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"  This year, more than 60,000\u2014half women, half men\u2014rated their bosses, dished on their colleagues, and admitted they hold some retro notions about women in the workplace. &amp;quot;There are still many people with extremely negative attitudes towards female leaders,&amp;quot; says Kim Elsesser, PhD, a psychologist and research scholar at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women, who helped conceive our survey. &amp;quot;But as they gain experience with female bosses, their attitudes seem to be changing.&amp;quot; 54% of our respondents don&amp;#039;t care if their boss is a woman or a man, and believe managerial know-how depends on the individual, irrespective of gender. &amp;quot;If people were willing to judge on the standards of what they thought made a good boss, rather than what made a good female boss or good male boss,&amp;quot; says Janet Lever, PhD, a professor of sociology at California State University, Los Angeles, who also helped with the survey, &amp;quot;they seemed to be less sexist.&amp;quot; But among those who couldn&amp;#039;t seem to shake the stereotyping, 33% prefer male bosses, while only 13% would choose a female. But when it comes to stereotyping, women can&amp;#039;t seem to win, even if they don&amp;#039;t fit the mold. &amp;quot;If females don&amp;#039;t match the stereotype of being nice, nurturing, and democratic in their leadership style,&amp;quot; Elsesser continues, &amp;quot;they tend to be disliked more and seen as less competent because they&amp;#039;ve fallen short of what people expect of them.&amp;quot; For now, we&amp;#039;ll look towards younger generations entering the workplace: Gen Y (under 30) are slightly more likely than their older colleagues to prefer a female boss. &amp;quot;They probably would be more likely to have had a female boss,&amp;quot; says Elsesser. And Lever adds, &amp;quot;It bodes well. There&amp;#039;s no reason to think that the workplace isn&amp;#039;t going to become even more integrated as time goes on.&amp;quot;  And the Credit Goes To...Men When you ask men and women who they think will help them get further in their careers, both still believe it&amp;#039;s male bosses. But this may be because women are still underrepresented, Elsesser believes. &amp;quot;You may turn to more senior people for career advice,&amp;quot; she continues, &amp;quot;and unfortunately, the senior ranks of most corporations are still held by predominantly men.&amp;quot;  If at First You Don&amp;#039;t Succeed, Try, Try Again\u2014or Should You? 71% of female bosses say they need to &amp;quot;work harder&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;be smarter&amp;quot; than men to get the same respect. However, only 36% of men believe women do and the rest seem annoyed by this, thinking women are trying too hard. Our Survey&amp;#039;s write-in section was littered with men expressing their opinions about women overcompensating: &amp;quot;They tend to think they have something to prove,&amp;quot; says a 31-year-old male in advertising; &amp;quot;Females tend to overcompensate, making them less effective as leaders,&amp;quot; says a 42-year-old male manufacturer. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a no-win situation for women,&amp;quot; Elsesser says. &amp;quot;It seems as though women feel they have to adopt more of a male management style. And when they do, they are disliked for it because it doesn&amp;#039;t fit the stereotype.&amp;quot;  Beauty and the Boss In general, attractive people are perceived to be smarter and more successful. &amp;quot;Everyone always likes beautiful people,&amp;quot; says Elsesser. &amp;quot;The better looking you are, the more credibility others think you have.&amp;quot; So it&amp;#039;s no surprise that our ELLE/MSNBC.com found that beautiful bosses were rated much higher than their homely counterparts. Employees said that 58% of attractive female bosses were competent, as opposed to only 23% of unattractive women managers. The same went for men: Their underlings thought 61% of good-looking to 25% of not-so-good-looking male bosses were competent.  Who&amp;#039;s Really Holding the Knife? &amp;quot;Females are overly emotional creatures who plot and backstab when they&amp;#039;re confronted with challenge,&amp;quot; says a 22-year-old male who works in finance. This respondent will have some trouble getting the flavor of foot out of his mouth when he finds out that it&amp;#039;s actually males who are slightly more likely to wield the knife than females. Overall, 1 in 10 people have backstabbed a coworker. Of the nine in 10 who didn&amp;#039;t, four of them admit it had crossed their minds. Women were slightly more likely than men to relish the thought rather than do the deed. But the real difference came when we looked at generations rather than genders: 18-29-year-old men were the most likely to have done this. To top it off, these bloodthirsty young men go after their female colleagues 4% more than their women counterparts do. However, stab-happy survey takers were quick to add that the targeted deserved it because he or she was incompetent or not a team player. One respondent, a 53-year-old woman who works in the technology industry, says, &amp;quot;The business environment is extremely hostile: Getting ahead is &amp;#039;every man for himself.&amp;#039; &amp;#039;Kill the enemy&amp;#039; is encouraged and often rewarded.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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