I hate to flog a dead horse about women in the workplace, but hey people, it's what's in the news these days. If it's in the news, it's because things still aren't changing. Now it's even worse because Corporate America has awoken the media beast, CNN, and now they're reporting it too!
Let me get to the point – Victoria Brescoll (a post-PhD scholar at Yale) recently completed a study of men and women and anger in the workplace.
The study came up with some pretty surprising results. For reasons I don't yet understand, angry men in the workplace are good; angry women in the workplace are "out of control". Indeed, the angry man made, on average, $8,000 more per year than the angry woman.
I strongly urge reading the article to get more specifics. But what it boils down to is a clear pattern of double standards in the workplace. What surprised me the most is that these attitudes were equally shared among men and women who participated in the study.
As the United States prepares for presidential elections next year, it's interesting to see how these attitudes will affect Ms. Clinton or if she's able to transcend pre-conceived notions of women in the workplace.
Frankly, the notion of angry colleagues is never a positive in my book; working with an angry irrational colleague (regardless of their sex) is hardly something that motivates me to give my all. There are more than enough alpha males in the workplace - I don't really need to see more of even alpha females to compete.
Still, it would be nice to see professional advancement based on merit rather than emotional temperament.
As far as anger in the workplace and how it affects the efficiency of men and women, an angry man is probably angry becuase something has gotten out of his control. Show me an efficient, reliable woman in the workplace that doesn't have a SOUND reason to be angry!!
Yes it's true that any employee (man or woman) must leave their personal life at the door when they walk into work, but sometimes the problem causing the distress is work related and leaving it at the door on the way OUT is the only option.
What do you think?