28 May, 2014

What happened to Jill Abramson shows everything that sucks about being a woman leader - Vox

What happened to Jill Abramson shows everything that sucks about being a woman leader - Vox: That echoes reports that Abramson's brusque leadership style clashed with leadership and reporters alike (criticisms that are near impossible to read as non-gendered, particularly in the news world, where pushiness is often seen as a virtue in men). In a controversial 2013 piece in Politico, Dylan Byers wrote: "At times, [staffers] say, her attitude toward editors and reporters leaves everyone feeling demoralized; on other occasions, she can seem disengaged or uncaring."

But a look at the examples he gave shows just how gendered these discussions can get. In one instance, Abramson reportedly ordered an editor to leave a meeting to change a stale photo on the newspaper's homepage. That was played in the article as proof of Abramson's brusque, demoralizing style.



But compare that to this anecdote about how Tim Cook, head of Apple, dealt with a manufacturing problem in China:

"This is really bad," Cook told the group. "Someone should be in China driving this." Thirty minutes into that meeting Cook looked at Sabih Khan, a key operations executive, and abruptly asked, without a trace of emotion, "Why are you still here?"