Strategic sensitivity

This article, and the list following, are based on the qualitative doctoral research conducted by Mary Bendelow, PhD. Data-gathering involved interviews with women in supervisory, middle management, and high level management positions, additional interviews with their superiors and co-workers, and on-site observation of the women at work.

Managers who are men claim they spend more than 25 percent of their time involved in conflicts at work -- bargaining with peers, guiding subordinates, challenging bosses. Managers who are women are further challenged to prove their competence as team leaders and can, therefore, expect to spend even more of their time managing disputes.

How do women effectively handle conflicts at work? Do they "out-male" the men? No. Can the way women managers handle their conflicts affect their career progress? Yes.

During series of interviews I conducted with professional women in the Denver area, I found that success in conflict management involves the ability to balance feminine strengths with masculine skills -- the meta-skill I have labeled "strategic sensitivity."

Those interviewed included women at the levels of vice president, middle manager and manager, as well as some of their peers, subordinates and supervisors. they work in manufacturing, insurance, banking, and petroleum.

Building on feminine strengths. Some businesspeople assume that feminine and masculine traits are opposites, that an individual can exhibit one or the other but not both -- and that the male style prevails in the business world. For this reason, some women try to squash their intuition in favor of "cold, hard facts," they replace listening with talking, and they give up honest expressions of emotion for a stony-faced demeanor.

It just doesn't work. The women I studied who managed their conflicts -- and their careers -- successfully found ways to capitalize on their feminine strengths, an ability to listen, for example. Little girls are taught to be good listeners; successful women use this skill deliberately.

Women also tend to be responsive to others' personalities. In business, they are better able to consciously adjust presentations and approaches according to the personalities of those individuals with whom they are dealing.

Strategizing for effectiveness. The successful women I studied are able to strategize their approaches to individuals, to groups, and to situations. They deal with conflict in some of the following ways:

They are flexible -- for a purpose. Effective and less effective women both exhibit a responsiveness to others' feelings and preferences, but the latter are responsive out of habit and across the board while the former are responsive for a purpose. They make conscious choices about whose feelings they will respond to and whose they will not.

They appreciate politics, but are not controlled by them. The less effective women I studied either consider politics to be a dirty word and avoid it completely, or, they become so embroiled in politics that game-playing becomes the goal. The more successful women acknowledge that "politics is the way things get done," without over- or under-reacting to a given political situation.

They look at the larger picture. Too many women get so caught up in detail that they forget to place a particular incident in perspective. Successful women deal with conflict in the context of the department, the division and the organization. They look at the big picture and make their choices accordingly.

Lessons to be be learned. The more effective women with whom I talked have found out how to blend their sensitive behaviors with their strategic behaviors. They are very feminine; they also make hard choices and unpopular decisions. They listen carefully and supportively, and respond as appropriate to others' feelings and personalities. They are aware of and involved in organizational politics without being controlled by it. They keep their feminine strengths, add masculine skills and perspectives -- and are very successful both interpersonally and professionally.

*** this article first appeared in Network magazine, July/August 1985 ***

Want to know how managers who are women successfully handle their office conflicts? or how they don't? Check out the summary findings of doctoral research on women and conflict.