{"podcast":{"title":"Harvard Business Review","slug":"harvard-business-review-7777387","podcast_index_feed_id":7777387,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/VG7900701114","website_url":null,"image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/980142f0-0d9c-11f1-9b6f-b39130a8b54a/image/fd144eac00da8bd04368206590cf5ad8.jpg?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"HBR","episode_count":511,"summary":"At Harvard Business Review, we believe in management. If the world’s organizations and institutions were run more effectively, if our leaders made better decisions, if people worked more productively, we believe that all of us — employees, bosses, customers, our families, and the people our businesses affect — would be better off. We try to arm our readers with ideas that help them become smarter, more creative, and more courageous in their work. We encourage comments, critiques, and questions. We expect our community to be a safe space for respectful, constructive, and thought-provoking discussion. We reserve the right to remove or turn off comments at our discretion. We do not tolerate bullying, name-calling, or abusive language related to identity, including race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, age, or region; spam; copyright violation; extreme profanity; or p*rnography.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-25T12:22:10.972032+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/harvard-business-review-7777387"},"episode":{"title":"The Explainer: 4 Signs That Masculinity Contests Are Impeding Your Company","slug":"the-explainer-4-signs-that-masculinity-contests-are-impeding-your-company","published_at":"2026-06-14T23:30:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/harvard-business-review-7777387/the-explainer-4-signs-that-masculinity-contests-are-impeding-your-company","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/harvard-business-review-7777387","url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/VG8119792014.mp3","audio_url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/VG8119792014.mp3","summary":"The Explainer: 4 Signs That Masculinity Contests Are Holding Back Your Company 6 Aug 2019 --- For example, extreme hours are a badge of honor. (Animated by Francesca Cattaneo) Recent exposés have revealed seemingly dysfunctional workplaces rife with misconduct, bullying, and sexual harassment. Why do companies get caught up in illegal behavior, harassment, and toxic leadership? Research identifies an underlying cause: what we call a “masculinity contest culture.” This kind of culture endorses winner-take-all competition, where winners demonstrate stereotypically masculine traits such as emotional toughness, physical stamina, and ruthlessness. It produces organizational dysfunction, as employees become hyper competitive to win. Four masculine norms, which together define masculinity contest culture, emerged as highly correlated with each other and with organizational dysfunction: “Show no weakness”: a workplace that demands swaggering confidence, never admitting doubt or mistakes, and suppressing any tender or vulnerable emotions (“no sissy stuff”). “Strength and stamina”: a workplace that prizes strong or athletic people (even in white collar work) or those who show off their endurance (e.g., by working extreme hours). “Put work first”: a workplace where nothing outside the organization (e.g., family) can interfere with work, where taking a break or a leave represents an impermissible lack of commitment. “Dog eat dog”: a workplace filled with ruthless competition, where “winners” (the most masculine) focus on defeating “losers” (the less masculine), and no one is trusted. When masculinity contest cultures become “the way business gets done,” both organizations and the people within them suffer. Your organization may have a masculinity contest culture if, for example, e…","meta_description":"The Explainer: 4 Signs That Masculinity Contests Are Holding Back Your Company 6 Aug 2019 --- For example, extreme hours are a badge of honor. (Animated b…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":256,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/harvard-business-review-7777387/episodes/the-explainer-4-signs-that-masculinity-contests-are-impeding-your-company/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/harvard-business-review-7777387/the-explainer-4-signs-that-masculinity-contests-are-impeding-your-company.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}