Gender Leadership and Equality

In this paper, I examine the relationship between gender and leadership within healthcare. First, I will identify the current trends of female high-level positions in healthcare. I will take into consideration the traits associated with gender and addressing the barriers. The goal of this paper is to analyze the differences of gender within leadership and identifying the factors to increase the recruitment of high-performing females in the healthcare field.

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.

Within the last 100 years, the role of women within the United States has changed dramatically. Although the role of women has changed over the years, there are still many obstacles that women must overcome to gain top positions within their career. Women today face unique challenges within the social, career, educational, and political field. From taking this course Women in Leadership, I have gained knowledge on the barriers that are preventing women from advancing, see how factors such as gender could influence women’s leadership styles and find out what strategies that promote social justice for women. I believe there are three important concepts from this class that would help guide my own judgments and decisions moving forward. The

A recent study by the Australian Government Department of Social Services (2008) looking at the challenges facing women in leadership roles highlighted the following areas as being significant;

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).

A question that a lot of people, especially women, seem to wonder is why are women being held back from leadership positions in the workplace. According to PEW Research Center ‘the problem is that women still have to do more

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

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).

Though some progress towards workplace equality has taken place over the past few decades, there is still much room for improvement to break these Glass Ceilings. With today’s workforce “becoming more diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity, and religion as well as sexual orientations,” (Ozeren, 2014, p. 1203), organizations must take the necessary precautions to prevent such differences from hindering the organization’s placement of employees in leadership roles. Otherwise, the potential of talented (women) professionals will miss the opportunity to enhance

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.

There are numerous research conducted around diversity issues. The challenges female leaders face is a topic that I am keenly interested in exploring. Many studies have evolved around gender equality. Regardless of the promotion towards gender equality, there are still several inequalities that continue to exist. As Chin and Trimble (2015) identified that though many nations have promoted gender equality, there are struggles associated with gender access

Women are seen at the top of their class in schools/colleges and continue to make up the majority of students in medical schools as well as in graduate health administration programs. Yet, there is an alarming and crucial gender gap that continues to exist in today’s healthcare system. The major struggle that successful working women face today lies in the misalignment of our current work culture and the values of the workforce. In addition to contributing to work–life integration conflicts, this disconnect essentially forms the gender leadership gap. Not only does the lack of women at the highest ranks of academic medicine send a clear message to women that they must choose between career advancement and their personal life, but this also represents a loss of talent for academic health centers as they fail to recruit and retain the brightest individuals. In order to effectively close the gender leadership gap and meet the needs of the next generation of physicians, scientists, and educators, it is immensely

One might be able to make a fleeting attempt at justifying the disparately of female representation in leadership roles if opportunities for each gender were equal or if the most qualified individuals got the jobs. When one examines the qualifications of women in the workforce however, this argument quickly loses its footing. Northouse (2013) points to the research fo Catalyst (2011) who demonstrated that, “Women earn 57% of the bachelor’s degrees, 60% of the master’s degrees, more than half of the doctorate degrees, and nearly half of the first professional degrees awarded in the United States” (as cited by Northouse, 2013, p.352). Clearly the qualifications of women are not the cause of why so few have reached the pinnacle roles in organizations. One must wonder then, what are the barriers that prevent women from achieving success.

The perceived contradiction between women and the typical leader role tends to create certain prejudices that causes people to think that leadership is more suited for men than women (Eagly et al., 2003)

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).