Do women need to be “superwomen” to break through the glass ceiling?

In most cases, company workers expect to be led by a boss with masculine values, says Appelbaum.

However, when women adopt a masculine model of management, her employees may not expect nor appreciate it.

“So male workers will use this famous word: ‘She’s a bitch,’” Appelbaum says. “You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.”

Women are stuck in a paradox of management skills; many books about the successful superwoman, including Sandberg’s, advise women to take a stand and be assertive. Once women become too assertive, however, they risk losing respect from workers.

In reality, the Harvard Business Review has shown that workers of both genders prefer to be led by a feminine approach to management.

Appelbaum’s research agrees with HBR’s findings. “[Workers] really like having people who manage them and are more feminine than they are masculine; people who have relationship skills instead of task skills,” he says.

“The female style of leadership is much more effective than the authoritarian masculine style that worked 20 to 25 years ago.”

And yet, women are constantly bouncing off of the glass ceiling under top management positions. Appelbaum attributes this problem to the evaluative process used for hiring and promotion within large companies.

“Women are assessed much more critically than men are because [people] are not sure that they have what it takes… It becomes demotivating, and that’s one of the real issues,” he says.

It seems that demotivation may convince women that there is no longer a need for feminism, even when the business world has not yet reached gender equality.

“At the current rate, we won’t see gender equality in the boardroom until 2081,” Appelbaum says.

Viviane Fairbank is a writer, photographer, and willing university student, desperately waiting to travel around the world. She can be found at http://vivianefairbank.weebly.com.

Photo courtesy to utah.edu & forum.hardwarezone.org