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If you’ve recently been brought into a new company as upper management, been promoted within the company you already worked for as the boss, or started your own company, you may just be thinking about how excited you are, how proud of yourself you are, and what a difference you’re going to make in this place. You can’t wait to show your employees what a great boss you are, how much you care about their career paths, and how well you will consider the needs of everyone to make this the greatest possible work environment. And then you may discover one unfortunate and unexpected thing: some of your male employees don’t appreciate having a female boss.
Employees may resent you for many reasons—one being you’re basically their age—but the male ego can be particularly fragile. If a man goes for an opportunity, and another man gets it instead, the first guy might think things like, “Well, he was a worthy adversary,” or “The better man won.” But if a woman beats him out for that same opportunity, he may think, “What the f*&k? Well. I must just suck. That’s the only way a woman would have gotten that.” Or he may think, “She got it because she’s a woman—it’s the diversity play.” Oh, you know men can think like this. You see it and hear it all of the time.
I’m not saying all men are like that, but if even one of your male employees thinks like that, you’re going to have a hell of a time with him. Some men just don’t take well to having a woman tell them what to do. It’s incredibly stupid, and you shouldn’t have to tolerate it. If you do discover you have a bad egg in the batch who resents your gender, you may need to have a serious talk with him…or just let him go. Here are signs your male employee resents having a female boss.
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He’s nicer to his male colleagues
Maybe he doesn’t necessarily take a mean tone with you, but he’s clearly cheerier towards his male colleagues than he is towards you. With them, it’s all smiles, it’s, “How’s it going.” He’s pleasant and agreeable. With you, it’s all business. He drops all of the niceties, and just speaks to you like a robot.
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And the male customers
He’s also much nicer to the male customers or clients than he is to you. Again, he may not be disrespectful in tone to you, but you don’t get any of the overt friendliness that the male customers get. It’s almost like he’s trying to punish you for something…for being a woman?
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There’s a lot of eye rolling
You notice it, just out of the corner of your eye. You see this employee rolling his eyes after you give him orders. He always stops just in time. He also does this right after the rare times he actually uses a very sweet tone with you. Basically, he’s pulling a fast one on you, disarming you with a nice town before disrespecting you behind your back.
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He treats you like a mother
He brings all of his personal problems to you. He’ll slack off at work, and when you point it out, he’ll come into your office, slump into a chair, and then vent that he’s in a fight with his girlfriend or roommate or something. As if you’re his therapist. It’s manipulative because, he’s trying to have an excuse for doing a bad job and appeal to your female empathy.
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He even snitches on the others
He tells on his colleagues—he snitches, to you. He is essentially making you work out his drama for him, with his coworkers. And he thinks you’ll help with this because he sees you more as a mommy than a professional contact. He’d never do that with a male boss.
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But you aren’t allowed to have feelings
Even though your male employees come crying to you with all of their personal problems, you feel that you are never allowed to show a feeling. You can sense them judging you if you’re just a little off one day due to personal issues. They hold you up to this impossible standard of never having emotions.
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If you do, it must be woman problems
And if you do show emotions, they accuse it of being woman problems. It must be a fight with your boyfriend. Or hormones. The employee insinuates that being emotional is purely a female thing so this must be related to one of your feminine weaknesses.
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No eye contact during disciplinary moments
When you must discipline this employee because he makes a mistake or is being disrespectful, he won’t make eye contact with you. He acts as if it isn’t happening. If he resents having a female boss, he’ll especially resent it when you lay down the law with him and may not look at you.
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He takes unauthorized initiatives
He makes decisions for the business that are not his right to make. If you own a restaurant, for example, and you’ve always put place settings on the tables, ready for customers, one day, you come in to find your employee has put them in a box by the cashier, where customers have to get them themselves. “It saves us time,” he says, authoritatively. But that’s not his call to make.
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He speaks to you like you’re dumb
When you ask him why he did something a certain way, he explains his reasoning to you as if he’s speaking to a toddler. But just because he had good reason to do things the way he did, doesn’t mean there’s ever a good reason to speak to a boss like that.
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He defers to someone who isn’t you
When he has a question that you could absolutely answer for him, you see him instead ask…his male colleague. Or a lower manager, who answers to you, who happens to be male. You try to step in and just answer the question, but your employee clearly prefers a male respond.
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They tease your partner
If you have a partner, when he stops by the office, your male employee teases him, making comments like, “Does she boss you around at home, too?” or “Oooh. It’s another one of the men she has whipped.” This employee seems to think he can commiserate with your partner about having you in his life.
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They throw a fuss if they don’t get their way
When your employee asks to leave early for the day, asks for time off, asks if you’ll hire his friend, or asks for some favor, and you can’t give it to him, he throws a fuss. He has a bad attitude the rest of the day. He’s cold and dismissive. Do you think he’d do that to a male boss who told him no?
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They nearly sexually harass you
He doesn’t quite, but he makes little comments about your outfit being flattering or about a customer coming in because you’re pretty. It’s actually very inappropriate coming from a male employee. But he purposefully doesn’t fully cross the line so you can’t get mad at him (but you can).
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They only go above and beyond for men
This employee will go above and beyond for a male coworker, covering his shift, or taking time to train him. He’ll go above and beyond for male customers, or other bosses who happen to be male. But for you, he’ll only fulfill his base level requirements and nothing more.
