When female tech leaders fall for the “mine’s bigger” trap
When women broke into the tech C-suite, the industry congratulated itself with all the subtlety of a banner ad: empathy, inclusivity, collaboration — finally, a break from testosterone-fueled decision-making. But somewhere between keynote panels and boardroom realpolitik, too many female leaders absorbed the worst habits of the men who historically kept them out.
Let’s call it what it is: the “mine’s bigger” trap.
The performance of power
It’s not about actual power. It’s about its performance — who can swagger harder in a room full of execs. Who can one-up in the budgeting war. Who can slap a metric on a slide deck that screams scale, even if it masks decay underneath. And increasingly, women who’ve clawed their way into these roles feel pressured to play the same tired dominance games to prove they belong.
This isn’t imposter syndrome. It’s mimicry born from survival.
You see it in the way they defend bloated headcounts and pet platforms with the same bravado as the bro-CIOs who got a golden parachute after their second failed SAP migration. You hear it in all-hands meetings, where “let’s circle back” means “I’m the apex operator in this room.”
Why it happens
It’s not a character flaw. It’s a system flaw.
When male-dominated hierarchies define what “executive presence” looks like — decisive, unflinching, chest-out — it pressures everyone to conform. So instead of changing the rules, many women inherit the playbook. Their mentorship? Often from men who built empires on empire-building, not impact. Their KPIs? Still steeped in scale-as-success. The larger the org, the better the optics. Even when it’s collapsing under its own weight.
And when they don’t play along? They’re called “not strategic,” “too soft,” or worse, “not ready.”
What we lose
When female leaders mimic the same extractive, performative behaviors that got tech into its current malaise — SaaS sprawl, DEI theater, headcount as a power metric — they don’t just perpetuate the problem. They become indistinguishable from the very systems they were supposed to disrupt.
The real problem? We keep measuring leadership by the width of the org chart, not the depth of its outcomes.
Here’s what nobody’s admitting
The tech industry doesn’t just need more women at the top. It needs different leadership at the top. Leaders who are willing to not play the game. Who define power not by the size of their empire but by their ability to dismantle dysfunctional ones.
Until we stop rewarding mimicry and start rewarding integrity, inclusion becomes just another box on the quarterly report.
So to the women rising through the ranks: don’t confuse playing the game with winning it.
Burn the old playbook. Write your own.
Will Kelly is a writer, content strategist, and keen observer of the IT industry. Medium is home to his personal writing projects. His professional interests include generative AI, cloud computing, DevOps, and collaboration tools. He has written for startups, Fortune 1000 firms, and leading industry publications, including CIO and TechTarget. Follow him on X: @willkelly. You can also follow him on BlueSky: willkelly.bsky.social.
