Women should never cry about work – especially if they’re PM

ON THE anniversary of her premiership, Theresa May revealed she shed a “little tear” when she heard the exit poll indicating her gamble to call a snap election had backfired.’ I read the above on CNN, a report that continued: ‘The poll accurately predicted a hug…’

Oh, for God’s sake. They have polls about whether or not the PM is going to get a hug from her long-suffering husband, Philip? What next? A poll on whether or not he’ll take her breakfast in bed? Or squeeze her hand in church?

Then I realised what it actually said was ‘hung parliament’. OK, but still. Politics shouldn’t, along with everything else in the world – news stories, the tennis, football, The Sky At Night – be feminised.

Unless you are made of steel, do not become a politician and try to garner the sympathy vote. (I still don’t believe Mrs Thatcher was crying when she left No10; I think she poked a mascara wand in her eye.) Exactly the same principle applies for politics as it does for men who say ‘I love you’ all the time: we don’t care how you feel. We only care about how we feel. Men say they love us to get out of doing practical things, like operating a strimmer.

May was crying for herself, not the country. She was trying to show humanity, that she is not a robot, but that is what we need in a leader: an automaton who will get the job done. Empathetic, but selfless. Tears and words are cheap. There is too much emotion awash in the world, and it is not helpful. (I blame Diana for unleashing the current British obsession with leaving flowers to rot on the pavement in their cellophane, when organised protest and action are what’s called for.)

MOST of all, though, I cannot stand women who cry in the workplace. They never shed tears when they make a mistake. (When did ‘I forgot!’ and ‘I did my best!’ become valid excuses, yet these are words I hear all the time between sobs.) They cry when you ask them to move desk, or to stop chatting, or to please face your computer.

My leaving card from one job as a boss had the headline, ‘Face the front!’ accompanied by a caption to a furious-looking photo, ‘Walk faster!’

I think the problems start when, as a leader, a woman tries to make everyone beneath her like her. Your staff or even your PA are not your friends – they secretly hate you. It’s a hard lesson to learn that, even though you give an employee a bonus, or a handbag, or Fridays off, that they don’t care if you live or die. And I think bosses are resented far more when they are female. No one questioned Cameron as much as they question May because, as a posh white man, he was entitled.

A woman is either a robot if she emotes nothing, or she is weak when she cries, and I know I’d rather be the former.

You have no real friends when you are a leader. I found that out, fast. After I was sacked for the third time from a position where I’d toiled away uncomplaining for more than 11 years, I received not a single email from the people I’d worked hard for, or alongside. Actually, I even rather selflessly sent one of them an idea, a really good idea, and he didn’t even have the courage to reply. (I will get my revenge; he’s named in my upcoming memoir.)

It was a lesson for me, going down in the opinion polls of management. Your job is just a job. It doesn’t love you back. Theresa May will one day be a ‘former’; my CV is littered with the word.

She needs to dry her tears, roll up her sleeves, and do what she’s paid for. At least she has a pension to look forward to.