Generally Speaking (18 page)

The more I learned about the actual cause for the change in slating, the more unprofessional it seemed. I learned that the officer who had approached me to trade assignments had actively lobbied at INSCOM for the switch and had enlisted the help of some field-grade officers and influential civil servants. This small but powerful clique had acted in a manner not only unfair to me, but to women as a group, and they had certainly not acted in the Army's best interest, but rather on behalf of one individual. My concern only intensified when I considered that the slating process had originally determined that I was better qualified to command the battalion in Korea than the officer who secured that command.

And later that year, I was further disappointed to learn in a phone call to the Military Personnel Center that my slating had been changed yet again, from the Augsburg Support Battalion to the 3rd Operations Battalion. This new battalion had not yet been designated to be assigned “centrally selected” commanders (those chosen by an Army board), but rather by locally designated officers who had not successfully competed Army-wide for selection. Therefore this new assignment was additionally unfair. And, once more, no one had bothered to tell me until I happened to call to discuss my pending transfer.

When I raised this apparently arbitrary slating process with the personnel people in Branch, an irritated colonel told me, “You should feel lucky you've been selected to command.”

I'd had it. “You should feel lucky I don't have two lawyers, one on each arm, when I come over there.”

The more I thought about these events, the angrier I became, especially as I remembered that happy March afternoon when I'd first heard the news I had been selected to command a battalion. So I decided I could not let these circumstances stand unchallenged. It was too late to redress my own case, but I might be able to prevent this from happening to others by bringing this situation to the attention of my seniors.

In December 1985, I sent a personal, handwritten letter to Major General Harry Soyster, Commander of INSCOM, using this unofficial means of communication not to vent my anger but to make sure that he personally knew the story and that it was not left to just a cabal of colonels and civil servants to make slating decisions. I detailed the events involving my change of slating and did not mince words. Although I cited the official excuse of my gender, I noted that the actual reason was the officer originally slated for the Augsburg Support Battalion had “actively lobbied” among senior military officers and civil servants to have that slating changed. And I protested the manner in which my assignments to Field Station Augsburg had been changed without either consulting or informing me.

“Sir,” I continued, “notwithstanding this litany of slating problems, I have always wanted to command and continue to want to command more than any other Army assignment. But I do not wish to command at any cost.” I noted that I was an officer who had passed the tests of competence and leadership, but was denied an assignment based on gender, while another received that assignment based on the influence of a clique. I also noted that senior officers who were my raters had offered to intercede, but I had declined their help because I believed officers should serve where they were needed. In this case, however, I concluded, “It is not the Army's needs which have been served, but the needs of a few individuals. And Army values have not been served either.”

The letter was a verbal hand grenade with a rather short fuse. It landed on Brigadier General Chuck Scanlon's desk at INSCOM. The officers and civilians at the command knew I'd caught them red-handed doing something outside accepted Army processes. A brigadier general addressed my concerns. “General Soyster got your letter,” he assured me. “And I've been assigned to police the battlefield.”

In the years since those frustrating months, I've often thought about the dynamics involved in the situation. One lesson has become very clear. Women, including myself, often underestimate the extent to which some men consider institutional or workplace politics a sport, like a hard-played tennis match, or an elbow-digging session of one-on-one basketball. Acing a lieutenant colonel out of her assignment may have seemed perfectly acceptable to this small group, even though they had corrupted the integrity of the Army slating process. Having said this, I should point out that a number of men officers actively objected to the self-serving tactics displayed during my slating process.

My friends in academia and in the private sector tell me there are parallels among their executive colleagues, who often view professional competition as a game in which rules are meant to be bent or broken.

Ironically, however, it is women who have been traditionally seen as forming cliques in an organization, when I think the reverse is probably true. From what I've seen, women value being more disclosing and open at the outset of relationships to provide the largest zone of agreement possible. But this can work against them because the true rules of the game—which may be invisible—might be defined by a very sharply competitive culture in which the other side will take every possible advantage rather than reciprocate openness and honesty. I am certainly not advocating professional women become too defensive. But I do suggest everyone recognize that there are still a lot of men in both the military and private sector workplace who consider them inherently weaker, not just physically, but of softer spirit and character as well.

In the 1970s, there was a cultural debate over whether independent women should allow men to open doors for them. Since then, succeeding generations of young women have matured both with and without the figurative doors of opportunity being opened. But today, women who aspire to high leadership do not find false comfort in the outdated belief that the door to the top will somehow miraculously open. If they want to enter, they will have to open it themselves. However, that door is often blocked, either by implicit institutional policy or simply by inertia. When I attended the Army War College, Jack Welch, then CEO of General Electric, spoke to our class about the importance of diversity in the workplace. His point was that GE embraced diversity—including the advancement of women—because it was good for business, not simply because this was a fair course of action. As more senior corporate leaders adopt his enlightened view, the doorway to executive office and boardroom is certain to open for women.

I was intrigued by a special report in a November 2000
Business Week
detailing research that reveals women executives outperformed male peers in a wide variety of categories, including producing high-quality work, goal-setting, and mentoring employees. However, some of the women executives featured in the report with whom I later spoke told me their leadership skills—especially the empathetic ability to relate well to colleagues and subordinates—had sometimes either been ignored or taken for granted as attributes innate to women.

Women leaders often exercise power differently than men. According to Professor Joyce Fletcher of the Simmons School of Management in Boston, women leaders see their responsibility as having two components, getting the substance of the work done while also creating an environment in which employees can be more productive. But traditional observers usually see these attributes as evidence that the executive is a “nice, thoughtful woman,” rather than identifying these attributes as effective leadership skills. But women realize this perception is disempowering and try to avoid the characterization of being too good and considerate. Traditionally, Fletcher says, we confuse women with mothers. “We get
disappeared
as leaders.” The problem with this situation is that the definition of competence is very narrow and remains unchallenged in many workplaces. The result is that the “same kinds of people get promoted” and those who were not promoted in the past remain unrecognized.

I agree with Fletcher. From my own experience, preconceived concepts of gender attributes in our leaders color our view of their performance. Here's a small but emblematic example. When I was a brigadier general serving in FORSCOM at Fort McPherson, Georgia, I rotated with other generals officiating at monthly retirement ceremonies. For the retiring NCOs and field-grade officers and their families these occasions—marked by stirring military music—were a tribute to their service to the nation and to the Army we all loved. I always delivered a speech tailored to the careers of the soldiers being honored.After one ceremony a woman from the audience complimented me on the speech I had just given. “It was so nice that you personalized your speech for each soldier retiring,” she said. “A man general would
never
think of doing that.”

I thanked her. I did not correct her. But my speech had been written by a man in my office.

Professor Joyce Fletcher recognizes that stereotypes are slowly disappearing. While old perceptions of gender identity, leadership, and competence went unchallenged for so long, Fletcher and Robin Ely, her colleague at the Center for Gender and Organizations at the Simmons Graduate School of Management, have evolved a fourth paradigm of diversity from the concepts Ely and Thomas developed on the benefits of workplace inclusiveness and diversity. This fourth paradigm is, “What can men learn from women?” By this they mean men executives can become more effective leaders by emulating women. In so doing, the men will have to recognize that effective empathetic skills are not gender-specific. But it's not surprising that many men feel constrained from copying women's skills because in the past men have criticized women who used men's traditional leadership techniques as being less feminine. Those men might see their own use of women's empathetic skills as rendering them less masculine.

For this cultural shift to occur, however, there will, indeed, have to be major attitude changes in the workplace. Traditionally, it was viewed as proper for young men executives to be openly ambitious and their women counterparts to be modest, according to Shirley Ross of the Hagberg Consulting Group. “Women must be seen as working for others rather than for self. To the extent that they are viewed as working for themselves, they are seen as less good, less effective leaders.”

There is another important dynamic to consider when comparing women and men leaders. All the women executives I spoke with agreed that women tend to focus more than men on the greater mission and on their own contribution to the larger institution, while men measured their success based on the size of the department they personally controlled. In other words, women set aside their ambitions more readily than men in order to get the job done. Sandra Kiely, Chief Administrative Officer of the National City Investment Company in Cleveland, told me, “Women don't let their egos get in the way of doing what is necessary to achieve the goals.” She said that aspiring women leaders “are not very good at tooting their own horns.” In the corporate world, this attitude could be viewed as passivity.

But in the Army, we have long fostered a culture in which transparent ambition is not rewarded and teamwork is the norm. Being a good team player is a path that I think civilian leaders, both women and men, can profitably follow and foster in their own organization. Jackie Streeter, Vice President for Engineering at Apple Computer, sees her role as taking a flexible, cooperative approach to achieving company goals. When she saw opportunities to improve team performance, she voluntarily gave up members of her department to other divisions where their functions could be better integrated. She told me that her male colleagues were surprised by her actions. Turf, as assessed by the number of employees assigned to an executive, has long been a measure of corporate success. But this is another of those patterns that will have to change.

“One of the attributes of a leader is to help people realize that change is necessary,” she said. “My boss is now very supportive of this attitude. He sees its value and likes it. Now he also has the men shifting people around. This gives him greater flexibility.”

The slating difficulty I encountered in 1985 was well outside the Army's cultural norm. Even at a time when there was still a degree of leadership intervention in officers' assignments, they were not expected to lobby actively for choice positions with the help of a clique. Today, the Army's promotion and assignment boards are so structured that it is virtually impossible for this type of injustice to occur. Officers have to move ahead on their own merits. But I find it disturbing when I meet some who illogically cling to the old attitude that a mentor will manage their careers. This is naive. No one should depend on either a senior woman or man to reach down and pull them up the career ladder. Army officers or civilian executives must achieve power on their own merit, seeking the requisite professional training that entails, and undertaking the assignments that provide the best experience to accumulate leadership skills. Certainly women should demonstrate that they are good team members, but they must manage their own professional lives.

The woman who wants to be protected in the workplace and not fight her own battles when required will never achieve power or be given the chance to demonstrate leadership. For a woman to reach a position of authority, she must show she'll play with the team, but she won't give up when the game gets rough.

During the controversy surrounding my original slating, the major general I worked for, Johnnie J. Johnston, recognized the patent unfairness of the manner in which I had been treated. He offered to intervene on my behalf to have my original slating to Field Station Korea restored. And there is no doubt that his intervention would have succeeded.

“I can call someone and have this fixed,” the general told me.

“Thank you for offering to help, sir,” I said. But we agreed we would win the battle and lose the war. By that I meant I understood the importance of being a team player with Military Intelligence leadership. Further, I would have, in effect, adopted the same tactics as the officer who had originally approached me for the switch, which I was unwilling to do.