Women Supervisors: The Danger of Micromanaging

Lately, I’ve started to wonder if women are more likely to be ineffective managers than men. I think, after mulling it over for a few days, that women (who we already know have to work harder to get into positions of power) might have perfectionist complexes that go past the objective and into the subjective, which might make them difficult to work under.

For example, I have a friend who has been complaining to me about his boss (a woman). He says that she likes to be kept “in the loop” on everything he does, including minor emails, and that she will often correct him in front of others or send clarifying emails following his emails that mostly say the same thing he said but in different words. (i.e. he’ll send out an email that says “We’re meeting in the conference room at 10. Please bring your case materials” and she’ll send an email that says “Just to clarify, all the members of the team will be meeting. Please bring your drafts of the memo.”) He can’t stand his boss. At first, I thought he was just chafing to work under a woman or that, if anything, this particular woman was a bit of a micromanager.

I had the issue in my head though, so I started noticing things around my own office. Last week, I had to get a few documents approved by one of my female supervisors, and she made me go back and forth with several minor, subjective changes (i.e. I wrote “individuals” and she wanted “people”). I thought of my friend and started to wonder whether female supervisors feel the need to vouch more for their employees than male supervisors, which then leads to a painful degree of micromanagement. In my case, the document was not that important, and I was actually signing my name to it, so my supervisor wasn’t publicly linked to it at all. Why, then, the need to have me make several superficial wording changes?

Seeking A Just Balance: Law Students Weigh In On Work and Family

A Better Balance: The Work & Family Legal Center is publishing a study, Seeking A Just Balance: Law Students Weigh In On Work and Family.  The study is a survey of NYU law students and their expectations around work/life balance.  Generation-Y lawyers – American men and women born between 1978 and 1998 – are extremely worried about these issues and are willing to trade money for time.  

The demand for work/life balance is greater among both men and women than in the past.  Family life is a high priority for today’s young attorneys, and they do not want to make the same sacrifices for their careers as their parents did.  It’s not about the money anymore, but about the big picture in their lives.

The study found that as firms have competed for talent over the last ten years, salaries have increased exponentially.  The result of that is an increased expectation of availability and billable hour requirements.  They offer “lifestyle perks” designed to keep people at work instead of flexible time that would allow workers to be with their families.  Up-and-coming lawyers would rather trade money for more personal time, and will leave for a pay-cut if the result is less time at work.  Many respondents commented on how the private sector works attorneys to death, and that if they are required to put in 80 hour work weeks or stay until others leave so that there is face time, they will leave the firm.

This is not a new trend, but represents a shift in cultural values in Generation Y.

Why Do We Need Women's Bar Associations?

Elizabeth K. Peck is President and Co-Founder of the Finger Lakes Women’s Bar Association and the Director of Career Services at Cornell Law School in Ithaca, NY

Why Do We Need Women’s Bar Associations?

I asked myself this very question 18 months ago.   Back in October of 2006, along with 300 other women attorneys in my area, I was invited to breakfast by the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York (WBASNY) to discuss starting a new chapter of the organization.  Honestly, I had no interest then in a “specialty bar.”  What I did have, however, was interest in meeting local attorneys.  Much as I had tried, I hadn’t yet connected with lawyers in my community.  Tapping into this network was important to me because I am a career counselor at a law school in rural New York.  Each year a small number of my students want to stay in our lovely hamlet to practice law after graduation.  Without contacts among local lawyers I couldn’t serve their needs as well as I wanted to.  In small communities, if you want to find a job, you’ve got to know people.

So, I went to breakfast.  I listened to the pitch.  I ate luke-warm eggs.  Nothing.  Then, I just happened to meet the right person at the right time.  On the sidewalk outside the restaurant, I struck up a conversation with a young woman attorney working for a local firm.   “Ah ha!” I thought.  “This is exactly the kind of person I’d like to get to know.”  I quickly realized that helping to start this new organization would connect me to the very people I had been yearning to meet.  So, after 20 minutes of chatting in the October sunshine, we’d decided to start a new bar association.

And, to make a long story short: we did.  Six months after our initial meeting, the Finger Lakes Women’s Bar Association was born.  I am, to this day, continuously surprised at our success.  Our little chapter grew from 25 to 60 members in a year.  (In fact, although we are a women’s bar association, we are open to all and quite proud of our sole male member.)  We have held meetings, social events and continuing legal education courses.  Our members have learned of the sacrifices of the suffragettes, listened to the wisdom of an early NOW president, and come up to speed on the continued struggle for women’s equality in the world of college sports. 

And because our bar association is a chapter of the state-wide women’s bar, we have also witnessed the immense power that women, singly and collectively, can have.  At the state-level, WBASNY (yes, it is an ungainly acronym) gives voice to the needs of women, children and families before the New York State Legislature.  With a paid lobbyist and very committed volunteer members, our organization analyzes legislation pending in Albany and advocates for those bills which will best serve the people of New York, especially those people who are women, children or members of families. 

This is all very nice, but get back to the original question: so, why a women’s bar association?  Don’t co-ed bars do the same things?  Well, yes and no.

Trading SAHM for SWAT?

There's a new article by Sue Shellenbarger in the Wall Street Journal that highlights an interesting trend:

The decision among some highly educated women to stay home with children is sparking a countertrend: The rise of the mommy "SWAT team." The acronym, for "smart women with available time," is one mother's label for all-mom teams assembled quickly through networking and staffing firms to handle crash projects. Employers get lots of voltage, cheap, while the women get a skills update and a taste of the professional challenges they miss.

This article seems mostly applicable to the MBA crowd, but similar things are happening in the law (Axiom Legal, for example, is a firm that provides flexible legal hiring). I'm not sure, however, if the trend this article discusses is a good or bad development--after all those long hard years getting a higher education and in the work force, should these women be contracting themselves out for bottom dollar (i.e., aren't they worth more than that, even on a part-time or temporary basis)? Or is this a good way for companies to get affordable troubleshooters and for these women to keep their fingers in the mix? And is this one way to help women who have elected to stay home (perhaps for a limited period of time) be able to "ramp on" in the future?

Is Tattling On Yourself Admirable or Stupid?

The other day, I made a mistake at work. It was the kind of mistake that my boss may or may not have ever noticed, the kind of mistake that doesn't have far-reaching consequences but is nonetheless wrong. Also important to note is that this was the kind of mistake that was already out there, and there was nothing anyone could do to change it or somehow make it less of an error. When I realized I'd made the mistake, I decided to email my boss right away and tell him what I'd done. He wrote back and acknowledged that I had indeed made a mistake but that he was glad I'd alerted him. But...was I wrong to turn myself in?

When I told some co-workers about the incident, one guy admitted he'd done the exact same thing...but hadn't alerted our boss and had never gotten called out for making the mistake. After reflecting on the different ways we'd handled the situation, I'm sure some of our different approaches can be attributed to our different personalities, but I also think gender played a role. In my experience, men--as a general rule--are less likely to publicly own up to mistakes while women are more likely to do so.

In the abstract, it is admirable that one would be honest and step up to admit wrongdoing, but in practice, can it hurt your career? For example, my boss now knows that I am fallible. I have screwed up and drawn his attention right to my error. My co-worker, on the other hand, made the exact same screw-up, but the boss never knew (that we know of). So, arguably my boss might think that my co-worker's abilities are superior to my own, even though we both did the same thing wrong. I wonder how much of professional competence is about bluster and fakery and how much an honest perspective on your own abilities and shortcomings can actually be a hinderance to moving ahead. After all, people who project competence get promoted--and perhaps projecting competence is less about actual competence and more about the appearance of said competence. Should I have twiddled my thumbs and whistled a carefree tune when I realized my error and just waited to deal with my boss when and if he came to me rather than going straight to him? I'm starting to think that the answer is yes.

Must Read: ABA Commission on Women - Oral Histories of Women Trailblazers in the Law

The ABA Commission on Women has compiled the testimonials of 17 remarkable women, including Professor Barbara Babcock and Judge Dorothy Nelson - both Ms. JD contributors, and Judge Betty Weinberg Ellerin - one of this year's Honored Guests at Ms. JD's Student Leadership Summit closing banquet. The transcripts make for a long but inspiring read, repleat with colorful anecdotes about the barriers to early women lawyers.

Women Blaming Women for Lack of Work/Life Balance

I was shocked to read Monique Doyle Spencer's article in the Boston Globe, Working women, where did we go so wrong? The title should give you an uh-oh feeling, but I was completely unprepared for Doyle's topic sentence: "I think we women ruined the workplace." In a nutshell, her argument is that wolmen responded to their opportunities to finally work in high-power jobs by working harder than their male counterparts without demanding salary increases when, according to Doyle, they should have worked the same hours as men and demanded equal pay. Consequently, her argument goes, women blew an opportunity to create a more livable profession for everyone by not demanding said livable professio in those early days and instead playing into a workaholic norm.

Am I alone in wondering how pioneer women, who were battling stereotypes and prejudices about whether they deserved their jobs or could hack it in a man's world, could have stayed in the game if they'd refused to put in extra hours and instead demanded higher wages, flexible work hours, and 45-hour weeks right from the get-go? Doyle states that "we were supposed to demand equal pay, not whimper through our year-end review. We were supposed to 'smarten' the workday. If your job takes you more than 45 hours a week to complete, you are going to too many meetings that you shouldn't be at." Apparently Doyle is unfamiliar with law firms, where you actually bill hours and may not be able to meet your firm's required billing time if you only work 45 hours a week. Also, why is a woman's responsibility to "'smarten' the workday"? What does that even mean?

Doyle goes on to task women with the job of creating part-time opportunities for both men and women. How? Doyle takes a hard line: "We were supposed to figure out how to do that." Great, if only those pioneer women had Doyle around for strategic consultation back in the good old days. The article goes on with more ranting about what women should have done (no suggestions as to HOW) and then ends with the priceless gem: "I think we should celebrate National Women's Month with a big apology to our mothers and daughters for blowing the biggest opportunity in history to create real change."

Well, this woman feels no need to apologize. I feel strongly that Doyle is full of it in suggesting that women in those early days had any power to change the system, and I think she is naive to suggest that these issues are solely women's issues or soleley women's responsibilty to change. Men have just as big a stake in raising productive members of society and spending valuable time with their children. Men have an equal interest in efficient work environments and work/life balance. It's sexist to assume that women are alone in needing or valuing these things, and it is ignorant to think that anything can change without men and women working together.

Is Long Hair Unprofessional?

I'm not alone in wondering whether chopping your hair off is a prerequisite for a woman's success. From politicians like Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Dole, and Nancy Pelosi to well-known litigators like Jamie Gorelich, Sheila Birnbaum, Amy Schulman, and Maureen Mahoney, short hair is the status quo. Does it have to be that way?

I like my long hair. I've always received compliments on it; I like having the option to curl it or straighten it or put it up; and, I admit it, my long hair makes me feel feminine and attractive. But, is it holding me back?

Susan Ehrlich Martin and Nancy Jurik wrote an interesting book, Doing Justice, Doing Gender, and a whole chapter is devoted to women in the legal profession. The authors note that "by controlling the professional context, men behave in ways that show that other men are taken seriously and accorded respect. Conversely, the way men talk about women and their appearance treats women as invisible, devalues them, and affects their ability to perform effectively." If this is true, then does it make sense that women might try to "blend in" by wearing pants suits and cutting off their hair? Martin and Jurik give the example that if "a judge allows the opposing attorney to label a woman attorney’s appearance a 'distraction,' it signals to others that it is acceptable to use a woman’s looks as the basis for objecting against other women attorneys." So, do successful women attorneys instinctively know that the way to get ahead is to detract from their appearance and is short hair part of that?

'Dear Sisters, Dear Daughters' - A New Mentorship Publication from the Multicultural Women Attorney Network

The ABA's Multicultural Women Attorney Network has published an exciting and unique new work to address the limited mentoring opportunities between multicultural women. Entitled 'Dear Sisters, Dear Daughters: Words of Wisdom from Multicultural Women Attorneys Who've Been There and Done That,' this publication is a compilation of letters from multicultural women attorneys who graduated from law school more than a decade ago.

These letters are directed at young women lawyers and law students, offering advice of a variety of topics including building a practice, raising children as a professional woman, overcoming stereotypes, building bridges with women of color, and directing one's own career. The diversity of topics covered is matched by the degree of diversity amongst the contributors themselves - some are still practicing, some are retired; some are mothers, some are not; some are members of the judiciary, some are academics. All are inspirational figures for women in the law.

Mablean Pehriam, Judge on Divorce Court for Fox Television, commented on this publication: "Every woman benefit from reading these letters. They speak of both our struggles and triumphs...As you read these pages, I hope that you too will be inspired, as I was to continue the struggle for justice and equality, using the law as a tool for change."

For more information on 'Dear Sisters, Dear Daughters: Words of Wisdom from Multicultural Women Attorneys Who've Been There and Done That.' visit:

http://www.abanet.org/minorities/mwan/dsdd.html

Do Other Women Lawyers Prefer Working With Men or Women?

The February 2008 issue of the ABA Journal Magazine features an article entitled What Women Lawyers Really Think of Each Other. The answer? The ABA Journal surveyed 1,400 people, of which 58% were indifferent about the gender of their co-workers. The other 42% had preferences one way or the other with female supervisors over the age of 40 preferring to work with women because women lawyers "take direction better" (80%), "take constructive criticism better" (59%), and "have more discretion" (79%). Younger female attorneys under the age of 40 who expressed a gender preference, however, thought that "male supervisors give better direction" (58%), "give more constructive criticism" (56%), and "are better at keeping confidential information private" (64%).

How can these perception differences be explained?

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