Funny

I once had a (male) boss tell me (female) that to be successful as a leader in our engineering industry as a woman, you have to be a bitch. He was trying to encourage me to be less polite and more confident, but he also made it clear exactly what he thought of those confident women. I think he was trying to be a good mentor but it fucked me up, because I don’t consider myself a bitch, nor do I want to be one. It took me a long time to realize he was wrong, and that I can be a kind person and confident at the same time.

On the flipside, I was once given feedback that I’m “too direct” in emails and it came across as rude. What I realized was, it wasn’t the directness, it was the lack of friendly communication around it. You can say “I know the answer to your problem, do this thing” as long as you add in “Hi so-and-so, thanks for the great question! Here’s my brief reasoning, so I recommend you do this thing.” One is “bossy”, the other is friendly and acknowledges the recipient is an equal asking for advice, instead of an underling who should obey you because you said so.