If you’re anything like I am, you’re already predisposed to roll your eyes at national campaigns to overhaul much of anything about the behavior of children—their diets, their games, their speech, their self-esteem. It’s not that these campaigns are bad, generally speaking. It’s just that they over-complicate what is a fundamentally simple, if difficult and exhausting, task: a) don’t let your child be a jerk with impunity; b) provide decent food and sleeping hours; and c) don’t give in to their complaints. Like a diet craze that promises you’ll shed 15 lbs without lifting a finger, these campaigns tend to disguise the hard work of child-rearing under the panacea of a slogan.

But sometimes the campaigns actually are bad. And now I am thinking of Sheryl Sandberg’s recent missive about bossy girls. The strangest thing about the anti-bossy campaign is that it isn’t a campaign against being pushy and overbearing. It’s a campaign in favor of being pushy and overbearing. It is no great exaggeration to say that Sandberg has embarked on the world’s first pro-bullying effort.

That’s right, bossy girls are often bullies. They force other little girls to play the games they want, accept the roles they choose, and live under the specter of having to endure the bossy girl’s pique or her loud-mouthed displeasure or, worse yet, being cast into the social outer darkness.

As I wrote in response to Ms. Sandberg’s carpet-bomb email.

Sheryl,

Thanks for your note. As the father of a girl who sometimes gets pushed around at school by the bossy girl, I’m afraid I reserve my right to continued use of the term. Also, “brat” and the ever-popular “bully.” Oh, and in deference to the charming parlance of my Philly relatives, “smacked ass,” as in “what a smacked ass he is.”

Come to think of it, there are many things we call pushy and selfish little boys and girls besides “bossy” and “leader.” (I somehow neglected “jerky” and “piggish.”) Thank God for this richness of the English language and our ability, if waning, to use it to reinforce good behavior and dissuade the bad.

Rest assured, I am committed to empowering my daughter to use it to its fullest effect.

Best regards,

James Albrecht

I do get the point: we use language asymmetrically between the sexes, and sometimes in a way that is deflating to the aspirations of girls. And I would happily accord with some other diktat; say, that from now on pushy boys are called bossy while pushy girls are called hellers. But there is an undertone in Sandberg’s Lean In campaign that regularly reminds us that the divide between the sexes is only one of the chasms in this landscape. The other is class. As one of Sandberg’s celebrity co-conspirators in the anti-bossy effort said: “I’m not bossy, I’m the boss.” Well, based on the available evidence, I’m pretty sure you’re both.

Mark Zuckerberg (Sandberg’s boss), infamously used the hacker entrepreneur equivalent: “I’m the CEO, bitch.” Each of these is as understandably raised in a situation of real duress—the hacker bro at the hands of predatory VCs, the executive woman at the hands of a sexist society—as it is uncomfortably full of self-regard. These phrases chart the familiar course of the oppressed to the oppressor. They pushed me around, and the sign of my victory is that I will push other people around, and my tribe will be able to do the same with impunity.

But the phrases are wielded by people who won, not by leaning in or being bossy, but by dint of great talent and massive doses of luck. That’s right. These are billionaires and the friends of billionaires, which means, in effect, lottery winners. Taking their advice seriously is like taking investment advice from a guy who spends all his disposable income at the quickie mart.

The fact is this: being bossy is neither part of the talent nor of the luck. It’s orthogonal. And it’s irritating.

I worked with two women at a well known internet company in the 90s. One of them was exceptionally smart, a good leader, thoughtful and considerate. She had no problem contributing her viewpoint in meetings, was not shy, yet was relentlessly polite and respectful. No one, male or female, suffered any blindness about her enormous talent and she rose to a high level in the company. Years later she had children, took an interesting job at a non profit and never became the master of the universe that she almost certainly could have been. The fact is that not being bossy gave her two great options in life—1) to truly rise to the top of her profession and 2) to live a normal life without the need to rule the world.

The other person I am thinking of was basically the poster child for the bossy girl. She was also smart, but acted far smarter than she was. And she was unpleasant. She used information as a weapon, actively trying to undermine others if they did not accord with her wishes. She, too, despite continuing to strive, failed to have the executive career that, by listening to the anti-bossy campaign, one imagines she must have richly deserved. She didn’t. People didn’t like working with her. Her talent was not enhanced by bossiness; it was ruined by it. Nothing you can do to the language will solve this problem. It’s a failure of collegiality—one which, had she been educated in the art earlier on, she might have avoided.

Leadership is not just assertiveness. It’s also vision, equanimity, calm under fire, and yes, talent. Leaders don’t just brow-beat you into submission; they inspire you to follow them. People want to follow a woman they admire, one who understands their concerns, listens to their ideas and has sufficient capacity for self-effacement that sharing credit is at least a possibility.

Without a doubt, there are places where men and women who lack these virtues have snaked their way into positions of power. It is almost a fact of evolution that narcissistic assholes will find a way to exploit any system. But this is a problem to overcome where possible and to lament where not; by no means is it a value to instill in our children.

We all know that the world is not suffering a deficit of bossy people, male or female. “Ban Bossy” is just the fad diet of gender equality. Meanwhile, the world needs better parental leave options, tax policies that value the work parents do in the home, better schools and educational opportunities—the hard work of fixing inequality and sexism—and less glorification of billionaires and bosses and their self-satisfied bombast. Hasn’t Ayn Rand done enough damage already?