Crabs in a Bucket Mentality: The Workplace Behaviour Women Ignore

Why we need to normalise healthy competition between women

The crabs in a bucket theory is a metaphor that refers to the behaviour of crabs when placed together in a bucket. As one crab tries to climb out and escape, the other crabs will pull it back down, preventing it from leaving the bucket. This pattern repeats itself as each crab tries to climb out, resulting in all the crabs remaining trapped in the bucket.

Clients frequently ask me to comment on the subject of women, competition, and collaboration. I have even heard the word sorority used. I find this misleading, with its association with friendship groups in American universities. It is also now linked to white feminism.

Competition and stereotyping

 Dr. Joyce Benenson, a human evolutionary biologist in some recent research from Harvard made some comments which caused my eyebrows to disappear into my hairline.  She says “The accepted wisdom both within evolutionary biology and psychology is that men are the more competitive sex.” However, Benenson also found the results only applied for same-sex assessments. “Men are more competitive towards women than women are towards men” 

At the heart of it all (even echoed by Dr. Benenson) are gender expectations and stereotyping, because women are expected to be collaborative. Naked competition, as in the “there for all to see” rather than in a lack of clothing sense, is after all for men.

Healthy Competition Between Women Drives Success

Anyone who says that women are not competitive is living in a parallel universe. You may recall Catfight by Leora Tanenbaum, which discusses the ways in which women compete (“dieting to dating, delivery room to board room”) in every aspect of our day-to-day lives. Think Regina George in Mean Girls. Many women are super competitive.

This can be about anything from their homes, recipes, petunias, and kids. Even breastfeeding and giving birth have benchmarks for “success.” They frequently compete in their own sphere of influence, quite often in a passive-aggressive way, because being competitive isn’t “feminine.” Until recently this has NOT been the workplace.

If women are openly competitive in the workplace and that includes being in competition  with men, it is a another case of “doomed if they do and damned if the don’t.”  I have written before about how women are described: “women are twice as likely to be referred to as “collaborative” and 11x more likely to be described as “abrasive” than men. The term overachiever—typically applied to strong performers who exceed performance expectations is used to describe black women 40.5 x more than a white man.”

How Crabs in a Bucket presents

The crabs in a bucket metaphor is used to describe a phenomenon where people, who are similar, such as coworkers or members of the same community or demographic, can be unsupportive or actively work against each other’s success. It describes a situation where someone is potentially held back by those around them. The reason behind this is loss of control or status which is driven by insecurity, jealousy.  Rather than support the efforts of other women they sabotage or undermine their success to weaken their position. This is also known as the “Queen Bee” Syndrome

 Employees may downplay the achievements of colleagues, attribute success to luck rather than capability, or question the legitimacy of promotions and recognition. Informal networks can sometimes reinforce these patterns by spreading scepticism about individuals who appear to be progressing quickly.

In other cases, the behaviour appears as quiet resistance,  reluctance to share information, lack of cooperation on projects, or subtle attempts to isolate individuals perceived as “getting ahead”.

These behaviours may seem minor in isolation, but collectively they can create an environment in which ambition and initiative are viewed with suspicion.

This can happen in a number of ways:

• spreading rumours or gossip
• excluding other women from opportunities
• actively working to undermine their efforts.
• withholding information
• outright bullying. A woman is more likely to be bullied by another woman than a man and up to 80% make this claim across all geographies.

Why it persists

The persistence of this dynamic is rarely explained simply by personal rivalry. More often it reflects broader organisational conditions.

Highly competitive environments, unclear promotion criteria, and limited opportunities for advancement can all encourage employees to see colleagues as rivals rather than collaborators. Where recognition and reward are perceived as scarce, the success of one individual may be interpreted as a loss for others.

Leadership behaviour also plays an important role. When organisations emphasise individual performance without recognising collective contribution, they can unintentionally reinforce the conditions in which undermining behaviour emerges.

Implications for leaders

For leaders, the presence of these dynamics can signal deeper cultural challenges. Environments in which employees feel compelled to limit one another’s progress are unlikely to sustain high levels of trust, collaboration, or innovation.

Addressing the issue requires more than encouraging individuals to “be supportive”. Leaders need to consider how performance systems, recognition practices, and organisational narratives shape behaviour.

Creating cultures in which success is seen as collective rather than competitive can reduce the conditions that allow these dynamics to flourish.

How to break free of the crabs in a bucket mentality

In order to break free of this crabs in a bucket mentality one of the first things we have to do is normalise healthy competition between women. It is OK to want to get the job even if it means a lovely co-worker may not. Successful candidates can respect their co-workers and appreciate the challenge they will give them in the future.

Psychologists suggest that there is a sweet spot between healthy cooperation and competition.

Healthy competition increases innovation, improves efficiency, and improves engagement, collective intelligence, and motivation. It can result in high-quality work and improved learning experiences.  Collaboration can lead to the pooling of knowledge and skills, sharing resources and offering support at critical times. All of these lead to achieving greater impact and working towards a common goal.

Celebrate not demean

Women can be just as competitive as men, and this competitiveness should be celebrated and harnessed. Societal and cultural pressures lead women to feel that being competitive is not acceptable and is masculine-coded behaviour.  It is actually a form of sexism because gender bias is gender-neutral.

This makes women reluctant to state their ambitions publicly, put themselves forward, and speak up and may even lead to them holding themselves back and deferring to men.  When those women who do act in this competitive way both men AND women put them down. This blocks their opportunities for personal growth, achievement, and success.

How to step-up, speak up and self-advocate – 3 Plus International

Conclusion

The crabs in a bucket mentality is rarely discussed openly in organisations, yet many employees recognise the pattern when they encounter it. When left unaddressed, it can erode trust, discourage initiative, and weaken collaboration.

For leaders seeking to build resilient and productive workplaces, recognising these dynamics is an important first step. Addressing them requires thoughtful attention to organisational culture, incentives, and leadership behaviour.

When women work to build supportive and inclusive relationships and challenge sexist norms to support the success of other women, they create a more positive and empowering environment both for themselves and others.

Organisations experiencing destructive internal competition often benefit from an external perspective. Contact 3Plus International to discuss these dynamics in your organisation.

Call us to continue the conversation!