Gender And Leadership Essay

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

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).

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.

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 Additionally, visions in companies fail when it becomes outdated (Management, 2017).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

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.

Women can become change agents in their organizations by stepping out of their comfort zones and becoming champions with a set of proven strategies to overcome barriers to Human Resource, structural, political, and symbolic contexts. Disabling negative responses to change such as anxiety, confusion, invisibility, and lack of purpose to the positive actions of engagement, empowerment, support, and training are a few areas to improve employees’ viewpoint toward any modification. Always, the transformational leadership style demonstrated by female leaders uses an enhanced mechanism to enact change as it relies on communication, collaboration, and cooperation. (Bolman & Deal, 2003).

In Koehane’s book Thinking About Leadership she asked a very interesting question. Does Gender Make a Difference when it comes to leadership? And why is there still such a disparity between men and women in positions of leadership? So does gender make a difference? The answer is off course no. So what then explains the disparity between the sexes? Leadership styles might be the culprit in this case. In Koehane’s book she asked her fellow classmates at their forty-fifth class reunion a simple question: “Do women lead differently from men?” And every single participant replied yes (Koehane 4). The theory is the women in a leadership position will lead in a more feminine way. That they are more compassionate and prefer the use of group work as

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.

Men and women take on different roles in regards to leadership. Men tend to be thought of as leaders more often than women are, and when women are leaders, they are responded to harshly, not given the same consideration that a male leader is given. When men are leaders, they take on a more autocratic role- they do not want their followers to participate in decision-making; women, however assume to take on a more democratic role- they encourage input from the whole group. Perhaps the difference in leadership styles can be attributed to the fact that women leaders are looked down upon, so to not look as "harsh," they take a more tentative approach to leadership.

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).

We can say that Leadership is an art, an ability that is learned through gaining’s of education, mentoring, experience and training (formal or informal training, job training), as well as from readings and teachings. Women’s leadership will prosper and become effective when there are women who are skilled, have dynamics, determined to achieve something and continue with commitment and dedication to develop next generation of younger women in their various organizations. Globalization needs women leaders with vision, who are able to set long term goals, taking personal risks, develop strategies to bring changes, and above all, motivates more and independent more, highly knowledgeable and spread individuals to achieve missions, visions and goals.

Transformational leaders also work to provide followers with what they need. Women tend to be more transformational and some would think this would make women leadership more appealing, but I believe it can be difficult for others to perceive a woman as charismatic and therefore unable to lead in high positions. If it is difficult for a woman to connect with specific followers they may not be able to get their vision through to their followers making it impossible to inspire others to jump on board with certain actions that are taken. Changing this may be difficult, but providing women with opportunities will give them a chance to prove themselves.

The debate about the difference in leadership style of women and men continues to attract attention since women make strides into leadership position dominated mainly by men. Men have long been holding these leadership roles and have defined styles accepted by people. Therefore, it is not surprising that women are usual the focus in terms of the discussion on gender difference in leadership styles. There seems to be great disagreement about the behaviour of women and men actually performing such roles (Eagly, 2001). This disagreement on this focus can be divided into two groups. One is the no-difference camp, who commonly agreed that there are few differenced in the leadership style of female and male leaders. The other is the gender-stereotypic camp who believed the existence of crucial differences in the leadership style between both (Alvesson, 2009).

To cite this document: Dorothy Perrin Moore, Jamie L. Moore, Jamie W. Moore, (2011),"How women entrepreneurs lead and why they manage that way", Gender in Management: An International Journal, Vol. 26 Iss: 3 pp. 220 - 233 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17542411111130981 Downloaded on: 12-02-2013 References: This document contains references to 86 other documents Citations: This document has been cited by 3 other documents To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com This document has been downloaded 1526

Evelyn has a Women’s Way of Leading her employees, which is common in female leaders. Researchers indicate that women’s style of leadership is indifferent from men and happens often in today’s organizations. Using data from actual performance evaluations, one study found that when rated by peers, subordinates, and bosses, female managers score significantly higher than men on abilities such as motivating others, fostering communication, and listening. (pg 360)