Women, men and office politics

After my Office Politics workshop at the Network of Executive Women Leadership Summit, a woman stood up to ask:

"Do men and women handle office politics differently?"

One of the two men at the session, Tom, proceeded to unleash a big belly laugh, so I invited him to speak up.

Tom described his observation that men get more emotional at work: they yell more and overtly show their frustration, while women seem much more calm in the face of conflict.

Count me among the 150 women in the room who were surprised to hear it.