You're Going to Run into Mean Women at Work

It’s bad enough that men sabotage women at work. It’s worse when women do it to each other.

You probably know all about “mean girls” in high school. It doesn’t stop there. They become mean women at work.  Don’t you get caught in their meanness.

How do they get where they are? Often, it starts when they get promoted into jobs for which they are unprepared. I’ve seen the mean girls who cultivate relationships with their superiors, yet they treat subordinates and peers like the enemy. Their behavior towards other women whom they manage is often especially dictatorial and unpleasant.

It’s sad, but often senior managers don’t notice that mean women deal with their superiors in a very different way than they deal with subordinates.

Mean women don’t do what smart women do when they get promoted. Smart women learn to grow with the job. They read. They listen. They surround themselves with people who can help them succeed while they learn to do their new job.

Mean women are not secure enough to surround themselves with people who are smarter than they are so that the job gets done. Smarter people might threaten them.

When things start to fall apart, they stress. What do they do? They scream and threaten.  I’ve known of women who publicly threaten to fire any subordinates who don’t get the job done.  That’s a strategy that motivates no one. 

Sometimes these mean women think that if they make other people look bad, they will look better. Crazy, right?  That’s when you start to hear behind-the-back gossip. Of course, it’s the mean women who start the gossip.  This is serious stuff. I’ve seen people lose jobs over gossip that got out of control. 

My own recent mean-woman experience caught me by surprise.

I was introduced to a woman by a client. This woman came highly recommended as someone I should know because her clients might be people with whom I could also do business. At our first meeting it was clear that we did different work for our clients and that she could recommend me and I could recommend her.

We next saw each other at a business event and sat together. Another person at the table asked me about my work. I told this other professional about my work speaking at sales conferences. This person expressed interest in working with me. The “mean woman” jumps into the conversation and tells the person that she does this work, too.  

Are you as shocked as I was? 

I can control whom I refer business to and whom I don’t. Needless to say, Mean Woman is off my list.

What can you do if you work with these people?

Don’t ever trust them. My conversations with them would be limited to the weather. I would also avoid being with them one-on-one. It becomes your word against theirs in those situations.

If they start any gossip about you, you have to confront them immediately. Did I mention that you should never trust them?

There will always be mean girls in high school. There will always be mean women at work. Mean girls prey on other weaker girls. Mean women are often insecure messes who want to get ahead in business at all costs.  Just make sure they take their meanness out on someone other than you.

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Maura Schreier-Fleming is a sales strategist and founder of Best@Selling, a sales training and consulting company. She wrote Monday Morning Sales Tips and works with sales professionals who want to sell more and get more business