Danger ... men at work?

Published on Monday 3 March 2008 21:11

When Julia Reynolds left her top job at Tesco, she cited working with "chest-beating alpha males" as one of the reasons. But is it really like that for women high up in business? ALICE WYLLIE ask three businesswomen to find out

AS WOMEN continue to strive for equality in the workplace, equal pay is by no means the only issue that affects them. As more women reach the top of their professions, it is not uncommon for them to encounter "alpha-male syndrome" where dominant men can become suffocating in the workplace.

Julia Reynolds, who at 45 had become the highest-ranking woman in Tesco's 1bn clothing business, helping to set up the company's highly successful Florence + Fred range, recently left her senior role at Britain's biggest supermarket for a job running the online lingerie retailer Figleaves.com, which has a relatively minnow-like turnover of 30m. Her former Tesco salary is unknown, but what we have been told is Reynolds will get "no significant rise" at Figleaves.com, though she will be given shares in the company.

She is the second high-profile woman in retail to "downsize" for undisclosed reasons to a smaller business in recent months: Reynolds follows Jane Shepherdson, the former head of TopShop, who in January moved to the mid-market fashion chain Whistles.

Both women expressed dislike for the current trend in cheap, disposable clothing. Reynolds admitted she was keen to get out of such a big corporation, which for her did not provide adequate job satisfaction.

However, she also said with disarming frankness that she had grown tired of working with "chest-beating alpha males".

Although it effectively describes a high-achieving man with physical prowess and attractiveness to the opposite sex, the term isn't entirely flattering. It can also imply a bully, someone who isn't a team player but a "me" person: bossy, demanding and unwilling to work with others on a level playing field. Much like the hulking silverback gorilla from whom the term derives, an alpha male likes to assert his power over others, and doesn't take well to being told what to do.

Handling the alpha male – a careful balancing act of submissive behaviour and ego-massaging – is something that many women have to deal with at work, but evidently more of them are simply refusing to play the game. We spoke to three successful Scotswomen women in business about the alpha male phenomenon, and whether or not it has had an effect on their own careers.

'A lot of women are fed up with men's boardroom behaviour'

Julia McVey, 48, from Glasgow

McVEY used to work as a customer-service manager for a banking call-centre. She left her job to set up U-Can Coaching Services ( www.u-cancoachingservices.com), which provides personal coaching on motivational and leadership skills in the corporate environment.

"SO MANY business environments are male-dominated at the top and women feel the effect of this, whether they're in the boardroom or lower down the ladder, where attitudes do trickle down. I found working for a big company to be extremely stressful and impersonal; I wanted to have more control and a better work-life balance.

"Setting up my own business was a big change, but now I love coaching people who are setting up their own business. I deal with a lot of women who are fed up with men's behaviour in the boardroom. A lot of women face barriers because of working in a male-dominated environment and I work with them on breaking down these attitudes.

"However, I also work with a number of women who have chosen to leave that environment altogether and start up on their own. Even at that level, though, there can be problems. I've helped some women who don't feel comfortable approaching banks when they're starting up in business because they know that they're traditionally male environments.

"Slowly but surely, places that were traditionally all-male are becoming more balanced and women, too, are getting better at handling it. However, I do think it's exciting when women take a risk and decide to make a fresh start in business.

"It's not a defeatist attitude, it's simply about doing something that gives you career satisfaction and balance."

'I've never really noticed gender'

Fiona Hamilton, 43, from Glasgow

HAMILTON is a senior partner with chartered surveyors and retail consultants Hamilton Glen, and also the co-founder of Fifi & Ally in Glasgow, ( www.fifi-and-ally.com) which incorporates a home and fashion store with a restaurant and wine bar.

"RUNNING a chartered surveyors, I work with an office full of men, but I've honestly never encountered the alpha male phenomenon. I've been in the industry for a long time, and since setting up Fifi and Ally I've worked with even more men, since our kitchen is exclusively male staffed.

"At university, there were four women and 60 men on my course, so I guess I've just always been used to working with men. Plus I've got quite a male-type sense of humour, so maybe that helps.

"Some women will make this into an issue, whereas I don't think it really is one. In business, you are going to get aggressive, arrogant people of both genders – and I've encountered plenty of those types – but they're certainly not always men.

"I've always thought of my male colleagues as simply that: colleagues. I've never really noticed gender. In business, you have to be quite tough, and perhaps that can be an intimidating environment for people of either sex, but I think that an exclusively female team can be just as tricky to handle as a group of men."

'There were always jokes as to what I'd done to get to the top'

Clare Thommen, 29, from Edinburgh

THOMMEN worked as an accountant within financial services until she decided to set up the luxury lingerie company Boudiche ( www.boudiche.com) with her business partner, Fiona McLean.

"I FOUND working with a number of alpha males pretty challenging, especially since I was only 24 when I worked as a finance manager.

"I would go into board meetings and I'd be introduced to men who'd stare at me blankly. With just my initials on the agenda, they'd been expecting a man, and they'd even wait for the real 'C Thommen' to walk in. I had to explain on more than one occasion that I was the finance manager.

"Another thing that made me pretty uncomfortable was that there were always jokes and innuendo as to what I'd done to get to the top. The implication – that you must have slept with the boss to get where you were – was always there and, while it was always said in a jokey way, it was irritating.

"I love the fact that now that I'm running a business, I never have to justify things to men. I found working mainly with men was a constant battle and I often felt blocked by people who didn't want me to climb too high (in the company]. Men are quite competitive and often have big egos.

"It's great not to have to deal with that any more."