Are Women Better Leaders Than Men - Essay

Confidence, integrity, purpose, empowerment, determination, and courage. These are some of the many words associated with leadership. Regardless of gender, these words apply to all leaders. It is no longer a question of what women leaders are, but rather why there are not women leaders. Today’s society focuses on fulfilling leadership positions with males, not because females do not have the same skills and knowledge as men, but because people associate men with leaders. There are various daily obstacles that women face in the attempt towards leadership roles including prejudice beliefs, resistance due to stereotypes, leadership styles, family life demands and underinvestment in social capital. We have found that through depictions in the media, women are not seen as effective leaders in the same sense as men. These media findings and various research techniques provide evidence for the lack of female presence in leadership positions.

The term "Leadership” is defined to lead the followers the right path. Many people have a view that a leader will not exist until and unless he has followers. I feel this view is true as a single person is not capable of doing all the works just by himself/herself. When leadership comes the big question arises "How people are leading the followers?" "Is there any difference between a leadership of a man and a woman”? So, due to all these questions leadership seems to be very vast. If we see the ancient view then in those days men were seen as the bread winners and women were seen as the homemakers. Today, women has broken all those myths and is coming forwards as a successful leader.

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

According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, women make up half of the workforce today and 40 percent of women are either equal to their male counterparts or the singular breadwinners in their household (Institute for Women’s Policy Research). And most Americans find women are better than men in key leadership traits such as intelligence and competence for

In prior studies, leadership roles have been based off one’s sex instead of gender. According to Park, male gender qualities characterized as; aggressive, independent, objective, logical, rational,analytical, decisive, confident, assertive, ambitious, opportunistic and impersonal are distinguished from female gender qualities described as; emotional, sensitive, expressive, cooperative, intuitive, warm, tactful, receptive to ideas, talkative, gentle, empathetic, and submissive (p. 12). These characteristics brings up the notion of how women pursue being leaders because they are opposite of men who dominates the leadership

Marie A. Chisholm-Burns states that “perhaps no sector has been more publicly scrutinized for its gender disparities than the corporate world” (312). While women tend to do most of the shopping for the household, they still lack the ability to voice their opinions about what can be done to improve consumption or shopping. USA Today recently wrote an article that was boldly named “Sexism in the Workplace is Worse Than You Thought” which talks about the gender bias women face in the workplace as they progress in their career (Chisholm-Burns 312). Since white males are considered superior in today’s society, diversity is hard to find in high-paying jobs. Because women face discrimination, many businesses struggle to reach their full potential. The glass ceiling is also very condescending and causes women to act negatively towards themselves. The discrimination in pay between men and women has caused many women to form anxiety or stress disorders, such as depression. It also causes women to not strive to be the best they can and because they struggle with this, the possibilities of having great women in leadership decreases even lower than it was originally. These low levels of female leaders also lack encouragement from good role models who would help them learn how to be a leader. If equality becomes a strong focus for corporations, then they should see a positive overall

Northouse (2016a) describes the development of female leadership. It was once a question if women could lead; yes, they can, but a gender gap exists. Differences between men and women that affect their job attainment. Although men and women may have equal access to entry and lower level positions, men hold more prestigious upper level jobs. Why does this occur? Generally, women have invested less than men in human capital: job history, training, and school. Women invest more time than men in taking care of family. As a result, men obtain jobs that require more responsibilities (Northouse, 2016a).

Meg Whitman of Hewlett Packard, Indra Nooyi of Pepsi, Marissa Mayer of Yahoo, Mary Barra of General Motors, and countless other women are setting the precedent as female CEO’s in today’s society. Women and men are now more than ever beginning to be thought of as equals. This may be true in some aspects, but in leadership roles, there is a big gap. Even though women are a minority in the high ranking positions of businesses, they need to become a commonality because it is financially beneficial across the board to their company.

the though of a woman being their superior is a dreadful thought. Researchers have long suspected that women employ a different leadership styles than men. And even though women make up only a small fraction of CEOs at the largest corporations in the United States and beyond, their leadership style might actually be more effective than men’s, according to at least

Men leaders are often praised and rewarded when success comes their way, whereas women see success as coming with a cost (Luscombe, 2013). Data has shown that “success and likability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women”, but this realization has led her to be a more powerful and thoughtful leader in her role (Luscombe, 2013). It explains why her female employees will negotiate hard for their clients, but not themselves, and why women are less eager to boast their accomplishments or go for higher leadership positions (Luscombe, 2013). Changing this way of thinking connects to what we have learned about leadership in class, specifically the fifth element of what leaders do best: encourage the heart (Management, 2017). If women feel appreciated, and like their ideas matter in the workplace, they are more likely to stay and succeed. Women are twice as likely to believe that their gender will make it harder to advance (Sandberg, 2015). Therefore, knowing this correlation between success and popularity as a manager completely changes the review on employees, especially women. Additionally, visions in companies fail when it becomes outdated (Management, 2017). It is becoming increasingly normal and essential for women to play a large role in the leadership of companies, and the gender bias is

Women have come along away since the 1940’s working in factories to obtaining top corporate positions. However, leadership opportunities are limited for women. Women have already proven they could do the same work as men. In recent years, more women have risen to take leadership positions in Fortune 500 companies. For example, Mary T. Barra became the Chief Executive Officer of General Motors, one of the largest Automobile Manufacturer in North America. Women have progressed in society becoming dominant part of American workforce.

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

As the author points out, the figures on women in leadership is staggering in disparity. The article takes time to focus on identifying and highlighting reasons what makes a successful leader. Having an opportunity to attend a leadership meeting, in which we discussed improving inclusion at my company, this article presented many of the same reasons that as a company we tried to understand, “Why do we not have more women in leadership?” This article really underscores that in order for a business to survive and grow or for that matter, any organization to flourish you need to find individuals that embody the above-mentioned leadership traits not just seniority.

More and more women are rising to the leadership challenge, even in some of the most male-dominated industries. The increase in the number of women attending college, the increasing number of women in the workplace or starting their own business has demonstrated to men who own businesses that women can be both managers and mothers, thus showing their male counterpart that women can in fact "do it all".

Gender and leadership? Leadership and gender? A journey through the landscape of theories start off by giving a statistical summary of percentages of women in higher echelon position in the workforce. With this information in the intro, the article quickly highlights the limited representation of women in exclusive positions in Fortune 500 companies. Next, the paper examines multiple theories why this problem exists in the workforce. The four theories examined are biology and sex; gender role; causal factors; and attitudinal drivers (Appelbaum et al, 2003, p. 44).