The names have been changed to protect the innocent.
This is anecdotal, but I have found over the years that my female bosses were more apt to try to solve a problem, sometimes creatively, whereas male bosses tend not to deal well with conflict, problems, etc. in the workplace.
Working my first programming gig, a couple years into it, and I was still just a grunt programmer. My boss, whom I'll call Susan, called me down to her office, which usually meant a shift in priorities to work on something else.
She asked me to go ask George, one of the most senior programmers, about blah-blah-blah. I have no memory of the details, but I scribbled it on my notepad. I stood there walking for more details, but that was it. She wanted me to ask George a question, and a question she could certainly ask George. There a brief silence, and then she added, "He's mad at me."
OMFG! Seriously? I did a silent scream, and a silent OMFG. She nodded and quietly said, "I know", as if to say, "Yeah, I really need you to this, so go ahead and get it out of your system, then please in all seriousness ask him this." I had to cover my mouth out of fear I would laugh out loud. Deep breath, game face on, and I was now wearing a shit eating grin so I could not help but be positive with George.
If Susan leaned back in her chair, she could see George across the hall maybe 20 feet away in his office. I turned and walked across the hall to George.
Me: "Hi George. Susan wants to know about blah-blah-blah."
George: "Well, blah-blah-blah."
Me: (walk back across the hall to Susan's office) "George said blah-blah-blah."
Susan: "Do we know if blah-blah-blah?"
Me: (walk back across the hall to George's office) "Do we know if blah-blah-blah?"
This continued. After about the second trip, Susan stopped waiting for me to echo George's words, and she responded directly to George. George made me echo Susan's words a few more times before he started responding directly to Susan.
As I moved back and forth across the hall between the two offices, George migrated across the hall to Susan's office. He went from sitting at this desk, to standing in his office, standing in his doorway, standing in the hallway, standing in the doorway of Susan's office, to standing in Susan's office talking directly to her. Once we reached that point, they were talking, and I was just standing there trying not to make a sound watching the conversation go back and forth. It was like being in the front row, middle of the court, at Wimbledon.
Because I was the catalyst for the reaction, I did not want to screw up the experiment. Anything I said or did at this point could cause the whole thing to blow up. Also, I did not know if I was an Ace up Susan's sleeve that she was keeping in reserve. If George objected because he had to work on the Thingus program, she could hand that off to me.
Conversation concluded, George agreed to do what Susan wanted, and he left. She looked relieved, but going into this she was clearly very nervous. What if it didn't work? What if George took it out on me, then we get into it. Or what if George took it out on her, "What you can't ask me a simple question? You have to send Kennah to do it?"
Bottom line, it was over, and it worked. It was the single most amazing bit of calculated problem solving I had ever seen, before or since.
Susan thanked me, and as I was leaving I decided to inject a bit of levity. I paused, looked at her, looked at the name plate outside her door that said "Team Lead", looked back and forth a few times, and Susan replied, "Shut up. Go away." I laughed, she smiled, and I went back to my office.
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