Open Topic: Other Communication Issues

I initially did not know what topic to do for this blog, but after reading ShuTing’s blog on the intensity of backstabbing and rumour-spreading in her girls’ school; it crossed me that this module has not been dealing much with an important intercultural problem that has never been solved.

This inter-planetary problem is none other than ‘women’. (Please make it clear that it is not a ‘gender difference’ problem. Males are usually not the problem though we are consistently being wrongly accused of being so.) Since I have to focus on writing something related to Professionalism, I’ve decided to deal with the issue of “Female Bosses”.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that female bosses are not as good as male bosses. They usually are, but men are mostly better. Yes, I know this sounds confusing, but female bosses usually do too, just that they don’t know that. But I’m not one who’ll make sweeping comments about normal people in general.

Anyway, I digress. Since I have to discuss about communication, I’ll focus on “how to communicate with female bosses”. I’m not much of an expert, but neither is anyone. Therefore, I’ve tried searching through websites and forums on female bosses and have arrived at two conclusions. Firstly, female bosses are sensitive and use the soft approach in leading. Secondly, they are emotional and have mood swings.

Knowing this, we can try to come up with tactics so as to communicate with them. I came up with two rules. First rule: Do not start the conversation with work. Begin instead, with a gossip or two. (As shown in ShuTing's story, girls love to spread rumours. But like I said, I don’t generalise.) Second rule: Approach her at the right time. This, however, does not mean that if you caught her in the right mood, all is well. There is still a 50-50 % chance that she’ll have changed mood a couple of times by the end of the conversation. If it even ends at all.

As you can tell by now, it will take much more than a military strategist (since they are usually males) to really understand and communicate with them. According to some reports, females themselves also prefer to work under men. What more can I say? If you could, please enlighten me on how else to deal with them.

And girls, when you give your comments, please don’t generalise.