Career gatekeepers who hold traditional gender stereotypes ascribe communal characteristics to women because they are women. These gatekeepers are likely, therefore, to view the women who work for them as pleasant, warm, and likable but not particularly competent or good performers in challenging, competitive situations. What would happen, however, if you work for such people and you behave in a strongly agentic way? 

Suppose, for example, you forcefully argue that your organization should radically change its strategic course or you powerfully advocate for why you should receive a raise or be promoted. This agentic behavior — strong, forceful, aggressive — will probably result in you being seen as competent and confident but also as flaunting societal norms. As a woman, you are supposed to be sensitive and modest, not forceful and self-promoting. By behaving agentically, therefore, you are likely to make the people with whom you are dealing uncomfortable, causing them to think you are socially insensitive, abrasive, and disagreeable.

Thus, traditional gender stereotypes create what we call the Goldilocks Dilemma. If you conform to these gender communication stereotypes, you are seen as pleasant and likable but not particularly forceful or competent. If you violate them by behaving agentically with masculine traits, you will probably be seen as competent but cold, unpleasant, and decidedly unlikable. In your career, therefore, it is easy to be too tough or too soft, but rarely just right.

Examples of agentic behavior in the workplace

The agentic biases on one side of this dilemma are highlighted if you imagine the likely reactions to you and a comparably situated man behaving in precisely the same sort of agentic way. Don’t you think they would be along the following lines?

• She’s pushy; he’s persuasive.
• She’s bossy; he’s a leader.
• She’s a self-promoter; he knows his own self-worth.
• She’s abrasive; he’s incisive.
• She’s a harpy; he’s tenacious.
• She’s selfish; he’s too busy to pitch in.
• She’s aggressive and hostile; he’s a go-getter.
• She’s rude; he’s direct and to the point.

The case of Lt. Colonel Kate Germano provides a particularly striking illustration of the negative reactions a woman can provoke by behaving in a strongly agentic way. Germano was appointed in 2014 as commander of the all-female Marine recruit battalion at Parris Island. Germano found that the women trained separately from the men; their scores on all tests for non-strength-related skills were lower than the men’s; and their average physical fitness was lower than the men’s. She publicly expressed her determination to change the women’s underperformance and the Marine Corps’ mindset that female recruits were appropriately held to lower standards than men. 

In her one-year tenure as commander, Germano ended many of the Marine’s separate training protocols, improved the women’s performance in almost all categories, and stopped the women’s special “privileges,” such as being provided with chairs after long hikes when the men weren’t.

Gender communication breakdown

Despite her laudable objective and tangible successes, Germano fought with the Marine Corps brass every step of the way. In May 2015, she filed a complaint against her supervisors claiming they were undermining her efforts to push female recruits to be as well trained as their male counterparts. Her complaint triggered an investigation of her conduct, and the following month Germano was relieved of her command because “her toxic leadership style … has created a hostile, repressive, and unprofessional command climate,” according to Marine Corps documents.

Germano supporters claim she was “firm but fair” and that her leadership “style” would not have been criticized if she had been a man. Her detractors assert she was authoritarian and abusive, “mistreating” her female recruits. We don’t know enough to pass final judgment on Germano’s conduct, but these are a few uncontested incidents that make it clear she was subjected to severe agentic bias — even if that was not ultimately why she was relieved of her command.

First, she was publicly criticized by fellow officers as “too aggressive,” “too blunt,” and “too direct.”

Second, she told her female Marines that male Marines would not respect them unless they perform up to the same standards as the men (which seems self-evident if they were on the battlefield together). For making this assertion, she was found to be sending a message that the Marine Corps’ standards for female Marines are not “good enough.”

Third, Germano told her recruits that by drinking with men, they were risking sexual assault (which seems sensible advice for any group of young women). For this warning, she was found to be “reinforcing blame towards the victim.”

The officer investigating Germano concluded she had “abused her authority.” Whether she did or didn’t, there seems to be no doubt that Germano’s objective was a worthwhile one: to achieve actual respect for the women in the Marine Corps from their fellow male Marines. There is also no doubt Germano used strongly agentic behavior to realize this objective. As a result, her leadership style was openly criticized by many other Marine officers, both women and men. We wonder, however, whether future female Marine recruits will ever be able to realize Germano’s objective unless they have another leader who behaves the same way.

Learn how to recognize the five biases against women, including agentic behavior, in our article about gender stereotypes in the workplace.