New Boss Wants You to Hire More Young Men? Ask Madeleine
"Dear Madeleine,
I read your article “Celebrating Women at Work” with interest and it prompted this question. I am a female senior manager in a fast-moving tech company. I run a high-level customer success team made up of mostly older women. About a year ago, my old boss retired. I got a new female boss who was brought in from another tech company that does not have a great reputation.
She immediately challenged me to diversify my team. She said I did not have enough men, because “most of our customers are men, and men prefer to work with men.” Let me be clear here that we have never, ever received feedback on that score.
I have no reason to replace anyone on my team. Every single person is outstanding and I don’t have the budget for more people. At each of our one on ones (most of which she cancels), my boss asks me what I am doing to get more men on the team. When I tell her I will certainly keep it in mind if someone on my team does need to be replaced, she just looks at me blankly.
I think she expects me to fire some of my people so I can start fresh with young men, but she hasn’t said so explicitly. If that were true, I am pretty sure we would have an HR issue on our hands. And then there’s the sheer unfairness of it all—it has taken me years to get the team to peak performance. The whole diversification focus just seems so faddish and frankly irrelevant right now. And my boss doesn’t even seem to understand or care about what my team does.
I always thought a female leader would, if anything, advocate for having more women, especially in tech where they are an anomaly. But this one seems to be pulling in the opposite direction. I am confused and annoyed. How do I put a stop to this nonsense that has nothing to do with my team being successful?
Feeling Betrayed"