Top Tips 2: How Women Can Deal with Alpha Males in the Workplace

Tips 6-10:

6.    Use your humour, your feminine charm, your intelligence, your passion and stand your ground. If done like this, most men will find it hard to resist someone who they believe allows them to be an alpha male, but at the same time wants to be heard as much as the man, and has "the balls," as it were, to stand up for themselves.

7.    Respect is important. As much as an alpha male wants to be respected, he wants to deal with a woman he can respect. For the woman, this will take courage and resilience – being able to take the banter and the peacock feather-waving – as well as the self-belief to feel you can hold your own.

8.    Just as women want men to understand them, no matter how complicated or contrary some women may be, men also want to be understood by women, no matter how complicated or challenging some men may be. So women should ask their opinions on certain work and other issues. Get them to talk. It will flatter their ego and make them feel you value them enough to ask for their thoughts and feelings. In that scenario, unless they feel it is a conversational trap, most men are happy to expound.

9.    Be prepared to talk a man's language – and not be offended by it – as well as talk a woman's language in a way men can engage with.

10.    Don't expect special treatment just because you're a woman. That is guaranteed to irritate most if not all men. It will work against you, even more so if you take internal and/or external proceedings because you took exception, say, to a colourful piece of male banter or even a genuine compliment about your appearance. Just because a man remarks how well or stylish you look does not necessarily mean he rates you less professionally or personally or wants to do things with you that will raise more than one eyebrow and steam up your office windows!