Well it’s a real shame women feel they would be perceived that way or even would need to behave that way to succeed in leadership roles. That’s why I would question the culture and the bias towards a more traditionally “male” style of leadership.
That does not, however, mean erasing men or any traditionally “male” traits from the boardroom in order to accommodate different leadership styles. I’ve worked under female bosses that I would have described as more “male” in style and men who are a lot more soft skills-oriented than the polarized debate would suggest male managers are. So I believe plurality in the boardroom would also benefit men and challenge accepted notions of what good leadership looks like.
I think women’s anger at poor workplace cultures has in some ways been misrepresented as anger at men in general. It is possibly anger at male dominance, but that’s a cultural issue and in many ways that’s not men’s fault — of course if the dominant discourse mostly benefits them, they will thrive better within it and possibly any challenge to that would be seen as a threat to their workplace success. That makes sense. The question is how to a) get rid of the worst excesses of “bro culture” that exist in some companies (not all) and b) make room for other discourses and work/leadership styles without discounting the good bits of what’s already there.
I for one don’t want a rigid PC culture — nobody wants to tread on eggshells all day at work, but I would like to be treated as a genuine equal. I worked in one tech company where the last vestiges of sexism were being driven out and I was supported by male colleagues in challenging disrespectful and sexist shit I didn’t like in my project meetings, but I also worked in two other places where to challenge that was to put your career at risk. At the former we still had fun, but it was understood that if you said something that was blatantly sexist or inappropriate (like asking a female project manager to come sit on your knee, as one engineer did with me) a woman had every right to call your ass out and your male colleagues wouldn’t even try and back you up. That worked far better than a HR driven PC culture IMO, because the unreconstructed sexists either shut up or left if they really couldn’t handle the change. In the other two companies, the old boys’ culture meant it was hard, if not impossible, to challenge sexism, so you either left or you took it to HR, which it just wasn’t worth doing for the grief you’d get and the fact that your career would stall, once you’d made a complaint you’d never progress.
