class of management leadership. Technology and social norms are constantly evolving, and the way we view work life fit — including family leave — should be different than it was a decade ago. We expect that employees maintain better contact and connection with the office when they are not present, but we also can allow employees to work remotely with less difficulty. Technology should be making our work faster, if not always easier; the number of hours we spend on the job and how we use that time shouldn’t be the same as in the past.
Equally importantly, many women have proven their ability to keep themselves sharp and relevant on the job while simultaneously addressing critical needs at home. Yet our female supervisors are sometimes the first to put us in “the turkey farm” when we have children, assuming that we cannot or will not take on major projects. This happens under the guise of wanting to make life easier for us — but taking work away from women who have children isn’t the answer. That doesn’t make our lives easier; it’s just frustrating and depressing.
One of the reasons it’s sometimes difficult to work for other women, and especially mothers, is that there are so few of them in leadership positions. Those who have achieved are constantly trying to prove themselves. They feel they have to take a hard line with employees to show that they are tough. Furthermore, they have their own work life issues to address. Rather than finding a universal solution, female managers are forced to a place where they expect their employees to work the hours they can’t because of family commitments.
And many supervisors are reluctant to admit that there is flexibility in scheduling work. Even if the company has a “flexible work policy,” individual managers have an emotional response to what should be a business decision: they believe that their employees should pay the same dues they paid. This holds today’s employees to work life standards set as much as a decade or more prior.
How do we get managers to understand that recognizing employees’ needs outside of the office won’t open the floodgates for laziness and poor performance? One way is to remind them that performance issues should be addressed directly regardless of an employee’s schedule. If someone isn’t doing good work, they should go through a performance review process. And flexibility will always be at the discretion of the supervisor; if it’s not working for the team, the manager can always decide to pursue a different strategy.
Even more importantly, we need to help management understand what really motivates and makes for good workers. Employees who are challenged with meaningful work will rise to the occasion no matter what their schedule. People who care about their jobs and their company will not abuse the system. The answer is to manage in ways that encourage personal investment in work.
Related links:
- A great post from Penelope Trunk about the increasing irrelevance of “paying dues.”
- Laura Vanderkam‘s book “Grindhopping: Build a Rewarding Career Without Paying Your Dues” has some great practical suggestions. A useful interview with Laura is here.
- Sarah Banda Purvis writes about why women don’t support other women in the workplace at BlueSuitMom.com.
- Earlier this year The New York Times had a thoughtful article about women bullying women in the workplace. The Mama Bee responds to that article here.
