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10 Life Lessons I Learned From Working for Women
In 20 years, I’ve had almost all women bosses. Here’s what I’ve learned (so far).
Somehow, thanks to magic or fate or luck or all three, I have worked for over 20 years without ever taking a job that didn’t report to a woman.
To be clear and fair, there were some jobs where I reported to two bosses and one was female and the other male. And in the most recent in-an-office-at-a-desk job I held, a man became a manager after my original boss left.
But those are small exceptions. Everyone who’s ever hired me has been a woman. And for the most part, my two decades in the workforce have been shaped by women. Here are 10 things they’ve taught me.
The boss: My mother
The lesson: You get what you want by gentle pressure, relentlessly applied
I didn’t work for her, of course, but I was raised by a working mother who came up in a male-dominated field through the ’80s and ’90s. She had a huge influence on me — and on hundreds of people who worked for and with her. Throughout her career, “gentle pressure, relentlessly applied” was one of her mantras. It was also her secret ninja skill.
