emory. Whether this tendency is due to a lack of familiarity with personnel practices or is gender-based is not clear.
The vice-president in charge of custom projects has a particularly aggressive personality; one of his subordinates (a woman) refers to him as "blustery." This individual will yell at his subordinates when they inform him that a deadline will be missed, and he has difficulty accepting responsibility for negative performance within his department, although he is perceived as being quick to accept credit for the success of his underlings. He is perceived as being difficult to speak with, and a number of employees who have worked for him in the past have transferred to other departments at far higher rates than elsewhere in the organization.
The women who work for this individual find him "generally sexist" in day-to-day situations, and they also tend to think that they will not receive promotions while working for him. In fact, all of his lead programmers are male. These women note that he will compliment them on their dress, but not their male counterparts, or that he will touch their shoulders or arms while speaking with them. While none of the women consider this inappropriate or harassment, they do note that it does not happen with his male employees and they find it generally patronizing.
The experiences of this organization are not significantly different than the experiences of many organizations where men and women interact as manager and subordinate. Male managers are perceived as being more autocratic than female managers, and women are perceived as being more likely to build consensus within their organizations than men. These are generalizations, of course, and there are exceptions to both of these ideas, but the overall perception and expectation of subordinates may help influence the particular style which a manager adopts in a particular organization (Gordon & Whelan, 1998, p. 9).
The o...