Guest post by Ken Mueller. Ken blogs at Inkling Media, where he draws on over 30 years of media industry experience. He’s now a social media marketing consultant and a regular at coffee shops in my  hometown of Lancaster, PA.

Full disclosure: I’m a man. I say that because I don’t have much perspective on what it’s like to be a woman in the business world. I’ve read about inequities in pay and promotions based on gender, but again, as a man, I don’t have much experience in that to draw on. But I do know my perception of women in business.

The best boss I’ve ever had was a woman. For 13 years she inspired me. She knew how to treat her employees, and we both worked hard and played hard as a department within a larger organization. She did her job well and her employees loved her. And she wasn’t afraid to admit when she didn’t know something. She hired us because of our skills, many of which were not in her area of expertise. She deferred to us when necessary, trusting our judgment, and earned our loyalties.

The reason for this post is a conversation I had with Kelly regarding a now famous blog post by Clay Shirky entitled “A Rant about Women.”

You can read the post for yourself, but the gist of it, as I see it, is that women need to be better self-promoters and more aggressive in selling themselves and their skills. I have no qualms with that. But where I part with Shirky is in his use of the word “arrogant.” In his own words:

“It’s tempting to imagine that women could be forceful and self-confident without being arrogant or jerky, but that’s a false hope, because it’s other people who get to decide when they think you’re a jerk, and trying to stay under that threshold means giving those people veto power over your actions.

To put yourself forward as someone good enough to do interesting things is, by definition, to expose yourself to all kinds of negative judgments, and as far as I can tell, the fact that other people get to decide what they think of your behavior leaves only two strategies for not suffering from those judgments: not doing anything, or not caring about the reaction.”

Of course, Shirky comes down in favor of the latter.

I take great issue with this, not because I’m a man, but because I’m a man who doesn’t like doing business with anyone who is like that, regardless of gender. I think it is this kind of attitude that creates individuals like Miranda Priestly, Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada.

There is nothing likable about Miranda. We have little clue as to how she began her career, but somewhere along the line we can assume she made some decisions to be “that woman” and lost herself.

No denying that Priestly wasn’t good at what she did, and sure, she was (mostly) a fictional character, but I’ve known plenty of people like her. And I won’t do business with them. I wouldn’t hire them, and I wouldn’t want to work with, or for, them.

The conventional wisdom is that for a woman to get noticed she must be confident and self-assured. Sadly, the conventional wisdom also states that in order to be so, they must be arrogant, walk all over others, and, well … become the b-word. In other words, no one else matters but me.

That’s why a book like Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office by Lois P. Frankel ends up on the bestseller list. Personally, I’d rather work with someone who is helpful and cares about others. I don’t believe that there is anything admirable about a man who does whatever it takes to get to the top.

The same goes for women. There’s no reason that a woman can’t be both nice and successful.

Do your work, and do it well. Always strive to be the best at what you do. In my business, I actually work with far more women than I do men. Most of my clients actually happen to be businesses that are owned and run by women. They are great at what they do, are respected for it, and I love working with them.

Don’t be Miranda Priestly. It’s not worth it. Be yourself. Just because some men get to the top by being jerks doesn’t mean you should play that same game. Is it worth being someone you’re not just to succeed, or would you rather do the right thing?

I guess a lot depends on your definition of success.

I’ll end by quoting a scene from The Devil Wears Prada — perhaps the most important scene in the film. It’s near the end , when Priestly and her protégé, Andy Sachs are riding in a car. Again, this is fiction, but it is also very telling:

Miranda: I see a great deal of myself in you. You can see beyond what people want, what they need, and you can choose for yourself.

Andy: I don’t think I’m like that. I … I couldn’t do what you did to Nigel, Miranda; I couldn’t do something like that.

Miranda: You already did … to Emily.

Andy: That’s not what I … no, no, that was different. I didn’t have a choice…

Miranda: Oh, no, you chose. You chose to get ahead. You want this life? Those choices are necessary.

Andy: But what if this isn’t what I want. I mean, what If I don’t want to live the way you live.

Miranda: Oh don’t be ridiculous, Andrea. Everybody wants this. Everybody wants to be us.

—

As I was finishing up writing this, I noticed a post on Twitter from marketing strategist Kelli Schmith (@marketingveep) linking to a blog post from the Harvard Business Review – Can She Lead? I think it paints a much more realistic picture of what it means to be a woman who is successful in business and life.

Who are you and who do you want be?