The Golden Triangle: Relationships, Power, and Self-Esteem

In the Company of Women
by Pat Heim, Ph.D., Susan Murphy, Ph.D.

Two leading experts on gender issues in the workplace describe how indirect aggression among women undermines their professional and personal success, and explain how to change conflict into cooperation.

In the Company of Women explains how indirect, or "relational," aggression can hurt women and hinder them from achieving success and harmony in their adult lives. Gender studies have shown that when a goal is in sight, men generally use direct action to attain it. Women, on the other hand, have been socialized to express aggressive actions through indirect means-using behavior such as shunning, stigmatizing, and with startling insights into the meaning of our everyday behavior, this book offers straightforward techniques to change conflict among women into cooperation by resolving discords peaceably, building relationships, and making the most of women's unique leadership and communication skills.

Chapter 1

Relationships

It has become almost axiomatic that women live in a web of relationships. We have developed a great facility for relatedness, and we need these connections in order to maintain our sense of personal well-being. Jean Baker Miller, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Boston University of Medicine, explains that for women, "all growth occurs within emotional connections, not separate from them...To feel 'more related to another person' means to feel one's self enhanced, not threatened. It does not feel like a loss of a part of one's self; instead it becomes a step toward more pleasure and effectiveness."

Relationships are such a critical element in the world of women that they are also central to our dealings in the business world. At the office we also tend to think relationally and work along relational, not hierarchical, lines (we'll get into this more in chapters 3, 4, and 5). Women often define career success by their ability to create affiliation with others and develop relationships in the work setting: "In my time at the Acme Company, my boss became my best friend, and ten years later, she's still my best friend." Organizational psychologist Carol Gallagher has found that the ability to maintain positive relationships was among the four critical success factors in the careers of the two hundred high-ranking senior executive women she studied. "The ability to develop relationships is imperative in crossing the threshold to the next level," she writes in Going to the Top. One of her interviewees explained, "On a scale of one to ten, I would give relationships a ten...I don't think you can get ahead without them."

The maintenance of relationships in the workplace is also far more important to women than to men. In Susan's doctoral research into twenty-one career values (such as risk taking, economic security, and altruism) across three generations of men and women (Gen-Xers, baby boomers, and mature workers), she found that no matter what the age, the importance of social interactions in the workplace is the most significant difference between the genders. Social relationships were also significantly more important to women than to men, ranking fourth out of the twenty-one values. Susan's research and dozens of other studies have proven that women value both social interactions and friendships significantly more than men do. They consider interpersonal relations important in their career development. They derive meaning in their lives predominantly through these interpersonal relationships and by observing and learning from others as well as their own life experiences.

Because of our focus on relationships, women are more likely to judge and care about people based on their innate qualities rather than their position in the corporate hierarchy. Consequently, female executives are more likely to adopt a collaborative leadership style, to share information and involve others in the decision-making process. We need our colleagues to make our work fulfilling and enjoyable, but also so we ourselves can be maximally productive. We therefore are more likely to pay attention to and address emotional issues at work. We often make concerted efforts to get along with our female colleagues. We share feelings and use heartfelt empathy to help assuage upset feelings or mitigate a difficult situation.

Women who have met with success in terms of concrete achievements but not what's called "affiliative success" often feel empty, lonely, and isolated. Susan consults in the financial industry with the senior women at a Fortune 100 company and was surprised to discover that what many of the female executives there want is not tactical advice such as "If Fred does this, and I respond in this way, what do you think will happen?" but empathy. During their consultations, the women pour their hearts out about the pain they feel, often from the other women in the company. For instance, two women had quit in Cynthia's department, and she believed their action was due to the way in which she had treated them. She spent almost an hour agonizing over how bad she felt, until finally Susan said, "Why don't you ask them why they left?"

The following week, Cynthia told Susan that she had phoned the women, and they both told her they had quit for other reasons. Whether or not her former employees were telling the truth, this executive certainly felt a lot better, believing her relationships had been preserved.

Because relationships are so important to women, it is all the more painful when they deteriorate. We will explore how this happens more fully in chapter 2.

© September 2001, J. P. Tarcher, a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc, used by permission.

About the Author

Dr. Pat Heim is an internationally known speaker and consultant. Her Los Angeles firm, Heim & Associates, has been providing services in the areas of leadership, communication, team building, and gender differences to hundreds of organizations, including AT&T, the Los Angeles Times, General Motors, the American Medical Association, and Price Waterhouse. She has a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Colorado.

Susan Murphy, Ph.D., MBA, is the president of Energy Engineering, Inc. Heim and Murphy speak about workplace gender issues to more than 50,000 individuals each year.