Bossy Girls Lead to Great Female Executives

When I was little, my parents used to complain about my approach and style - to the point that they often told me that I was being bossy. This was such a frequent occurrence in my house that one year in high school, my mom gave me a little wall sign as a joke (I think?) that said "I'm not bossy, I just have better ideas." 

It was frustrating to me at the time, because I DID have better ideas (I'm joking, I think). 

In all honesty, I had some personal challenges at home that probably led to me being more assertive (or as my parents called me, bossy), including a really loving mom who struggled with alcoholism and probably ADD, which led to me needing to take charge of personal details like scheduling doctor's appointments, hair appointments, getting school supplies, etc. at a fairly young age (like in elementary school). As I have since learned in therapy and through attending family therapy at my mom's alcohol rehab, a fairly common reaction for children of alcoholics is to focus on creating structure in their own lives; as it turns out, this is a much used skill for me at work and has helped me be really good at creating structure in unstructured problems - which I would say is probably 90% of what I do on a day to day basis.

I say all of this because I was listening to a podcast recently by Dr. Becky (my parenting guru, more or less), called "Rethinking Bossy," that resonated with me on a really, really deep level. I am going to quote how she opened the podcast:

"I've received so many voicemails from you about this topic and here's something really interesting: every single one of them described a daughter as bossy. I haven't received on voicemail that described a son as bossy or really struggling on how to help a male child with this trait. I'm not going to solve the gendered expectations around daughters and sons: who's allowed to have strong opinions, who's allowed to speak up, who's allowed to be a leader, who's allowed to be inflexible and prioritize what they want over social relationships; but before we get into the episode, I feel like I would be missing something if I didn't name that gender expectations are certainly in play and let's think about how we can help all of our kids honor their ideas, believe in themselves, speak up for what they want, and figure out how to manage that alongside respecting other people and developing meaningful interpersonal relationships."

I was absolutely struck by this. 

Because I heard that I was bossy from my parents in a generally negative or frustrated way, it took me a while to find comfort at work in assertiveness. For a long time, one of my crutches at work when challenging my peers was "can you help me understand xyz" because it was an indirect way of challenging someone's idea. However, as I have progressed, I have received feedback that the style I was using is no longer effective style - and that as I grow as a leader, I need to be comfortable more directly challenging things or stating my opinion. 

I still work on my own best way to do this and am still figuring out the right style for me. It is important to me to have meaningful interpersonal relationships at work and be respectful and so the right balance of directness, tone, and respect is something that I am constantly thinking about and evaluating for myself. For me, I've found that if I don't feel like I've gotten my tone quite right, I try to address it with the person directly and often, I'm more self-conscious of my tone than others interpret.

In addition to working on my own style, I think a lot about the parent I want to be for my children and the children I want to raise. And, I think many parents think about those things in the context of what they loved or didn't love in their own childhood - and often, we swing the pendulum in the other direction. But, I know that for all three of my children, including my daughter, I want them to have strong opinions, speak up for what they think is right, and I WANT them to be inflexible if they do not think something is right. 

And, if I think about what I want in leaders on my team (or what I want for myself), I want those same things.

As a parent though, that can be challenging because with young children, the things that they take a stand on can be irrational. Or, rational, but from their lens. For example, this morning, my husband was working from home, which he doesn't normally do, and he was on a work call. Normally, when my husband leaves for work, he gives the kids a hug and a kiss. This morning, he walked upstairs and got on his call. Jack wanted to give Johnny a hug, and had a complete meltdown when I told him that Johnny wasn't available ("No! HE IS AVAILABLE!"). In reflecting on this, Jack was right and I was right. Johnny WAS available to Jack in a way that he isn't normally when he is at the office. And, Jack couldn't hug Johnny at that moment. 

So, the challenge as a parent is how do you honor their strong opinions or acknowledge what's right in what they are saying while helping explain the logic based on a situation where you can see more of the details than they can at that moment.

And, isn't it funny that same challenge that I have with my 3 year old is probably a good challenge for myself - honoring my own strong opinions but looking to see where I'm missing data or context that could better inform my opinions.

The net of it is for me - if I think about many of the skills that made me "bossy" as a kid, they are the same skills that make me a good leader: I am structured. I evaluate data and make quick decisions. I'm confident in my decisions. I am able to communicate my decisions.  So, the challenge to myself is to continue to look for more data to improve the way I think about those decisions.