B-School Blues - II

For some reason, our marketing class last night wandered off onto the topic of how assertive women are perceived. The general agreement was that people, especially women, don't like them. One gentleman noticed that there was a general culture of assertive women at his (rather large) company, and that while the women groused about it, the ones lower down fell into line.

Now this goes against just about everything that I've heard about women as managers in just about every text and PC study I read on the subject. They're supposed to be less hierarchical, more likely to create flatter organizations with teams that provide lots of feedback, and they're supposed to avoid relying on structure and on giving orders. Nobody seemed to notice this contradiction.

Funny, that.