Doctoral research results

As women rise in the organizational hierarchy, they exhibit:

• increased political awareness and orientation;
• increased flexibility in conflict choice-making;
• increased sensitivity to others' personality and preferences, especially those of the boss;
• a stronger orientation towards the team;
• more unqualified assertiveness;
• fewer "hot buttons" around competency, affection, and self-esteem issues;
• skills in capitalizing on marginality;
• greater comfort with their own power;
• an increased ability to separate the interpersonal from the professional dimensions of relationships.

Women less effective in managing conflicts limit themselves through:

• denial of marginality;
• lack of skill in handling relational issues;
• focus on short rather than long term;
• choice of personally preferred rather than strategically wise approaches;
• automatic reactions to women, emotions, and lack of professionalism;
• denial rather than use of their strengths and advantages as women;
• control by, rather than of, their interpersonal needs;
• inability to step out of their double binds.

Women more effective in managing their conflicts:

• adapt to others' personalities and preferences;
• persist with superiors balanced while acknowledging the limits of such persistence;
• balance interpersonal with role considerations;
• capitalize on women's strengths and the advantages of marginality
• use varied strategic approaches, appropriately;
• look at the broader picture in making choices;
• have a clear focus on their goals;
• employ strategic flexibility.

Implications for Women Professionals

• Women need to acknowledge their marginality in order to capitalize on it. Through their denial, the women studied here limited their options and set themselves up for immobilizing double binds.
• Women need to find and to be female mentors if women are to develop their own styles and use their own skills in management. Male mentors are useful only to a point; beyond that, women tend to identify more with males than with females, and to give up some of their feminine strengths.
• Women need to develop political orientations towards their organizational relationships.
• Women need to combine the skills and strengths of men and women, rather than denying one to emulate the other.b
• Women need to become comfortable with their own power as they attain higher positions of authority. Those women in this study who were comfortable with their power had greater flexibility in making strategic choices, and demonstrated a greater sense of fit in their environments than did those uncomfortable in wielding power.
• Women need to develop a sense of teamness, of interconnectedness with others. Those here who felt particularly isolated in their positions escalated conflicts too often and with little positive effect.
• Women need to be appreciative of and adept at strategic flexibility in organizational conflicts. Those women who were the most flexible were the most effective. And those women who were the most strategic, choice-making rather than reactive, also were particularly effective.

copyright © 1984. Mary M. Bendelow, PhD. All rights reserved.