The people they work with. Most of us care about your attitude, ability, and execution. If you can do your job competently, good. If you can excel at your job, outstanding…you likely have a bright future with promotions eventually. This type of belief and attitude comes from spending too much time on social media/news that collate stories that induce outrage. Welcome to the normal world.

One of my closest friends and mentors is a woman who has been very successful. I worked with her at two companies (her as CEO and me as COO) that are important and vital in their respective industries. She has told me more times than I can count over the years that she prefers working with men to women. The funny thing is that I don’t care one way or another. My current company has an equal number of men and women in CXO and leadership positions with likely a slight edge to women in the overall workforce.

I think most GenX and later people don’t care about anything other than can you get your job done. These ideas that keep getting propagated need to die.