Have you been wondering lately how to deal with a difficult female boss?
Dealing with a difficult boss is already one enormous challenge and if that boss is a female, it’s just icing on the cake since it will only add to the challenges due to added complex dynamics of gender differences.
You might have been facing a harsh time from your female boss already and are worried about it.
But you don’t have to. There is always a code to break through. You just need a good strategy.
Well, in your case you got lucky, as we will help you devise one.
You will not learn how to handle your difficult female boss effectively, but uncover in depth why a female boss is difficult to deal with.
So, without wasting any time, let’s get going.
Why Female Boss Is Difficult to Get Along
It is more challenging to deal with a difficult female boss than her male counterpart and here’s why.
We have been seeing males in the managerial position for quite a long.
Even throughout centuries, the world has been observing males handling authoritative positions. This makes dealing with male bosses somewhat predictable, as we would have been hearing such experiences from our relatives or friends.
But dealing with a female boss is a completely different story. It shifts the dynamic around. First, it’s something you are not familiar with and hence not prepared to interact with them effectively.
Secondly, for some people, the gender difference increases the tension between you and your female. Your freedom to express yourself and your work gets a hit and your options become limited.
According to research, males and females handle conflict differently. Their ways of planning, executing, or responding are quite different.
When you have no clue how to respond to your female in some situations, you are very likely to make matters worse and even get into trouble.
You may do or say something which might be right for the male standards but will offend the female boss and escalate the situation.
And let’s not forget that males are hypersensitive to any hint of aggression and may perceive a particular action of your female boss as a sign of belittlement while it’s actually not.
How Are Women’s Brains Wired?
Now let’s have a deeper look into why it’s challenging to deal with a difficult female boss.
Our brains are divided into two hemispheres, the left and right.
The left side is responsible for rational thinking, facts, or logic, while the right one is more on the poetic side. It focuses on creativity, intuition, and visualization.
According to the research of Columbia University, men predominantly use one side of the brain, either the left or right side. But women tend to use both together.
That’s the reason women are better at multi-tasking and using emotions effectively in their interpersonal matters.
However, this can also push things to go into a grey area due to frequent processing between the left and right hemispheres. It can be a powerful reason to rise the conflict due to different preference styles of brain functionality and make it challenging to handle a female boss.
We’ve written an extensive guide on how to impress a difficult boss. It’s not for a female boss in particular but you can still benefit from it.
How To Deal with A Difficult Female Boss
You would have got a good understanding of the structure and functioning of the female brain by now. Let’s move towards the strategies you can implement right away to deal with a difficult female boss effectively.
1. Bring Your Emotional Side
It’s no secret that women navigate emotions better than men.
According to statistics, women score higher on emotional intelligence than men. They tend to exhibit the emotional side more often and communicate emotions more effectively than men do.
Their decisions and day-to-day affairs have a high involvement of emotions.
Females having high emotional ability can be seen from the graph below.
All these things are hints that you’ll have a much easier time connecting with your female boss if you introduce emotions in your dealings with her.
We are not asking you to let your emotions overwhelm and throw tantrums. But try not to be someone who wears a grim on his face all the time.
When interacting with your female boss, try to keep matters light and introduce some humor to your talk.
It will help you build a rapport with your boss, pacify your situation and ease the tension.
2. Practice Empathy
Empathy is a factor that can make or break a situation. It can greatly improve the working relationship between you and your female boss.
It’s a no-brainer that we like to be around people who are warm, compassionate, and caring. The need for empathy is even more high in the current times when self-obsession and narcissism are all-time high.
Not only this but according to research, females are more empathic than men and considers the situation of others more in-depth than their male counterpart when dealing with them.
Females having high empathy can be seen from the graph below.
To deal with a difficult female boss with keeping things healthy, you can make good use of empathy.
Incorporating empathy in your arsenal can make your situation with your female boss a lot better due to two reasons.
Firstly, empathy itself will help you forge a strong bond with your female boss and make the situation easier for you.
Secondly, since women are more empathic than men so incorporating empathy will give her a sense of familiarity. And as we like people who are familiar to us, your female boss can’t help but list you down in her good books.
3. Understand Her Perspective:
The reason most people struggle to get along with the other person is by failing to understand their perspective.
When you don’t really know where the other person is coming from, you are very likely to indulge in misunderstandings. It gives a breeding ground to all sorts of biases and prejudices, which makes the situation even worse.
Therefore, it is crucial to understand the perspective of the other when it comes to forging strong bonds and your female boss is no different.
Miscommunication is 22% responsible for conflict at work as shown in the chart below.
Learn to view situations from multiple angles. It will help you a lot to deal with a difficult female boss.
You will see through different sorts of challenges she might be going through and assess her behavior accordingly.
You will realize that your female boss’ behavior towards you is nothing personal but due to certain circumstances.
4. Don’t Be So Soft–Be Assertive
Ever wondered why a waiter at the restaurant or guard down your street receives rude treatment from time to time?
It’s actually science.
We humans, whether men or women, are always on the lookout to exercise authority and feel our power. However, you just can’t behave authoritatively everywhere without getting in trouble.
But those who are very desperate for power show shift their focus towards people who don’t have much power over them. They will act rudely, misbehave or be critical whenever they get a chance.
If you are someone who appears soft, it will make you a very easy target for your boss, whether male or female.
Therefore, be firm in your words, actions, and behavior, and act assertively. It will signal to your female boss you are someone who can take care of himself and not someone to mess with.
5. Seek Common Interest
Excellent moves are subtle, and nothing is subtler than seeking a common interest with your female boss to forge a strong bond.
What makes this idea so widely applicable is we humans are bound to like those who appear familiar to us.
We can’t help but feel drawn to the people who share our nature, habits, and interests.
That’s why people who go foreign and meet new people there suddenly feel compelled to befriend those who belong to their country.
Why?
Because it gives them a sense of familiarity.
To deal with a difficult female boss, seeking common interests can work wonders.
It will enable you to forge a strong bond with your female boss and pacify her behavior toward you. You will make your working environment healthier and more productive.
6. Refrain From Comparison
You must have heard about it that females are more competitive with their peers in aspects like career, life opportunities, and even physical looks.
It is not only an old wives’ tale but proven by research.
So if you are stupid enough to bring up some comparison of any sort with your female, it’s very likely to trigger a competitive instinct in her. But hey! She’s not going to show it directly but will be very subtle in her approach.
According to the research above, women when triggered by competitiveness will resort to things like nosiness, sabotaging or even discrediting. And you don’t want your female boss to do that. Right?
Though the research is only limited to women competing with other women, the essence with men will be the same since that’s how women’s brains are wired and you just can’t turn it off on your choice.
Now you would have known why you should think twice before bringing up any sort of comparison in front of your female boss.
Conclusion
This brings us to the end of the article.
We hope you would have got an idea of how to deal with a difficult female boss.
Well, conflicts are bound to happen between employees and their bosses and are part of life.
However, the situation becomes even more challenging when your boss is female since now you not only have to deal with the power dynamics of the workplace but also the complex dynamics due to gender differences.
Most people tend to get upset when things don’t feel to be in control and even quit their job without going to the root of the problem.
But you should know that there are ways that you can use to make your situation better with your female boss without quitting your job.
That remains an option too but you should only resort to that too once you’ve exhausted all your options. However, that’s a rare case and the strategies will help you improve your situation drastically.
So, which strategy do you think is going to be the most effective for you?
Have you ever encountered a situation where you had to deal with a difficult female boss? Let us know in the comments below!
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