>
>oooooo. we're not all that bad...
ROFL -- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend. It's just that after 19 years as a programmer/analyst/tech support person and with a couple of years on the UK dBASE User Group committee looking after the Developers SIG I've got a little cynical when it comes to project management.

I think that most of the 'bad' project managers/team leaders that I've suffered under were actually not so much bad as untrained. The trouble is that programmers often have poor social skills (because the skills that make for good programming are often antisocial). When they get promoted to team leader or something similar, no one gives them any training in the social skills that make for good management.

Women tend to have better social skills (partially because of society's gender inequality -- the lower orders learn to placate the higher ones & this is learnt early by girls) therefore they tend to be better team leaders. It is often easier for women to get cooperation from team members because women tend to work cooperatively while men tend to compete.

Now this is not a bipolar theory -- Maggie Thatcher was not a team player <g> there is a continuum, but women are more at the cooperative end and men more at the competitive end.

This is not intended as a feminist diatribe, but as an explanation (as I see it) of the different styles that I have observed during my career.

Ah well, back to the salt mine....
Jen