Ambition is multi-cultural, vastly utilized, and spread vicariously through nations. It infects the lives of those boldly courageous and diligent enough to surpass their highest goals.
Ambition brands its mark on the hearts of those confident enough to strive, overcome and challenge all scenarios. Is it equally shared between the males and females who install it? I’ve heard it said that men are leaders by nature more than women. The question of the century still remains. Sheryl Sandberg; the chief officer of Facebook, retired vice president for Google and ex-chief of staff for the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, is the female representative of ambition.
In her book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (2013), she details her life experiences, past situations and emotional standpoints involving the woman and her will to lead. She draws upon the reader’s thoughts concerning gender roles, leadership, and the female in a daily work environment. Elaborating about past experiences, and passed down stories concerning to her family struggles, and the risks her grandmother and mother underwent in order to provide for the family. In this decade, gender roles were considered normal and displayed no sense of abnormalities. Despite their almost inevitably poverty stricken lives, Sheryl tells her readers how inspiringly ambitious her grandmother and mother were in order to save the family from imminent poverty. Most would think it almost genetic how daring the females acted given
In the business world, being a woman in a male dominated world is not easy. A woman should move away from the virtues that was instilled to them as a young girl. Working in a male-dominated field, especially for a new up and coming female executive, a woman must always have
Nadler and Stockdale mention how women face the most challenges in receiving higher positions in the workforce (282+). Nadler and Stockdale claim that women are viewed as competent, but individuals who are both competent and likeable are most likely to be promoted (287+). Nadler and Stockdale declare, “Women endeavoring to succeed in a masculine work role, such as upper management, currently face obstacles based on their perceived gender role” (283+). Women who succeed in earning a managerial position will have to eventually pay the cost of receiving that position (Nadler and Stockdale 282+). Many women will postpone relationships or having children to succeed in the workforce (Nadler and Stockdale 282+). Nadler and Stockdale add that women
To start off, the leadership characteristics mentioned by Chin were intelligence, dominance, confidence, masculinity, and charisma. According to her quotation male leaders, all have those characteristics which made them be great conductors. Therefore, there have been more male leaders than female leading characters. As a group, we usually assume that man should always be the leaders because of what we are accustomed to seeing. For example, the president of the United States all males and when there was a female candidate running for presidency she clearly lost. However, many people are not aware about the fact that females are usually working behind the scenes and they let man be “on the spotlight” because if the roles were to reverse the female leaders will not be taken as seriously as the man since females are categorized as “emotional individuals” as if being emotional would impair them from being a good leader.
Leadership is not a static process, but rather one which has a lot of dynamism, and the ability to navigate all these issues are what makes a leader to be rated as being great or not. A leader is not one who is at the helm of an organization, but rather one who can motivate, inspire, grow, mentor, and develop others to fulfill their potentials. The inclination being that leaders are as good as their followers. Abraham Lincoln is judged because of the nation that he left behind. Jimmy Carter is remembered for having overseen one of the most corrupt regimes in modern America. The point is that the ability of the leaders to have the desired results and the impact that their actions have on these followers is what counts (Schyns & Wolfram, 2008). Some careers are said to favor women such as nurturing, while men are associated with
Deaux, Kite, and Heilman (as cited by Northouse, 2016) state that “men are stereotyped with agentic characteristics such as confidence, assertiveness, independence, rationality, and decisiveness, whereas women are stereotyped with communal characteristics such as concern for others, sensitivity, warmth, helpfulness, and nurturance” (p. 404). On a personal level, I am still surprised to see that Belkin, Craig, and Pailhe & Solaz (as cited by Northouse, 2016) found that “women continue to do the majority of the child care responsibilities and household chores (p. 400). This not only has a huge effect on the choices women make in their careers, but it still serves as a reminder of the views that males still maintain towards women and the “antiquated workplace norms” women face (Northouse, 2016, p. 400). This struck a personal note with me because I have had many conversations with coworkers, both peers and followers, whose husbands still have the view that the wife takes care of the household while the husband provides for the family with work and does not handle domestic duties. I have friends that do not change dirty diapers because that is their wife’s job (again on a personal note, I could not imagine how this would have gone over with my wife if I had told her that). These views may have been true decades ago when the male worked and the woman stayed home to keep up the household and take care of family, but that is obviously not the case anymore since these conversations I am having are with working wives and mothers. However, until these societal views are changed, gender will matter in women attaining leadership roles, and how women handle and are perceived in leadership
She is the only female partner, as well as one of two female attorneys out of eight at the firm. Ms. Offergeld has had personal experiences with the struggles of being a working mother; “I took off early from work to spend time with my children and the male bosses got mad at me. They called me into their office and complained that I should make work my first priority” (Offergeld). She also felt that she had to build more hours than her male colleagues to get further in the firm. This is a common theme of women in the workforce; and is called the prove-it-again bias. This is when “women are expected to repeatedly show more evidence of their competencies than men before others believe they are fit to lead” (Perkins). Ms. Offergeld became proof of this bias when a male colleague who was hired after her became a partner before her. This is a reoccoring theme in the workforce. Women are passed up for jobs by men simply because it is thought that men are the better workers. When asked what career advice she would give to young women who want to become leaders Ms. Offergeld replied: “Make your male counterparts respect you by always working hard and cultivating clients. Network as much as you can with other women in your business in order to gain contacts. Don’t let gender perceptions hold you back”
When analyzing leadership characteristics and styles, there are considerable differences in gender characteristics that are identified. Men are considered to have “masculine” traits, such as being
Thesis statement: Leadership depends on the leader’s leadership style and there way of communicating ideas rather than the leader themselves. Both women and men believe in similar leadership styles however women prefer a more participative leadership approach.
Today, women are subjected to a high volume of ideas regarding what they should do with their lives and how they should behave. Society subjects women to hostility for choosing to work instead of having children or being a working mother. This contrasts women who choose to stay at home that are subjected to mockery for not doing enough with their life and supporting traditional gender roles. What happens when these ideas and concepts are discussed with a woman who happens to be a mother and the president of an extremely profitable credit company? By narrowing and investigating the ideas of women leaders as individuals and not as a whole, it shows that each leader is unique and shaped by their experience. In this paper, a specific woman leader’s opinions and experiences will be discussed compared to multiple theories about women and leadership; her name is Pam Krank and she is the President of The Credit Department, Incorporated. Her company is involved in “credit management outsourcing” and “managing trade receivables for companies’ worldwide” (Krank 1993 n.p.). Pam oversees many employees, some working from a central office in Saint Paul, Minnesota and some who work from home. Pam is working in a masculine dominated field and must be able to navigate leadership in both a masculine and feminine sense. Pam is forced to navigate murky waters because she works in a masculine field with predominantly male dominated companies. The concept of opting-out closely aligns with
Many may think that ambitious people are selfish and never satisfied because they always want more. Ambition can help you lose all of your consistent habits and it pushes you to do everything that you want to change which can make you an overall happier. “...if you’re a lazy, sloppy drunk and then you decide to start doing something with your life, maybe you decide to become the mailman or you decide to be a banker or deliver groceries to old, that’s a good thing, the ambition is working for you.” This claim shows how you can use ambition to change almost anything, ambition pushes you to do/be anything you want. As long as you use the right amount of ambition, Ambition doesn’t take time away from your loved ones or the other important things.“You want to work for Greenpeace, you want to support your wife and children, you want to travel to Africa, you want to buy yourself your first real car, you want to clean the house, you want to start combining your hair and brushing your teeth, you want to be the kind of decent person that someone would invite over to their house for the weekend.” If you use your ambition to do good things with your family, then you're using the ambition
Ambition is normally seen as a positive quality in an individual, but it can in
Do you ever wonder why so few women take up leadership positions in the world? In the past, men had more power than women. Is this the main reason of why women should be treated unfairly today in the way of success? In fact, this is one of the causes that makes unfair treatment of women in society. Women are submissive to the life that their mothers have been through and do not really have courage to change the position of where they are standing and to change this inequitable treatment. In order to become a successful leader like men, women must be courageous of standing up in front of others. Also, a woman should find a good partner that supports her to change people’s thinking about stereotype
The share of female managers in financial and banking sectors has increased in the last decades. Yet, the proportion of women at decision-making level in finance ministries, central banks, banking supervisory agencies and major stock exchanges remains very insignificant. Often a career at the decision-making level in these institutions requires education in certain prestigious universities. As women have been granted access to many of these universities only lately, Wirth assumes that it is just a matter of time before women appear among executive directors in ruling financial institutions.
They found out that female and male leaders have equal concern for the task. However, women manifest more concern for an interpersonal relationship than men (Eagly and Johannesen‐Schmidt, 2001). Moreover, using Blake and Mouton (1964) framework, women show a more democratic (or participative) style, which facilitates collaboration, and less autocratic (or directive) style, that don’t enhance followers’ creativity. Thus, according to the contemporary standard, women manifested more appropriate traits for being an effective leader.
In reality, many cases have appeared to show women’s talent as a leader. Meg Whitman, who is the