The Advice to Stop Apologizing Can Fall Short |
Advice to stop apologizing ignores how race and gender stereotypes create different consequences
Cultural values like harmony and humility aren't deficits, they're strengths to leverage strategically.
Testing behaviors in low-stakes situations yields better data than following generic scripts.
Mainstream advice for aspiring women leaders in the workplace is to avoid apologies as much as possible. For example, we are encouraged to start an email with: “Thanks for your patience.” Instead of: “Sorry for the delay in responding.” (I don't know about you, but someone assuming I’ve been patient when in fact, I haven't, doesn’t sit well with me.) More nuanced takes advise women to eliminate “unnecessary” apologies, perhaps the ones you say to soften your point or as a mindless filler word.
Both approaches are based on empirical data about gender differences in apologizing behavior. Research shows that not only do women apologize more frequently than men, but they also spot more transgressions than men do, which may serve a social regulation function (Schumann and Ross, 2010).
Despite its empirical basis, there are two problems with this advice. First, it’s from an outdated playbook that centers on individualistic and competitive leadership norms that—if taken to their extreme-but-logical end—create leaders who lack humility and inspire more fear than trust from their teams (Rego, Cunha, and Simpson, 2018). The second is that this advice does not account for the additional complexity faced by women of color due to the intersection of both racial and gendered stereotypes (Tinkler, Zhao, Li, and Ridgeway, 2019). For example, Motro and colleagues (2022) found that Black women were perceived more........