Q #234: Are women better managers?

Carol Smith thinks so. She is senior vice president and brand manager at the Elle Group, the media company, and views women as the best bosses and mentors, but says men don’t take problems as personally. In an interview by Adam Bryant that appears in the “Corner Office” column in the BusinssSunday section of The New York Times (July 26, 2009), she asserts that in terms of men versus women as managers, “Hands down, women are better. No contest.” Why?

Smith: In my experience, female bosses tend to be better managers, better advisers, mentors, rational thinkers. Men love to hear themselves talk. I’m so generalizing. I know I am. But in a couple pf places I’ve worked, I would often say, “Call me in 15 minutes after the meeting starts and then I’ll come,” because I will have missed all the football. I will have missed all the “what I did on the golf course.” I will miss the four jokes, and I can get into the meeting when it’s starting.

Men, also, they’re definitely better on the “whatever” side. Things tend to roll off their back. We women take things very personally. We’re constantly playing things over in our head when they mean nothing. And I’m certainly not immune to this. So there’s a downsize to women.

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What do you think? Please share.

If you wish to read the entire article and several other interviews, please visit this link:

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/news/business/columns/corner_office/index.html

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