Latest / Women at Work: Career, Leadership & Modern Work / Why Women Leaders Face More Criticism for Small Mistakes
Transcript
- Lucas: You know, I was reading a piece in Harvard Business Review from earlier this year, and one number jumped out at me: when women leaders make a small mistake — a typo in a memo, showing up two minutes late to a meeting — their performance reviews are about 27 percent more likely to mention that error as a sign of incompetence. For men, the same mistake is usually described as a one-off or just not mentioned at all. Luna: Twenty-seven percent — that's not subtle. And I think every woman I know who's been in a leadership role has a story that matches that. Lucas: Right. So let's call this what it is — a scrutiny tax on women leaders. And it's not about big failures. It's about the small stuff. The kind of thing everyone does but that seems to stick differently to women. Luna: I want to get into why that happens, but first — do you have a specific case that illustrates this? Lucas: Yeah, there's a well-documented example from about two years ago. A female CFO at a mid-cap tech company sent an earnings preview spreadsheet to the board with a formula error that overstated revenue by about two percent. She caught it within hours, corrected it, and sent a clean version. But the board meeting that quarter spent nearly twenty minutes on her 'lack of rigor.' The previous CFO — a man — had made similar spreadsheet errors at least three times in his tenure. They were never raised as a governance concern. Luna: So the same error, same company, same role — different consequences. That's the scrutiny tax in action. Lucas: Exactly. And what's interesting is that the study from HBR — it looked at 5,000 performance reviews across 20 companies — found that this pattern holds even when the mistake has zero business impact. A typo in a client email that gets corrected before sending? Women are criticized for 'lack of attention to detail.' Men get a pass. Luna: There's a term for this — the 'negative double standard.' It's not just that women are judged more harshly for mistakes; it's that the same behavior is interpreted differently. A man who speaks assertively is confident. A woman who does the same is aggressive. A man who misses a deadline once is 'stretched thin.' A woman is 'disorganized.' Lucas: And this isn't just about perception — it has real career consequences. The HBR study also found that women who received even one critical comment about a minor mistake in a review were 30 percent less likely to be promoted in the next two years. For men, there was no statistically significant correlation. Luna: So it's a promotion killer. And I think part of what makes it so frustrating is that it's hard to fight. You can't exactly say, 'Hey, that typo you mentioned — would you have said that if I were a man?' Lucas: Right, because that often backfires. The research on backlash shows that women who call out bias directly are seen as 'difficult' or 'playing the gender card.' So the scrutiny tax creates a double bind: you either absorb the criticism and let it hurt your reputation, or you push back and risk being labeled as someone who can't take feedback. Luna: Okay, so what do we do about it? I mean, we can't change human psychology overnight. But there are individual strategies that work. Lucas: Let's talk about a few. First, documentation. If you're a woman in a leadership role and you know you're under a microscope, keep a running log of your decisions and their outcomes. Not for your own use — for when you need to push back on a narrative. If someone says you made a mistake, you can say, 'Actually, here's the email thread showing that I flagged that risk and got sign-off from the team.' That's hard to argue with. Luna: I've seen that work. A friend of mine — she's a VP at a bank — she keeps a 'brag file' and a 'cover your bases file.' The brag file is for wins, but the cover your bases file is specifically for moments where she anticipated a problem or corrected a mistake before it became visible. She says it's saved her in at least two performance reviews. Lucas: That's smart. Second strategy — build vocal allies. When a male colleague speaks up to say, 'Actually, that error was minor and everyone makes them,' it lands differently than if you defend yourself. The study found that when a male peer normalized the mistake — said something like 'I've done worse' — the criticism dropped significantly. Luna: So it's about creating a culture where small mistakes aren't seen as character flaws. But that requires men in leadership to be aware of this dynamic and actively intervene. Lucas: Exactly. And that's actually a place where we can all do better. If you're in a meeting and you hear someone being overly critical of a woman for a minor error, you can redirect: 'Let's focus on the bigger picture. What did we learn from this?' That simple reframe can stop the scrutiny spiral. Luna: Before we move on, I want to talk about something that came up in the study that surprised me. The scrutiny tax isn't just from male colleagues. Women reviewers were also harder on female leaders for small mistakes. Lucas: Yeah, that was a sobering finding. The bias is not just a gender divide — it's internalized. The study controlled for reviewer gender and found that women reviewers were about 15 percent more likely to flag minor errors in female leaders compared to male leaders. That's lower than the 27 percent from male reviewers, but it's still significant. Luna: Which suggests that we all carry these implicit expectations. The ideal leader is still unconsciously associated with masculine traits — decisive, unflappable, not making small mistakes. When a woman shows a human flaw, it violates that image. Lucas: Right. And the cost of that violation is a hit to perceived competence. One of the researchers put it well: 'Women leaders are expected to be perfect to be seen as good. Men just have to be good enough.' Luna: That's a great line. And it's exhausting. Because perfection is impossible. So the question becomes: how do organizations fix this on a systemic level? Lucas: A few things. First, structured performance reviews with clear, objective criteria. When reviewers have to rate specific behaviors instead of giving overall impressions, the gender bias drops. The HBR study found that companies using rubric-based reviews had a significantly smaller scrutiny gap. Luna: So less 'gut feel,' more data. That makes sense. Lucas: Second, calibrate feedback. If a manager wants to mention a minor error, they should ask themselves: would I mention this if the employee were a man? If the answer is no, don't mention it. That's a simple check that can reduce bias. Luna: And third — normalize mistakes. Some companies have started doing 'failure forums' where leaders share their own mistakes openly. When a female CEO stands up and says, 'I sent a report with a decimal error last quarter,' it gives permission for everyone to be human. Lucas: That's a great practice. And it ties into something we've talked about on this show before — the idea that women are held to a higher standard, but also that men get more grace. The scrutiny tax is one piece of that puzzle. Luna: I think it's one of the more insidious pieces, because it's about the small stuff. It's death by a thousand cuts. Lucas: Absolutely. And speaking of the small stuff — if this show has helped you think about these dynamics, or given you a new perspective, we want to mention something. We deliberately don't run ads on Women at Work. That's a choice we made because we want these conversations to flow without interruption. If that matters to you and you'd like to support it, there's a simple way: buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's it. No pressure — just a way for listeners who find value here to help keep it going. Luna: And honestly, every little bit helps. We hear from so many of you that these episodes are giving you language for things you've experienced but couldn't name. That's why we do it. Lucas: Okay, back to the scrutiny tax. One more strategy I want to mention: the 'preemptive narrative.' Before you even make a small mistake, you can set the frame. For example, if you're presenting a complex financial model, you can say upfront, 'I've triple-checked everything, but if you spot a typo, flag it — my focus was on the assumptions, not the formatting.' That way, if there is an error, it's already been contextualized. Luna: That's proactive. And it works because you're controlling the story before anyone else can. I've done something similar when leading a high-stakes meeting — I'll say, 'I'm going to jump around a bit because I want to make sure we cover everything. Bear with me.' Then if I seem a little scattered, it's framed as intentional. Lucas: Exactly. It's about managing the perception before it becomes a problem. And that's an unfortunate extra burden — women have to do this kind of meta-communication, while men just get the benefit of the doubt. But until the system changes, it's a useful tool. Luna: I want to end on a hopeful note, though. The awareness of this scrutiny tax is growing. More companies are doing bias training that specifically addresses micro-criticism. And the data is getting harder to ignore. Lucas: Yeah, I think the key is to name it. When you call it a 'scrutiny tax,' it becomes a concrete concept that people can recognize and push back on. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. Luna: So for any woman listening who's been told she's 'too detail-oriented' or 'made a small error' in a way that felt disproportionate — you're not imagining it. And there are ways to protect yourself. Lucas: And for allies listening — speak up. When you see a colleague being held to an impossible standard, say something. That's how we change the norm. Luna: Great conversation. Until next time. Lucas: Take care, everyone.