The Pink Elephant in the Office

I’m not sure how to approach this blog posting without offending women. Still, I’m driven to explore how competent, articulate, thoughtful women can transcend other women who feel threatened by these qualities in the workplace. Surviving the sisterhood of workplace infighting is what Peggy Klaus, a leadership coach in Berkeley, CA, refers to as the “the pink elephant in the room.” Throughout my professional journey through college, graduate school, internships, fellowships, U.S. Peace Corps service, and my career in healthcare quality improvement, I’ve forged strong, supportive friendships with an amazing group of brilliant, driven women in their late 20’s and early 30’s. In my most recent professional positions, however, I’ve run into a female bully for a supervisor and now a team of five women, four of whom spent the first six to twelve months of my employment ostracizing me. My female manager and director continue to isolate and sabotage me in other indirect ways, too.

I’m a competent, sharp, articulate, mindful, dedicated employee who is really good at her job. So what gives? Why can women be our own worst enemies at work?

Klaus presents a few theories explaining why the women’s movement didn’t remove the very real barrier of how badly women can treat one another in the workplace. Perhaps the scarcity of senior level positions drives women to obstruct other women who could potentially replace them. A very likely consequence is that women bully other women who threaten their ascent to the top. I’m 80% sure this is why a former female supervisor spent over a year bullying me. No matter what kind of challenge she threw at me, I maintained collegial, collaborative working relationships with diverse staff throughout the organization, learned how to use the organization’s business analytics tools without any training whatsoever, and successfully fulfilled an intense schedule of annual grant writing and reporting deadlines. I was excellent at my job and I was getting many compliments from senior leadership. However, the more I achieved and the more attention I received, the worse her bullying became.

Other people posit that women may feel that no one helped them get to where they are and insist that other women pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, too. Similarly, women may fear being accused of showing favoritism, and so they inadvertently undermine one another. Then there are explanations that center on women’s hyper-emotionality or assert that women haven’t been socialized to compete in the workplace in a healthy way. Another phenomenon I’ve witnessed is a codependent, mother-daughter-like bond that forms between an incompetent senior leader in her mid to late fifties and an incompetent manager in her early to mid thirties. The manager shields her senior leader from any criticism, either constructive or negative, while the senior leader protects her manager from the destructive consequences of her actions. It seems that these women need their alliance to remain in their positions of power.

Whatever the reason may be, transcending the pink elephant in the room requires a keen insight into gender office politics and being an introspective, discerning employee who can stay focused on her job, form strategic alliances, find a mentor, and refuse to participate in triangulation and gossip. As an INTJ female, thriving in a blame-oriented hierarchical work culture comprised of insecure female managers and directors, talking around the issues, and trying not to offend female colleagues threatened by other women isn’t my strong suit. Yet this is exactly where I find myself today. Operating in this culture chips away at my self-confidence and repeats all of the negative labels that family members and colleagues have attributed to me over the years; that is, that I’m too aloof, direct, argumentative, detached, and intimidating.

Yes, of course, I’m far from perfect and I have plenty of opportunities for improvement, as we like to say in the quality industry. But wallowing over my female colleagues’ snide 360 review comments such as “Kristjan tries too hard to appear competent...” doesn’t help in the long term. For whatever reason, I think my female colleagues would prefer that I be less competent or, at the very least, appear less competent than what I am. I’m not sure that forgoing competence in order to fit in is worth the sacrifice, though. I simply love to problem-solve, communicate complicated regulations and information in a concise, easy-to-understand manner, develop proactive, creative solutions to challenging problems, and be mindful of other departments’ and colleagues’ time, processes, and priorities. It’s the way I’m built.

Recently, I related my pink elephant challenges to a former Peace Corps colleague who initially intimidated me. She’s driven, competent, hardworking, articulate, and dedicated; I remember pegging her as a show off and worrying that she would compete with me when I first met her. Still, I dug deep and admitted that my own insecurities were the real issue - not my colleague’s brilliance. So, during the first week of our Peace Corps training, I deliberately spent more time getting to know her. I figured it would be really hard to be jealous or insecure if I learned that she was human. I’m so glad that I made the effort; as it turns out, she’s one of the most deeply caring and concerned women I’ve ever known. The reason she works so damn hard is because she truly cares about improving the health and welfare of others. Plus, it’s simply her nature to strive for excellence, which I can totally understand.

We became good friends who provided invaluable support to one another throughout our difficult service. Her work and dedication continue to inspire to me. Unfortunately, other women in her professional life continue to ostracize and sabotage her. “There are women - always women - who I feel hate me for no good reason.  I've never (to my knowledge) said anything mean about them, kicked their puppy, put salt in their sugar dish or put them down in front of a superior.” Like me, this eats away at her self-confidence and she spends a disproportionate amount of energy complimenting other women, giving credit for major accomplishments to other colleagues, and figuring out how to change herself so that other women will like her. “No dice,” she reports, many women still won’t give her a chance.

Clearly, I’m not alone. I don’t feel that my former Peace Corps colleague should change one thing about herself. Trust me - she’s amazing. So what can women do to support each other? I suppose we could start by recognizing that the pink elephant exists and addressing female bullying and sabotage in seminars on women’s leadership. I also think we need to figure out, on a personal level, how to move past our own jealousies and insecurities so that we can form wonderful, mutually supportive relationships with other women. For myself, more specifically, I need to take responsibility for my own bad behavior in my current work situation. That is, I need to focus more on what I love about my job, form constructive alliances and relationships with others, find a professional mentor, and stop participating in workplace gossip and triangulation.

Sometimes I feel like I need to make a silly choice between beating other women or joining other women in bad workplace behavior, but this seems like a rather false, lose-lose dichotomy. Instead, I want it all. I want to be an ethical, supportive, healthy woman who does good work and forms strong professional bonds with other women so that we can all support one another and do good work. Maybe this sounds very pie-in-the-sky or too impossible, but this is what I hope to develop in my professional life over the next 30-40 years.