While in college, I interned in a pretty diverse array of work environments (corporate, recently-launched small business, and an internet startup). While I loved the nature of my work at the startup, navigating the office culture proved to be quite the quagmire. Come time for a meeting, and the team was cohesive, collected, and enthusiastic. Behind closed doors, the “unified front” was anything but…particularly between the women in the office.
As soon a colleague was out of earshot, the claws came out. The griping wasn’t always unfounded, but it put me in an awkward situation as an intern who had no prior knowledge of the office’s rather tumultuous history. Aside from generally making me feel uncomfortable, it opened my eyes to just how nasty cloak-and-dagger office politics can be. I’d experienced some degree of not-so-friendly female rivalry in the classroom, but I’d always assumed that females felt a strong sense of camaraderie in the workplace. After all, we still make up only 15.7% of officers in Fortune 500 corporations, and there are hundreds of professional networking associations whose sole mission is empowering women to help other women succeed.
Glenn Close & Rose Byrne on FX's Damages
Apparently, I assumed wrong. Those “female compatriots” often turn out to be wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Grace wrote a great post last September about the rise of female bullying in the workplace. The same Workplace Bullying Institute study she cites also found that in addition to targeting female coworkers 71% of the time, female bullies use different tactics than their male counterparts. Men tend to favor more outright forms of bullying such as verbal abuse, while women prefer more under-the-radar techniques including sabotage and abuse of authority.
In her book Mean Girls Grown Up, Cheryl Dellasega discusses women’s “relational aggression” and how it often manages to pass unnoticed in the workplace (unless, of course, you’re the target of said aggression). The Harvard Business Review explains that such relational aggression includes “rumor mongering, sabotage, exclusion, and public ridicule, all carefully calculated to wreak havoc in the lives of targets.” Is anyone else having haunting flashbacks of middle school? HBR goes on to urge managers not to dismiss this aggression as something women need to “just get over;” it has a lasting impact on the workplace environment and, more importantly, real implications for the organization’s bottom line. (Of course, some issues become overblown and aren’t worth the hassle: we as employees need to learn to distinguish between true bullying and personally overreacting to criticism or a comment.)
I’ve caught myself being unfairly critical of other females (cue snarky “who does she think she is?”), but have realized that my initial reaction often stems from my own jealousy or feeling like my “turf” is threatened. When you recognize that someone has more talent than you, it’s easy to try to bring them down or minimize their accomplishments. Instead, opt for taking a long, hard look at why and how it is they’re great at what they do and learn from it. Ask them for their advice. Challenge yourself to step up your game. And, if the situation is appropriate, collaborate; don’t compete.
I’m not advocating for the preferential treatment of women by their female colleagues, but I’d encourage all females (and males, for that matter) to treat your co-workers the same way you’d want your sister or friend to be treated. And, if you’re going to be a big mean jerk, be gender neutral when unleashing the wrath.
