Being the Boss Tied to Depression Risk for Women, But Not Men

Boss! A word describing a person, whom you always think of, can’t be sure because you like them but surely because you hate them. Well that’s the casual part of the discussion. A boss is a person who has a hell lot of responsibilities and one which dominates is your responsibility of managing your juniors and that is what decides so called ‘boss employee relation’. These variety of responsibilities demands strength from one - not just physical but mental as well. Being a boss is more about how you maintain a balance between your mental strength and your professional strength. And here is where it can matter a bit if the boss is a lady or a man.

So how does it actually affect whether it’s a lady or a man. Well it’s not the work that is affected but the person himself rather, herself is affected. A study shows that being a boss at work may turn to be depressing for women, whereas not for men. Well this may seem surprising but a set of observations provide a base for this. The study involves over thousand plus men and women.

Being a boss and not being one

A professor of sociology compares a person with the boss authority and one without it. It is observed that in case of women that one who is a boss shows more symptoms of being depressed than one who is free of these responsibilities of hiring or firing someone. Whereas, when it comes to men there’s no such depression factor.

Women at work or women at home

Further the study also states that the women with the authority, the bosses have distinctiveness of more education, higher incomes, and better job satisfaction as compared to other women and this distinctiveness is a predictor of good mental state. So why does the opposite happen? Why does a woman of better status mentally not healthy as compared to women below them?

Why women at work?

Studies show that women with the authority face many problems such as negative social interactions, social isolation and the main thing, resistance from colleagues and subordinates and definitely from their bosses also. It is observed that a woman on the chair of boss is seen as an individual who doesn’t possess that boldness and confidence of leading a group. But when these women try to overcome this, they are negatively seen as unfeminine. This dual nature of the colleagues leads to stress in these women. Men are considered to be leaders naturally and thus male bosses don’t face such problems and that increases their power and keeps them away from much stress.

The above discussion clearly shows that there needs to be a change in the mindset of people regarding the female leaders. The only way to reduce these psychological stresses a female boss faces is to stop looking at them as just women, but seeing them more as a ‘leader’. Answering these problems of gender discrimination at work will not only help them get out of depression but also get the maximum out of their high status job for themselves.