Who Has More Credibility, Men or Women?
| posted by Fast Company staffOur work on credibility actually began because of the way women answered the question above. More than 80% felt men were perceived as more credible in the workplace. If women lacked credibility, even perceivably so, this was a huge handicap, so we set out to help them understand what all they could do to build and maintain their credibility.
But by the time we got around to writing the book, our audiences weren't just women anymore. Top executives and CEOs wanted to learn about the transparent behaviors that build and maintain a credible reputation, and a whole lot of those people were men.
Lisa Nuss wants us to consider "gender" in a credibility discussion, saying Martha, judged against the expectation of "women should be deferential" and was bound to look arrogant. But a jerk of a guy has a different, far more aggressive marker...so he can be really obnoxious, but still look like an okay ass.
But here's a question we asked that sheds a different perspective on gender: Who would be more likely to sabotage your reputation - a man or another woman? More than half of the women said (you guessed it) it would definitely be another woman. They wrote notes to us in the margins: "Women are catty." "It's in our blood." "We don't trust one another."
Woman trusting women. Looks like there might be some work to do.
Strong as nails women at the top - some famous, like Anne Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox (BusinessWeek, "Anne Mulcahy has Xerox by the Horns," May 29, 2003), and AT&T's Betsy Bernard, who shows her trust in women by getting them to the top of her organization (BusinessWeek online, "AT&T's Betsy Bernard Goes the Distance," 5/29/03), and others you wouldn't know. But the people they work with say these women are yes - tough cookies - AND great bosses with oodles of credibilty.
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Recent Comments | 2 Total
March 13, 2004 at 12:17pm
SueI have to admit that I'm a bit surprised by the answers to the question, "Who would be more likely to sabotage your reputation - a man or another woman?" I guess first off I should say that to me the question is biased in a way that means I can't answer it. Before that should be the question, "Do you think that gender would play a role in someone sabotaging your reputation?" I would mark no, then be instructed to skip the next question. The people I would suspect of undermining my reputation would be anyone who was threatened by me, for whatever reason. For the most part I don't have this problem once people get to know me because I'm oh-so-very-nice. (I'm only nice until it's time to not be nice, so don't worry about me.) But I have certainly seen as much maneuvering, backstabbing, and general closet evil from men as I ever have from women. My suspicion is those with the responses above were catty b*****s themselves and they were illustrating that THEY would be perfectly happy to undermine and sabotage another woman's career. How unpleasant for them.
November 24, 2007 at 1:43am
Jim slimi will never trust women. These so called female CEO's or MI5 directors and other puppets are cruel animals who haven't even the heart of a cold man. They are more ruthless because they have something to prove.