Does Gender Affect The Ability Of An Individual? Become An Effective Leader?

When it comes to the topic of women and leadership, there are many stereotypes one is likely to hear. One of the most common stereotypes about female leaders is that men are better leaders than women. Although we are able to see more males holding a leadership position that does not mean that they are “better” at it than women. Studies have shown that companies with women leaders often perform better (CITATION). Another stereotype associated with women and leadership is that women are too emotional to be in charge. Some also believe that women are weak and are not

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.

Culture - What are the forces that lead to a male dominated culture in this organisation? What does the term 'male-dominated culture' really mean? What does cultural fit connote in this organisation? Does the concept of cultural fit perpetuate homogeneity and with it exclusion of women? In other words the existing culture in many traditional organisations perpetuates the view that only men are in a position and have the time and lifestyle to accommodate the work requirement of the organisation. This is the continuation of a historical model that was created at a time when women didn’t work outside the home and had very little rights even as citizens.

One identified contributor to women's slower than expected assent into leadership is the persistence of assumptions and stereotypes that women are intrinsically "communal" or "dependent" and "passive", and therefore, lack the capacity to succeed as leaders. (National Academy of Sciences National Academy of Engineering Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, 2006 as cited by Isaac, Kaatz & Carnes, 2012).

Equal Pay Act of 1963 - On June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law (Fugiero, n.d.). It was enacted as an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which regulates minimum wages, overtime, and child labor (Fugiero, n.d.). The EPA requires that men and women who work in the same jobs or positions,

I would like to start by mentioning that there may be decision making abilities and cultural differences that are affected by gender. Women are usually expected to be nurturing and less aggressive than men. Under attribution theory (ORGB), female managers may be less likely to attribute their success to their own abilities. It is not hard to guess that management may end up not having an entirely accurate assessment of a woman’s skills due to her modesty in that area.

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.

Let’s take it back in time before The Equal Pay Act was enacted. During World War II, a large number of women came into the workforce because of labor shortages, due to men joining the military. Women took over the civilian jobs but earned less than men for the same work. Unions were formed because of worrisome men who thought women in the labor field would replace them because of the lower earnings received by women or their wage would be lowered (“Equal Pay Act of 1963”, 2015). Therefore, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was signed by President John F. Kennedy on June 10, 1963, to keep the business community at peace.

The key to successfully becoming a leader involves one working their way up to the top of the pyramid, but this can only be done by one advancing their way to different positions in a company. This task can be seen as inherently difficult for women because of two main reasons: one reason is way women leaders are viewed by others, and the other deals with how companies were structured and organized before women were able to enter the workforce. Since men made up most of the workforce many companies were designed to reflect men’s daily lives, situations and their leadership styles. When women were able to come into workforce they had to try to adapt to the situations and leadership styles already in place, making reaching different positions in the workplace almost impossible; women did not live the same daily lives as men and they certainly did not face the same situations as men. The traditional career path to obtaining a higher executive position typically includes rotations in sales or operations, both positions which men are more likely to have had than women. It has been extremely difficult for women to overcome leadership barriers because women have not had the ability to construct the correct leadership identities (Eby, Ibarra, & Kolb).

This is a serious problem because diversity matters, and nowhere is it more important than in leadership. Nevertheless, this report draws on this limited body of research not to limits the number of women who should take up leadership positions. Time will not solve the gender leadership gap; action will. Women’s representation in leadership will not increase substantially without major changes in the culture, policies, and practices of the organizations where women learn and work. Accountability also inspires action, so we need public policies to ensure that employers do the right thing. This is a solvable problem. We can do a great deal to move beyond stereotypical notions about leadership. Gender parity is a step forward for everyone, freeing us to pursue our aspirations, regardless of gender. Barriers and Bias: The Status of Women in Leadership offers a blueprint for getting there.

Men in leadership were seen to be more authoritative than women and making it hard for their juniors to approach or interact with them freely. By being more approachable than men, women are thus able to use soft power or persuasion to make their organization run in a particular direction. It should be noted that it is quite economical to make people see the reason as to why they should perform their duties and in a particular way as opposed to hiring people to supervise them and make them follow the rules. This is one of the ways in which women performs exemplary better than men in that organizations are shelved of from human resources issues (Folkman, 2015).

Marissa Mayer, Martine Rothblatt, Carol Mayrowitz, Meg Whitman and Indra Nooyi; You may have questioned why I used these five names, well the names as mention are the top 5 women that are CEOs of major companies such as Yahoo, United Therapeutics, TJX Companies, Hewlett-Packard and PepsiCo. These five women are also the highest and top paid women CEO but there’s clearly no recognition, billionaires of companies that are males are constantly displayed and recognize more than women. Women are able to run the most successful businesses and companies similar to a man, and women are able to show strength as well as leadership similar to a man too. Stereotypes of how man are better and the most successful

The purpose of this article was to examine women’s and men’s leadership styles, the effectiveness of the different leadership styles, and the true determination of effectiveness as a woman leader (Appelbaum et al, 2003, p. 43). The article present research conducted for theories examined. Comparing this week’s work assignment to this article, I notice a linkage to a few items. The comparable list that is closely related to parts of theories in the reading assignment are gender stereotypes; different leadership style effectiveness; developmental opportunity, and experience. All of these different topics are related to the Leadership Labyrinth.

How are women good leader in this world. I think women have better work ethics to be leaders in their business. “It is that 6 out of 10 women want to be a senior leader in their company”(KPMG research 2). That means 60% of women want to lead their company and be a great leader for the company. As a leader “you have to teach others how to be leader.” Statistics say women at a young age we’re taught how to be leaders.“67% of women reported they’d learned the most important lessons about leadership from other women”(KPMG Key findings 6). “The kpmg took 3,104 U.S. women (2,140 professional working women and 604 college women) between ages of 18 and 64 were surveyed as part of the study. Specifically, the study sought to identify how these women were socialized to leadership

• Communication: Women are naturally better listeners than men. “Even physiologically, women have an edge over men in listening, since men tend to have poorer hearing than women, especially after the age of thirty. Additionally, men are more interested in establishing a position of strength and status when conversing, and men perceive talking and proving information as a mean of accomplishing that. Women are traditionally more comfortable being the audience-the listener” (Nicki Joy, 1994). Women tend to listen to people more carefully and show more understanding to speakers both physically and emotionally while men are more self-centered and pay more attention to express their own opinions. Besides listening, expressing is also important in the process of communicating. Women are more willing to articulate their working aspiration and express their feelings. In this way managers can get information across thoroughly in workplace to take better control of the whole business. Employees also show more respect to managers who can give acute feedback to them.