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Bossy, bossy, bossy should we ban it?

2014-03-21 10:44:44

There was quite an outpouring of support and criticism when last week

LeanIn.org, the organisation that sprouted from Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg s

eponymous (and much-debated) book, launched its campaign to ban the word bossy

The group called its effort a public service campaign to ensure that girls

grow up with the confidence and support they need to become leaders.

The idea: girls are often called bossy when they display leadership traits,

while boys are praised. To change the conversation, and avoid labelling and

discouraging girls from reaching for top roles, it s necessary to eliminate the

word entirely, explains the Ban Bossy campaign. Celebrities like Beyonce, Katie

Couric and Alicia Keys have joined in and so has US First Lady Michelle Obama.

But, ban an entire word from the lexicon? Is it really the right way to go? Or

should we be teaching our children the difference between bossy and being the

boss? Several LinkedIn Influencers weighed in on the topic, including Sandberg

and LeanIn.org s president. Here s what some of them had to say.

Rachel Schall Thomas, president at LeanIn.org; Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating

officer at Facebook

Ban Bossy has sparked a conversation online and offline with girls sharing

their leadership aspirations, mothers and fathers celebrating their daughters

potential and women sharing their own bossy stories, wrote Thomas and Sandberg

in their post The Other B-Word. Why does this have so much resonance? Because

almost every woman we know has a bossy story .

Thomas and Sandberg wrote that they, too, were called bossy as girls. Decades

later, the word still stings, and we remember the sentiments it evoked: Keep

your voice down. Don t raise your hand. Don t take the lead. If you do, people

won t like you, they wrote. This is not just about a single word. The

stereotypes behind the word bossy are deep rooted and discouraging.

The pair wrote that boys are expected to be assertive and confident, while

girls are expected to be kind and nurturing. We encourage boys to lead and

reward them when they do. When girls lead, however, we disapprove and our

language communicates that disapproval clearly. As girls become women, the

childhood b-word bossy is replaced by the b-word adult women face along

with aggressive, angry, and too ambitious. The words change, but their

impact doesn t, they wrote. Women are less well liked when they lead, and all

of us are affected. The bossy stereotype contributes to the dearth of

leadership we face in every industry and every government.

Adam Grant, professor at Wharton School of Business

Many girls want to lead, only to be discouraged by criticism for taking the

reins. By launching a campaign to ban the word bossy , Sheryl Sandberg is

planting important seeds for many more women to become leaders. For these seeds

to blossom, we need to understand the behaviours that lead people to brand

girls as bossy, wrote Grant in his post Why Girls Get Called Bossy and How to

Avoid It.

Grant explained: Girls get pegged as bossy when they order people around. Yet

we don t label every girl who issues commands and exercises authority as bossy,

he wrote. To make sense of bossiness, we need to tease apart two fundamental

aspects of social hierarchy that are often lumped together: power and status.

Power lies in holding a formal position of authority or controlling important

resources. Status involves being respected or admired.

So how does this play into the Ban Bossy campaign? Several studies offer

insight, he wrote. When young women get called bossy, it s often because they

re trying to exercise power without status. It s not a problem that they re

being dominant; the backlash arises because they re overstepping their status,

wrote Grant.

If that s the case, then banning bossy might not be the right or only move

instead, it might be more about discouraging certain behaviour, he wrote. If

we want girls to receive positive reinforcement for early acts of leadership,

let s discourage bossy behaviour along with banning bossy labels. He wrote

that this means teaching them to do things that earn admiration before they

assert their authority.

Some bossy acts fail the test of executive leadership skills, wrote Grant.

Great leaders begin by earning status through their contributions, and only

then assert their authority.

Jennifer Merritt, Editor of BBC Capital

It sounds empowering: Ban the term bossy to help push girls and young women

into pursuing leadership roles, wrote Merritt in her post Don t Ban Bossy.

But I just can't get behind the movement.

Why not support banning a term that discourages young women? Bossy exists and

it isn't pretty and it should be called out and corrected. It should also, if

possible, be harnessed and perhaps turned into the leadership traits COO of

Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg hopes girls will develop, wrote Merritt.

When her four-year-old daughter asks if the people who work for me have to do

what you tell them to do , Merritt wrote, I am quick to make the distinction:

I don't boss people around, I include them and treat them nicely (the grown-up

term would be with respect ). I'm not stubborn when one of my ideas doesn't

pan out, and I seek their input.

I look at my daughter and see a little girl with an awful lot of potential.

And I see an awful lot of bossy. I'm keen to foster the former and diminish the

latter. But I can't do that without the word bossy in my vocabulary, wrote

Merritt. She would rather her daughter has a firm grasp of the difference

between taking charge and being bossy so that if another child calls her bossy

one day, she can smile and just ignore the comment, knowing she's got a good

idea and she's going for it.

Another reason not to ban bossy, wrote Merritt, is to teach children to let

negative words and phrases roll off you, wrote Merritt. What about that old

saying, I'm rubber and you're glue, whatever you say bounces off of me and

sticks to you ?