Trevor Cousins’ leadership blog

I got a call from the Mail on Sunday today to ask me to comment on a recent survey that reported that 63% of women would prefer a male boss to a female boss.

My first thought was that there are loads of great women bosses out there. But it quickly occurred to me that the response may not have anything to do with whether women make good bosses or not.

Despite the enormous strides that women have made in the workplace in recent decades, women bosses are a new psychological phenomenon in the 200,000 years that “modern” human beings have walked the Earth. Old habits die hard and maybe women’s own attitudes to women leaders are no easier to break than giving up smoking or losing weight.

But this is pure conjecture. If you’re a woman leader reading this post, let me and others know what you think! We could open a fascinating discussion on this.