While I write this article, I am considering women who study in few of the top institutes in the country and are part of corporate/political/social sector. Let’s call them Attitudinal Competitive and Energetic - ACE. By no means do I aim to undervalue the work done by millions of women who are passionate and who have achieved excellence in their own respective fields. Also, it would be my prerogative to set the context of this article to the Indian scenario.
Can women who are social powerhouses, intellectual, and goal oriented work together? While I discuss this thought, my focus would not only encompass behavioural mindset but also the opportunity platform that increases this barrier.
An individual builds his/her own philosophies of life in the initial few years of college. With the highly skewed representation of women in higher education, there are very few women who pursue college education. This number gets even thinner in post graduation and higher level management roles.
Let’s analyze the situation. ACE’s are good company to be around with. Hence, they usually get absorbed in different college groups with male majority (group formation is itself a complex area and I will write about it later). For the next few years, they get used to all the attention and it becomes a de facto of their social conduct. Now, when the group dynamics change to increase women candidates, aces feel insecure about the new entity. This is not common among male counterparts as they are not used to getting a lot of importance. Many roads can be traversed down from this junction. An ace can know the new ace and reason out her baseless complexities. In case that doesn't work out (given the other ace should also reciprocate), ace may resort to various levels of dissonance like not acknowledging the other ace or her merit or finding ways to turn the group opinion against the new ace. This set up is very common in a new college or office environment where an ace may be very critical of another ace in case her position is pressurized or they need to establish themselves.
In case behavioural adjustments are smooth during these transformations, there is another reason for aces to not work closely. Personal rapport builds up when individual work together for some common goal at any formal or informal platform. Ace’s usually become part of male groups looking for diversity. Since aces are not aware of each other qualities, they are unaware of the gain in their utility by working together and hence, they rarely form a coalition. In my observation, the road for two aces to develop close ties needs a constant give and take of differentiated benefit and it needs to be greater than what can be derived by being associated with the opposite sexes. It can be anything, from a women level understanding, long term commitment friendship, different perspective, emotional support etc. Only under such circumstances, do aces work in tandem and such systems once formed are very difficult to break.
My only advice to all those aces out there would be to take out time from their male satiated world and reach out to those aces who have signalled them for long term benefit. Be genuine in your approach. Working with aces is the most stable and supportive environment, if it can be achieved.
Can women who are social powerhouses, intellectual, and goal oriented work together? While I discuss this thought, my focus would not only encompass behavioural mindset but also the opportunity platform that increases this barrier.
An individual builds his/her own philosophies of life in the initial few years of college. With the highly skewed representation of women in higher education, there are very few women who pursue college education. This number gets even thinner in post graduation and higher level management roles.
Let’s analyze the situation. ACE’s are good company to be around with. Hence, they usually get absorbed in different college groups with male majority (group formation is itself a complex area and I will write about it later). For the next few years, they get used to all the attention and it becomes a de facto of their social conduct. Now, when the group dynamics change to increase women candidates, aces feel insecure about the new entity. This is not common among male counterparts as they are not used to getting a lot of importance. Many roads can be traversed down from this junction. An ace can know the new ace and reason out her baseless complexities. In case that doesn't work out (given the other ace should also reciprocate), ace may resort to various levels of dissonance like not acknowledging the other ace or her merit or finding ways to turn the group opinion against the new ace. This set up is very common in a new college or office environment where an ace may be very critical of another ace in case her position is pressurized or they need to establish themselves.
In case behavioural adjustments are smooth during these transformations, there is another reason for aces to not work closely. Personal rapport builds up when individual work together for some common goal at any formal or informal platform. Ace’s usually become part of male groups looking for diversity. Since aces are not aware of each other qualities, they are unaware of the gain in their utility by working together and hence, they rarely form a coalition. In my observation, the road for two aces to develop close ties needs a constant give and take of differentiated benefit and it needs to be greater than what can be derived by being associated with the opposite sexes. It can be anything, from a women level understanding, long term commitment friendship, different perspective, emotional support etc. Only under such circumstances, do aces work in tandem and such systems once formed are very difficult to break.
My only advice to all those aces out there would be to take out time from their male satiated world and reach out to those aces who have signalled them for long term benefit. Be genuine in your approach. Working with aces is the most stable and supportive environment, if it can be achieved.