Women at the top - still unpopular

Fear of the unknown, or just plain prejudice? Louise Jury asks why male bosses still come out on top in the popularity stakes

Women bosses are unpopular. Or at least, if you ask a thousand people whether they would prefer to work for one, the overwhelming majority wouldn't.

These may be the days of equal opportunities, women running top 100 FT-SE companies and the New Man, but none of these ideas appear to have affected thinking in the workplace.

In a survey for Pitman Training, the workplace skills training company, only 18 per cent of men, and an even smaller 14 per cent of women, said they preferred a woman boss. That means, given a choice, 84 per cent of staff plump for a man at the top. Even in the Midlands, the most female- friendly region in the country, just 21 per cent of employees preferred a woman in charge.

Dr David Lewis, the psychologist who carried out the research, said he was "absolutely amazed. I really don't understand it. It wasn't just a solid majority of men - it's the overwhelming majority of women as well."

Although the respondents were not asked whether they actually knew what it was like to work for a woman, Dr Lewis said clearly some of those questioned must have personal experience.

"I would have expected some people - the older, dyed in the wool people - wouldn't like working for a woman and would find it demeaning," he said. "But you would expect younger workers to be more laid-back."

Yet Mark Hastings, policy adviser at the Institute of Management, said their own research suggested that young people were the group that did have problems with women bosses. Under-34-year-old men and women were inclined to say they found it difficult to work for a woman (as were over- 55-year-old men). "But I think that could be something to do with being managed per se. A lot of young people don't like being managed," he said.

Yet in other regards, Mr Hastings said the Pitman findings were completely at odds with the Institute's data.

The Institute, which has one-fifth female membership, takes an interest in the question because it wants to encourage better management. It wants companies to exploit the best in their staff without saying that one sex "must be better" at anything in particular. "That would take us back down the road towards discrimination."

The Institute recently asked: "Would you find it difficult to work for a woman manager?" Ninety per cent of those questioned said no - 88 per cent of men and 93 per cent of women. Yet, 40 per cent of workers claimed there were differences between working for a man and a woman. "Difference does not mean better or worse," Mr Hastings observed. "The differences were in terms of communication and inter-personal skills, where women were rated more highly."

Some areas of employment have already utilised these "women's skills", he said. "If you look at personnel management and marketing where these skills are of vital importance, women managers account for nearly 50 per cent of managers."

Tricia Topping is an example of a successful woman manager in the communication business. She runs her own public relations company, TTA, and belongs to the City Women's Network of successful female professionals. She allowed one of her male account managers to do the talking.

Alexander Lawrie said he much preferred working for a woman. "You know exactly where you stand in terms of things like updates. With a male boss, it tends to be verbal and very brief and a lot of assumptions are just left in the air. With a female boss, if she gives a handover note, it's very comprehensive. There's no room for error."

He has found Tricia Topping more thoughtful than the men he worked for before, asking after his sick grandmother, supplying aspirins when he was under the weather. "I never had that from any of my male bosses. It seems like the woman's touch."

But a spokeswoman for Office Angels recruitment agency said they found most staff, whether temporary or permanent, never asked whether a boss was male or female. The criteria were normally whether the company was a large multi-national or a small family concern and what the immediate working conditions were like.

But they had noticed one trend - an increasing number of male secretaries who appeared to prefer working for women bosses.

"In the research we've done, people haven't commented on gender. They say they want to be treated as part of the team, they want to be made welcome and shown around and shown how things work," she said. "The real issue is, there are good bosses and there are bad bosses. Either you can handle people or you can't."

Dr David Lewis said the key to being a good boss was not gender, but consistency. "Older workers are more likely to put up with a more disciplinarian boss than younger workers, who like a more laissez-faire attitude. But what staff really hate is a boss who is easy-going one day and the next is having a crackdown so you never know what mood they're going to be in."

The managing director at his consultancy, Cynthia Hemming, thought very hard before coming up with her theory as to why women bosses were less popular. Listening to women who had worked for her, she suspected that it was easier to manipulate a male boss than a woman. "I've got a woman who works for me who says she got away with a lot more with a man. She said she could deceive her last boss. But she said I saw through things."

Yet at least one male manager, Chris Marshall, managing director of Pitman Training, was taking a long-term view. "It isn't really that long ago since all secretaries were male, prior to World War One," he said. "Offices are still very, very conservative. They're the bastions of the old guard."