Good morning! Bill fighting revenge porn passed by Congress, UPS to cut 20,000 jobs, and Fortune’s Nina Ajemian talks with former Microsoft exec Sabina Nawaz about how managers can overcome the pressures of leadership.
– Management 101. Managers in the workplace adopt a few identities, according to Sabina Nawaz, the ex-Microsoft exec and executive coach behind the new book You’re the Boss. There’s the flash, a leader who gets things done at warp speed in the name of efficiency; the straight-A student, a perfectionist with high standards; and the whack-a-mole, a boss who is always putting out fires. But one identity is more likely to hold women back in the workplace: the caretaker.
Caretaking can, of course, be healthy—but being too caring can often manifest in managers constantly picking up the slack for their employees and “rescuing” their team. This behavior hurts employees’ growth and often makes managers feel like they are being taken advantage of.
Men and women are equally likely to be caretaker-style managers. But that quality can manifest—and be perceived—in different ways. For men, this may look like being a superhero, jumping in when they notice their team is busy. Women, on the other hand, often take their team’s feelings into consideration, not wanting anyone to feel badly if they push too hard, Nawaz shares.
“In many ways, that’s great,” Nawaz says. “It’s that richness of emotional intelligence and that awareness of my impact on other people, which helps with all the other traps that we talk about.”
These qualities often become clear during a person’s first promotion to manager. LeanIn.org and McKinsey have termed that promotion the “broken rung” on the career ladder, when women often fall behind men in the workplace. But Nawaz has found that that time can be risky even for the women who do get promoted. The characteristics that led to their promotion can hurt them as managers. Often, for women, that’s being detail-oriented—an asset for an individual contributor, but an often unfairly misinterpreted signal to leadership that a manager is not a “strategic” thinker.
Through her coaching, Nawaz has heard from women who get that feedback when they are first promoted to manager. “I realize, ‘Oh, you’re plenty strategic. There’s nothing wrong with your strategic thinking,’” she says. “It’s some of that caretaking…and how you’re doing that that get[s] in the way.”
Nawaz, who was Microsoft’s senior director of HR, wrote this book after reflecting on how she changed after her boss left the company—and left Nawaz in charge of professional development for Microsoft’s 90,000 employees. Plus, with increased responsibility came increased visibility, as she was now working more directly with Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates and former CEO Steve Ballmer.
She wasn’t the boss she wanted or needed to be, she discovered. “Without realizing it, I slid from being a caring and supportive boss to one who was snippy and belligerent,” Nawaz writes. She lost connection with her team. Feeling the pressure that came with a bigger job, she became a micromanager. In You’re the Boss, Nawaz describes a low point: when she made team members come in early to individually test the 50 pens gifted in swag bags after an attendee received a defective one. A colleague staged an intervention, and told her she wasn’t aware how her actions were coming across to her team.
“We love to put these binary judgments [on people]: good boss, bad boss. Good person, bad person. No! All of that is inside us,” says Nawaz. “For me, it was about coming clean, showing people that all of us succumb to this, and being as open and vulnerable as I could be. Was it easy? No. But if I am, then other people hopefully are as well, and then they can get to what’s really at play.”
Nina Ajemian
nina.ajemian@fortune.com
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today’s edition was curated by Nina Ajemian. Subscribe here.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Stop sharing. A bill fighting revenge porn and deepfake nudes was overwhelmingly passed by Congress and is now off to be signed by President Donald Trump. Under the Take It Down Act, posting nonconsensual intimate imagery will be illegal, and online platforms will have 48 hours to remove the content after it's reported by a user. Washington Post
- Cutting costs—and jobs. UPS is slashing 20,000 operational jobs to cut costs following its decision at the beginning of the year to reduce business with its biggest customer, Amazon. CEO Carol Tomé said the company’s cost reduction efforts are happening at a good time, given the economic uncertainty caused by tariffs. Wall Street Journal
- Proceed with caution. General Motors is pulling its profit forecast because of President Donald Trump’s tariffs and resulting economic uncertainty in the automotive industry. The automaker also delayed a conference call—where CEO Mary Barra would discuss earnings—until after Trump signed an executive order relaxing some auto tariffs. New York Times
- DR deportations. Over 130 Haitian women and children were deported from the Dominican Republic as the country tries to reduce the presence of undocumented migrants. To do so, the Dominican Republic is focusing on hospitals, as pregnant women have been crossing into Haiti in search of healthcare. 48 of the women deported last week were pregnant, including one who was in labor. Guardian
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Entain, a sports betting company, appointed interim CEO Stella David as CEO.
Time named Kelly Conniff head of creative at Time Studios. She will continue to serve as the media brand’s deputy editor.
Fujifilm Cellular Dynamics, a human cells manufacturer for cell therapeutics, appointed Delara Motlagh as COO. Most recently, she was VP of global cell therapy at Catalent Pharma Solutions.
7 Brew, a drive-thru drinks company, named Stephanie Quillen chief people officer. Most recently, she was principal executive advisor at Guild.
Code Metal, which provides AI automation solutions across sectors, named Laura Shen SVP of growth. Previously, she was a National Security Council director for China.
ON MY RADAR
Why so many MAGA men look like Joe Rogan Bloomberg
Who’s most likely to change (or hyphenate) their name after marriage? Washington Post
Violinist Esther Abrami uncovers ‘hidden treasure’ of music by women NPR
PARTING WORDS
“My hope is that by bringing people along for this part of my journey, they’ll feel both more connected to my life and more empowered in their own.”
— “Call Her Daddy” podcast host Alex Cooper on her new docuseries Call Her Alex, picked up by Hulu
