What Price Do We Pay for Being More Collaborative?

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Women are often seen as a less decisive because they bring in other people to make decisions. A female manager said she found it frustrating when there were lines outside of her door for male managers who made their own decisions. Terese says women leaders can use strategies that combine collaborative and decisive thinking. One strategy is to clarify the kind of input that you want, such as from marketing or sales.

There’s a lot that goes into making a good decision at work: figuring out priorities, coming up with options, analyzing those — and several steps later, planning for what to do if you’re wrong. If you’re a woman, you are also factoring in how your colleagues expect you to ask for their opinions so you can create consensus. And if you do, they’re still likely to see you as indecisive and lacking vision.

We talk with Therese Huston, author of the book How Women Decide, about our strengths as decision makers and how to work around double standards when we’re making decisions and communicating them to our team.

Our HBR reading list:

“Research: We Are Way Harder on Female Leaders Who Make Bad Calls,” by Therese Huston

“Women and the Vision Thing,” by Herminia Ibarra and Otilia Obodaru

“Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?” by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

“Get Excited: Reappraising Pre-Performance Anxiety as Excitement,” by Alison Wood Brooks

Get the discussion guide for this episode on our website: hbr.org/podcasts/women-at-work

Email us: womenatwork@hbr.org

Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.