--- title: Sheryl Sandberg's "Ban Bossy": 16 Women Who Were Once Called "Bossy" description: 3 world leaders, 2 Supreme Court Justices, 2 presidential candidates, 2 members of Congress, and a TV host, not to mention a CEO, a First Lady, and Anna Wintour canonical: https://time.com/16382/16-successful-women-who-were-once-called-bossy-or-worse/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-10T09:31:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:54:58.567Z og:title: Ban Bossy: Here Are 16 Woman Who Were Once Called "Bossy" og:description: 3 world leaders, 2 Supreme Court Justices, 2 presidential candidates, 2 members of Congress, and a TV host, not to mention a CEO, a First Lady, and Anna Wintour og:url: https://time.com/16382/16-successful-women-who-were-once-called-bossy-or-worse/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ban Bossy: Here Are 16 Woman Who Were Once Called "Bossy" twitter:description: 3 world leaders, 2 Supreme Court Justices, 2 presidential candidates, 2 members of Congress, and a TV host, not to mention a CEO, a First Lady, and Anna Wintour twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # 'Bossy' Women: 16 Leaders Who've Overcome That Label (and Worse) > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters.  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Mar 10, 2014 9:31 AM UTC  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Mar 10, 2014 9:31 AM UTC **_Updated: March 10, 2014_** A year after [the publication of ](http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/07/why-i-want-women-to-lean-in/)[_Lean In_](http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/07/why-i-want-women-to-lean-in/)_,_ Sheryl Sandberg is back with another initiative to promote female leadership. This time, the Facebook exec takes aim at the language we use to describe women and girls who take charge. Her “Ban Bossy” campaign hopes to change a culture in which men are bosses, but women are “bossy.” Along with her co-sponsors, former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Girl Scouts CEO Ana Maria Chávez, Sandberg is asking people to stop referring to women as “bossy,” especially when they’re talking to little girls because of its negative connotations. “When I was in junior high and running for class vice president,” Sandberg explains in a [Wall Street Journal](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304360704579419150649284412) op-ed, “one of my teachers pulled my best friend aside to warn her not to follow my example: ‘Nobody likes a _bossy_ girl,’ the teacher warned.” The Facebook exec and billionaire is of course not the only powerful woman to rise above that label. Here are 16 incredibly successful women, from Margaret Thatcher to Marissa Mayer, all of whom were called “bossy” at one point or another, and some of them have been called much worse (poor Angela Merkel). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/16382/16-successful-women-who-were-once-called-bossy-or-worse/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/16382/16-successful-women-who-were-once-called-bossy-or-worse/"},"headline":"'Bossy' Women: 16 Leaders Who've Overcome That Label (and Worse)","datePublished":"2014-03-10T09:31:25.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:54:58.567Z","description":"3 world leaders, 2 Supreme Court Justices, 2 presidential candidates, 2 members of Congress, and a TV host, not to mention a CEO, a First Lady, and Anna Wintour","url":"https://time.com/16382/16-successful-women-who-were-once-called-bossy-or-worse/","keywords":["Living","Hillary Clinton","feminism","Janet Yellen","Sheryl Sandberg","Michelle Obama","marissa mayer","angela merkel"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Alter","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/16382/16-successful-women-who-were-once-called-bossy-or-worse/","name":"'Bossy' Women: 16 Leaders Who've Overcome That Label (and Worse)"}}]}] ```