Alpha Men Make My Scrotum Shrivel

The first time I was up close and personal with an alpha male was in an elite law firm. This is hardly surprising; about 70% of all senior corporate executives are alpha males.

I don’t usually subscribe to categorisations. They seem reductive and oddly petty. Worse still, they create the illusion of order.

But the psychological studies I’ve read since gave me a EUREKA! moment. Suddenly, it all made sense.

Here are the characteristics of the alpha corporate male:

• Highly intelligent, confident and successful.
• Comfortable with tough decisions, they actively seek out leadership roles.
• They take (extraordinarily) high levels of performance for granted, both in themselves and in others.
• Unemotional and analytical in their cognitive style.
• Little or no natural curiosity about people or feelings.

It was intimidating to be around. And I hated myself for not handling it better.

Is it a gay thing? I don’t think so. I did rather suspect a number of my colleagues fantasised about being pummelled into submission by whichever alpha leader we were servicing that week, but I didn’t see the appeal. I like determined and driven guys — no one loves a loser — but I need to see evidence of a slightly off-kilter way of engaging with the world. And toned, rather than muscly. Big muscles are kind of gross.

I feel very comfortable in an all-male setting. I went to an all-boys school, which I loved. (And I never once experienced homophobia, by the way. Genuinely. Not even once.)

I have close friendships with dominant men. These men are no pushovers, and I seek their guidance on the most important points of how to live. I place enormous value on their advice, and — I would like to think — vice versa.

And yet. Working for alpha men? My testicles barely survived it.

The executive coaching of alpha men in the corporate workplace has become a whole cottage industry.

It turns out I’m not the only one who finds alpha men very difficult to work with.

And it’s quite a tricky problem to solve, because often it is their business strengths which make them a**holes to work for.

And, because they’re data not people focused, they’re often oblivious to the effect they have on others.

Never before had I experienced such little rapport with a colleague. There was something awkward about him, and it put me on edge. Eye contact felt like being stared out by a King prawn.

This, I now know, is commonplace. The workplace alpha is adamant about not appearing soft. They are dominating and super assertive, very analytical and serious. Emotions are out, logic is in. Dealings were transactional.

And it was the first time I felt I had been written off within the minutes of our encounter. It was a new feeling — a sense of being dismissed out of hand.

This too, I found out recently, is commonplace. Alpha men often make snap judgments about other people, which they hold on to tenaciously.

I did moan to friends about my predicament, but there was an amusing lack of sympathy. “You chose to swim with the sharks,” was a frequent refrain of the time.

And it was, as an experience, fascinating — sometimes riveting. It was like a trip to the zoo, watching caged animals whose traits were anathema to my own.

Meetings were particularly memorable. There was a certain blunt way of speaking — the industry calls it “alphaspeak” — which focused on the flaws in people’s analysis. It is the leadership style of the corporate alpha archetype.

You read about such people in books and think: nope, that’s a Dickensian stereotype, no one’s actually like that, especially not in a “modern” workplace. Well, it turns out such people do exist, and they like to hang out in the Square Mile.

I thought, as an environment, it was dysfunctional. But as a money making machine, it was second to none, and the work product was consistently excellent. And others — some of them friends — did thrive.

To each their own, I guess.

Alphas recognize other alphas.

I can be dominating, but not in their company. I can be disagreeable, but around them I become excessively “nice”. This makes the whole predicament worse.

But when I consciously adopted some of their traits, praise usually came my way. “You really stepped up, you showed you have edge.”

But it was an act, and it took its toll. I’m not all that into this “live your best life, be your authentic self” stuff but I will say this: regularly doing a seventy hour week pretending to be someone you’re not is hell. I can still summon the feeling of being completely trapped.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer

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