A TALE OF TWO WORKPLACES: A friend of mine works in a medical office. The entire staff is female, the doctor is male. One co-worker is a passive aggressive martyr who alternately brings people special gifts, then goes unresponsive, withholds information, and does sneaky things. Another co-worker complains regularly because she feels unappreciated, has frequent emotional meltdowns, shares intimate details about her personal life, and obsessively focuses on little issues, like which coffee filters they use.

Fun place to work, right?

In contrast, a woman I know runs a business with a work force that’s 85% female. Their teamwork has allowed them to be successful through both up & down markets. When the workload is heavy, they all rise to the occasion. They have an incredible retention rate; many employees have worked there over 20 years and many have relatives or friends who work together. They are seen as leaders in their industry. And their entire leadership team is not only female, they are related!

What’s the difference?

We’re all familiar with the horribly negative stereotypes about women working with women. We hear about women not getting along at work and we roll our eyes and say, “Too much estrogenandhellip;what else can you expect?”

GENDER DIFFERENCES

Well here’s a newsflash. Women are different than men, so they behave differently in workplace than men.

Research shows that female brains are wired to empathize while male brains are designed to understand & build systems. Studies of children show that girls are more likely to seek consensus & be more concerned with fairness rather than competition and that take turns 20 times more often than boys. The relationshipandmdash;not winningandmdash;is the goal.

Generally, women seek friendships based on intimacy & understanding, whereas men like to sharing activities. While men’s self esteem is typically derived more from their ability to maintain independence, women’s self esteem is maintained more from ability to sustain intimate relationships.

In total: women have a greater awareness of emotional climate, are more relationship driven & have communication, connection, & responsiveness as primary values, as opposed to competition, winning.

EXPECTATIONS AND ASSUMPTIONS

Those are all great qualities and, when used appropriately, contribute to women’s success in management. But strengths overused become weaknesses and work against us. When we expect these wonderful relationship qualities that are intended for friends & family to carry into the workplace, we create unrealistic expectations for ourselves and others.

At some point, we have to be about the work, not just the feelings, not just the relationship. To get past the negative stereotypes, we have to change our expectations.

What I see at the core of the negative stereotypes is not women working with women. It’s about people working with people. Imperfect human beings working with other imperfect human beings. We’re all different. We have different needs, different communication styles, different life experiences and different hot buttons.

So why do we look at these situations & see them as being about women? We’re quick to assume that the issue is womenandmdash;too much estrogen–when we haven’t looked deeply enough at the problem.

IT’S ABOUT LEADERSHIP

The problems in the first workplace I described are not the result of women working with women. They are the result of a workplace with several emotionally unhealthy employees & a very weak leader who won’t address problems. He sets no limits, will not coach or correct employees with no consequences for bad behavior, or accountability. The problem is flawed leadership, not too much estrogen.

The second situation I described is about a workplace with a very capable woman as president who has worked hard to become a great leader. She has a management system designed to address problems, and a commitment to coach, train and develop people. There are clear goals, expectations, consequences and accountability.

Surely we can all agree to stop perpetuating the negative stereotype by making oversimplified assumptions that workplace problems are a result of women working with women. We can also make sure we are not acting out any of those unfortunate behaviors ourselves or acting in a way that perpetuates the problem.

Let’s commit ourselves to improve our leadership abilities so that we can address workplace situations rather than assume they can’t be changed and blame the problems on women working with women.

In the words of one of my favorite leaders, Ghandi, “Be the change you wish to see.”