Have middle-aged men got a problem working for women?
Eir Nolsoe
6 min read
Sharon White, chair of John Lewis Partnership Plc, speaks during a panel debate at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) 2022 Annual Conference in Birmingham, UK, on Monday, Nov. 21, 2022. Tony Danker, Director-General of the CBI, the country's biggest business lobby, told the BBC that the chancellor will need to come back with more measures to stimulate growth. Photographer: Darren Staples/Bloomberg - Darren Staples/Bloomberg
Britain was hailed as “a world-leader for women’s representation” in business by the Government, after figures published in February showed that a third of senior leaders in FTES 350 companies are now female.
Yet despite the success of a concerted effort to promote women, many still face resistance when they get to the top.
John Lewis chairman Dame Sharon White last week claimed that she struggles to find men who will work for women.
Dame Sharon said she has found it “quite hard to recruit men” as she tries to shift the retailer away from what she called a masculine “command and control” culture.
In fact, not only are men reluctant to work for her, she has received complaints about the gender balance.
Dame Sharon told the audience at an International Women’s Day event: "I definitely had emails saying, oh my goodness, there are too many [women].”
Her experience begs the question: do men struggle to work for female bosses?
“There's a sense that middle-aged men tend to do a bit of mansplaining or still think that they are superior in some way or know more,” says Octavius Black CBE, chief executive of MindGym, which helps companies with corporate culture. “So even though the woman may be their boss, they may act in ways that suggest their level of authority is higher.”
Experts say that even after huge improvements in gender equality in boardrooms, male-dominant cultures still persist and can be even more difficult to address. This can prove difficult for women in positions of authority, who can find themselves butting heads with more junior men who think they know better.
“I wish I'd been quick enough to say: why are you hiring so many men in your leadership team?”
Ms Beale was at the helm of the insurance market for five years before stepping down in 2018 and made diversifying the famously male-dominated organisation a key priority.
Dame Inga Beale, the first female CEO of insurance market Lloyd’s of London, made diversifying the famously male-dominated organisation a key priority. She stepped down in 2018. - Simon Dawson/Bloomberg
However, Dame Inga admits that early in her career before joining Lloyd's she tried to make herself more masculine to fit in.
"I was working in a very male world,” she says. "I started to behave like the men and I wanted to be one of them. I wanted to be one of the boys because I so didn't want to be different."
She believes attitudes have largely changed now, so is “disappointed” to hear “these things are still happening, as they clearly are”.
“I was just hoping that we'd moved on from that,” she adds.
Stories of casual sexism in male dominated industries like finance are depressingly common.
“I’ve had comments made about my ability or comments made around women not wanting a career after having children, or women not really being [cut] out to be on boards,” says Ylva Oertengren, who has two decades of experience in finance.
“Those are attitudes that you find all throughout society and therefore also in boardrooms, unfortunately.”
Women trying to assert themselves in the workplace can find these deep seated attitudes undermine their authority. To make matters worse, it can be lonely at the top.
Oertengren, who is now the co-founder of business lender Simply Asset Finance, says: “I think I've only had one female boss throughout my entire career and in any board scenario that I've been part of I’ve distinctively been in the minority.”
She adds however that she has not encountered men reluctant to work or take orders from her.
Christine Lagarde, the head of the European Central Bank, recently lamented that it was “always disappointing” to be one of the only women in the room.
Lagarde, who is one of the world’s most powerful female policymakers, is one of only two women in the 26-member Governing Council that decides interest rates for the eurozone.
Change of office ceremony of the Bundesbank From left to right: Claudia Buch, Christian Lindner Joachim Nagel, Christine Lagarde and Jens Weidmann before the change of office ceremony at the Bundesbank (Photo Nils Thies) - Nils Thies/Bundesbank
Typically, middle aged men are derided for lacking social awareness in a modern world and can be blamed for holding back progress.
However, some female leaders say male mentors have in fact helped them progress in their careers.
Angela Wakelin, chief operating officer of the digital bank Kroo, has spent decades in senior banking roles in organisations like NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Shawbrook Bank.
She says: “I can’t deny that it certainly helped to have strong sponsorship from a more senior colleague, who happened to be male. This is something I now try to pay back with my own sponsorship of colleagues who are looking to progress their career path.”
Wakelin adds: “In the early days of my career, I certainly experienced some ‘outdated’ perceptions of hiring and promoting women, largely linked to the ‘risk of them leaving when they have children’. Thankfully, it’s been a long time since I have heard this sort of narrow-mindedness.”
Black, of MindGym, is sceptical of claims that men today are reluctant to work for women.
“I have to say I really have not seen this at all,” he says. “My experience of men not wanting to work for women is that when it existed it was a long time ago and I really don't see it happening now.”
He adds: "What you find is not that the men are bothered by having a woman as a boss, but they treat them differently than they might treat male bosses. And that can be tricky for female bosses who may rather not have more middle-aged men with those sorts of attitudes around them.”
Whatever the case, women should not be put off in striving for senior jobs, says Oertengren.
“One thing I would say is from experience - and I do have a lot of experience being a minority in terms of gender at board level - is that it should not put anyone off for applying or for seeking a job or position, because it actually works out fine."
