Women in power – Finding some ground between

the bully broad and the doormat
JO HAWKINS DONOVAN
For SBT
We women better keep up with the times. Ten years ago when women were referred to me for coaching, more often than not it was because they needed to learn to be more assertive, at least according to the corporate heads who sent them in.
Now women are more likely to be referred because they’re sharp and productive, but intimidate everyone in the office.
Many of us, in the 1970s, let out a scream at some of the propositions in The Total Woman (Saran Wrap – remember?). Now we ponder why the new books The Rules and The Surrendered Wife are on the bestseller lists.
A recent article in The New York Times described the work of Jean Hollands who runs an executive-coaching program called Bully Broads. Hollands says, “For women to succeed now, they must become ladies first.” The women who are sent to the program — and they are usually sent — have been told that the toughness that pushed them to six-figure incomes is now preventing them from rising higher.
Hollands has a book coming out, Same Game, Different Rules: How to Get Ahead Without Being a Bully Broad, Ice Queen or Other Ms. Understoods. Hollands coaches her clients to soften their styles, to talk right through tears if they start to cry at meetings, to use “foreplay” when delivering bad news. Suggested foreplay language: “I know you must be busy, and I know this is a big project, and it’s been hard for me to accept others on it, so I might get a bit testy as I talk about this.”
Bully Broads participants, according to Hollands, receive better job reviews and more promotions.
Reading about the Bully Broads program reminded me of two people who have influenced my thinking. The first is Milwaukee’s own Catherine Cleary, now retired after a stellar career as a trust officer and director on several Fortune 500 boards. I’ve had the privilege of watching Cleary in action as she fused feminine charm and masculine clarity of purpose to achieve stunning results.
The second is David Deida, a writer introduced to me by my daughter. Deida writes and teaches about the feminine and masculine energies. In one of his books, Intimate Communion, he says, “The Feminine force is not goal-oriented and directional, for the Feminine heroine is not a warrior who cuts through obstacles. Rather, she is a goddess who open doors with love.”
Deida describes an evolution of feminine energy, from the first stage where a woman will give up anything for love. Eventually the pain of this is too great, and in the second stage a woman cultivates her own internal masculine energy and learns to assert her needs and take responsibility for herself. In this stage, women who have been following men’s directions learn to depend on their own internal voice and sense of direction. They no longer follow a man’s lead; they allow themselves to be leaders. They liberate themselves from men and from their own self-doubt. They are interested in equality, self-definition and respect for personal boundaries. “I am my own woman.”
In Deida’s third stage, a woman lets go of everything and becomes open to “being” love as it is her true nature. She enchants.
Interesting stuff, and complicated for the woman executive. In my assertiveness training, I contrast passive behavior (You count, I don’t) with aggressive behavior (I count, you don’t) and assertive behavior (I count and you count). I think that still works.
Yet there are different expectations for male and female executives. Ideally, work would center on the environment that keeps those disparate expectations alive. In the real world, we’d better deal with them. Hollands’s son-in-law, a vice president in her organization, said in the Times article, “With a male executive, there’s no expectation to be nice. He has more permission to be an ass. But when women speak their minds, they’re seen as harsh.”
Carl Jung, whose science underlies much of my work, said that two-thirds of men prefer logical decision-making, and two-thirds of women prefer value-driven decisions. Of course that leaves one-third of men who make “feeling” decisions in the Myers-Briggs terminology based on Jung’s work, and two-thirds of women are naturally more logic-driven. Those thirds are often labeled “wimpy” or “bitchy” in the workplace. Again, men are expected to be logical and women are expected to be feeling-oriented.
I don’t think anyone wants to silence women’s minds, at least not anyone reading this column. In the challenging arena of running a business, we need the best that all of us can bring to the table.
Probably it boils down to that old admonition to Be Yourself. If doing that means you are “testy” most of the time, then it might help to read Deida’s work or check out what is going on in your life that keeps you on the edge. If being yourself as a woman executive means finding a peaceful unity between your head and your heart, you have my blessings. Go for it.
Jo Hawkins Donovan has a coaching and psychotherapy firm in Milwaukee, and can be reached at 414-271-5848 or jo@hawkinsdonovan.com. The firm’s Web site is www.hawkinsdonovan.com. Hawkins Donovan will respond to your questions in this column. Her column appears in every other issue of SBT.
August 31, 2001 Small Business Times, Milwaukee