'Working Wounded': Gender Differences

ByABC News
December 23, 2004, 12:14 PM

Dec. 17, 2004— -- DEAR READERS: I received the following e-mail from a woman about the different styles of men and women and I thought it raised interesting points.

"As a kid growing up on a farm, I was very aware of what was 'men's work' and what was 'women's work.' Men were responsible for things like mucking out cow pens, hoeing and cleaning chicken coops. Women scrubbed floors, dusted and vacuumed. Our paths did not cross and we certainly didn't share work. Apart. Simple.

Today, I work in a conservatively managed high-tech firm where there are very few women in management. The unfortunate part of this equation is that most of the company is managed from a 'point and delegate' approach, something men seem to do with ease. As an acting manager and woman (I do the work of my previous man-manager for my same salary and no title, but I'm not bitter) I've discovered my management style is more "coach." I have a hard time delegating because sometimes in the time it takes to describe the task and check for understanding, I could have completed it myself. My previous manager had no problem assigning tasks that were as simple as 'point 'n' click'.

When there's a question with work I've assigned, I try to respond as constructively as I can with further appropriate guidance. When I've provided finished product to my male counterparts that requires more work, I will hear that it's wrong, but with no further instruction. It is, again, the 'make it so' approach and it leaves me wondering if I ever left the farm.

It seems to me that men make an assumption that in the telling of the task the details of their request will become clear. As a woman, I've discovered I need more guidance.

Which leads me to my other distinction between men's and women's management styles. As women, we worry about what something will sound like as it leaves our mouth, having crossed the great divide between frontal lobe and lips. On a good day, we spend a few seconds thinking of the appropriate expression for an idea. In a recent meeting I witnessed an outright attack on an idea by one of my more astute male colleagues. I spoke up in defense of the idea, in a manner similar to a mom telling a small child to 'be kind.'

I can admit that as women, we have our own brand of management that is not perfect; we can be ruthless and calculating. In our hands, character assassination is a deadly art form and it happens in seconds. We're notorious for not sharing information simply because of the power in the knowledge that we've worked so hard to gain. This is not to say that men have not worked hard, it's just that they are the historical managers, it has been their birthright. I wonder how different work would be today if our roles had been reversed and women had managed first."

Here are the results from a recent workingwounded.com/ABCNEWS.com online ballot:
Which song title describes your feelings about asking for help at work?

Our winning strategy for asking for help at work comes from M.T. in Seattle:

"This may sound simplistic, but I view asking for help like I do a bank. Each of us needs to make both deposits and withdrawals. For a long time I saw asking for help as a weakness, now I see it as part of the give and take between colleague. And a much more civilized way to work."

Bob Rosner is a best-selling author, speaker and internationally syndicated columnist. His newest best seller, "GRAY MATTERS: The Workplace Survival Guide" (Wiley, 2004), is a business comic book that trades cynicism for solutions. Ask Bob a question: bob@workingwounded.com or http://graymattersbook.com

ABCNEWS.com publishes a new Working Wounded column every Friday.