How Education Affects Women 's Leadership

When interviewing a leader in an organization in order to discover their leadership style one must ask critical questions. I had the opportunity to interview Casey Aguirre who is a Team Manager at the Salem Call Center for T-Mobile. Casey has been with T-Mobile for over 11 years. In this interview we discussed her leadership style, the steps she took to become a leader, her biggest challenges, and her greatest achievements among other things. While interviewing Casey I kept in mind the connection between women in leadership and the cultural disadvantages and advantages that women in leadership

In the United States, study after study continues to show that women have fewer opportunities to advance in the workplace than men. These disadvantages are a result of society’s views of women in leadership positions and how women may view themselves in these roles. Women have been making progress in terms of equality in pay and job positions, but significant gaps remain. Women who strive to be promoted into higher levels of responsibility in their companies often meet resistance that prevents them from achieving the goal of a senior or executive level of management. This barrier is referred to as the “glass ceiling” and it is a controversial issue in our country today. The glass ceiling called this because women are able to see the higher level positions, but can reach them because of an intangible barrier. One can look at the Fortune 500 companies, which are the most successful companies in the U.S. in terms of revenue to see how few women are in leadership positions. Clearly, women are significantly underrepresented in these companies, as less than 5 percent of these companies have female chief executive officers (CEO) today (Dockterman 105). Providing the opportunity for women to move into management positions, like CEOs, would bring a unique talent and a new perspective on how the company can operate to perform better (Buckalew 147). The “glass ceiling” is a real obstacle that creates an intangible barrier that puts women at a disadvantage in advancing in a company.

Leadership - The perception of excellence in business leadership needs to be re-examined. This requires challenging the norms that determine leadership eligibility. Are there drivers that perpetuate a leadership incumbency that excludes females? What is the basis for these drivers?

leaders. However, more people prefer male than female bosses. That has made it more difficult

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).

Although in 2012, only 18 women served as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Furthermore, in a recent report, women only held 16.6% of board seats in 2012 in the fortune 500 companies (Aguilar). Women are somehow being held back from achieving their higher potential, and is is not due to lack of education. The department of education found that “140 women will graduate with a college degree at some level this year for every 100 men”(Aguilar). Most people believe the reason is because of the phenomenon of the “glass ceiling”. Many large companies do not hire women for the upper level positions, because they have always hired men, and many companies may believe that they do not see women in that position. This is also influenced by the media as well, as “women hold only 3% of clout positions in telecommunications, entertainment, publishing and advertising.”(Newsom 2011). With so few women leaders in the media industry, women are rarely portrayed in highly respected executives roles. This in turn communicates to young girls and the public in general that women are not supposed to hold these

National Education for Women’s (NEW) Leadership – WSU is a program designed to educate, empower, and encourage college women to become politically active and take on leadership roles. NEW Leadership – WSU is an intensive, non-partisan, six-day residential program that will take place June 2-7, 2016 at Washington State University, Pullman, WA.

Catalyst (2012) indicated that corporate world data showed that women represented only 4% of chief executive officer positions within Fortune 500 companies; similarly, DeFrank-Cole et al. (2013) advised that the lack of progress for women is dumbfounding considering that for the last 25 years; women’s entrance into professional and managerial careers has been on par with their male colleagues. Relatedly, Barsh (2012) identified a disparity of gender representation in senior leadership within the corporate pipeline from 2012 to 2015. Hannum et al. (2015), added that fundamental changes are underway in the higher education segment; noting that female leaders are needed who are familiar with navigating growth and diversity with a focus upon diminishing gender discrimination and bias. Moreover, DeFrank-Cole et al. (2014) acknowledged that mentoring and leadership development programs geared toward women are needed; yet, difficulties in locating a mentor persist (Haley & Jaeger, 2015), within what is recognized as a male dominated culture. Contrastingly, within a recent gender neutrality study, a significant disparity in female viewpoints were found related to their organizations voice and if the organization had an active approach to gender diversity (Jones, 2016).

Despite all the education and efforts, women are not encouraged to obtain a leadership role in the business world since the industrial environment does not consider them as prominent figures to lead the companies and dominate the society. According to a report by a Vogel a business analyst, “At every stage of the pipeline, women’s likelihood of being promoted to the next level is smaller than men’s, women are 30 percent less likely to get promoted out of an entry-level position and 60 percent less likely to move from middle management into the executive ranks” (Evans 2017). Furthermore, women have shown a great of amount of work in sectors like in news channel, film industry, etc. however, because of discrimination they are prompt from enrolling significant roles in the workplace. Gender inequality is still very prominent in Canada, and if we take a look at the senior management of different companies such as Apple and Samsung, even in parliament, there are more men than women which means that the women are been discriminated.

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.

The business world today is competitive. It's full of fierce, educated, and motivated people. For some people it's tough to rise to the top and for some people it comes much easier. It's not always about hard work! One might ask for a map to the yellow brick road, but few people are ever provided with it. Most people are stuck in an ocean making calculated guesses as to how they can reach land. Which route is the best? How much school is enough? How many certificates of accreditation is enough? How much work experience is enough? All of us ask these questions attempting to navigate our ships in a competitive world were only a few individuals ever get to their targeted career position. How many of those in leadership positions are women?

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".

Exercising leadership can be challenging even in a uni-cultural context. Leadership needs vary from situation to situation, and organizational culture to organizational culture. This becomes even more sharply manifest in multicultural arenas. The 2012 article "Sex stereotyping managerial positions" from Gender in Management discusses a common leadership challenge--the difficulty of female managers to exert their authority differs in an American versus an Egyptian context. By understanding this phenomenon in a global leadership context, how to better bridge divides of gender perceptions can be clarified. This is essential given that economic cooperation between multinationals will become more and more necessary in the future, with the growing interconnectedness of the new global economy.

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).

According to Wallace (2015), the proportion of females in the superintendency was 23% in 2012 and increases by only 0.7% annually. This statistic is shocking, as it would take approximately 80 years for females to be proportionately represented in public school leadership. It is critical to assess the barriers and challenges females face in regards to leadership attainment. There are certainly internal and external factors that continue to plague this gender discrepancy. Furthermore, proportional inequities continue to stem from historical contexts ranging from social and cultural norms to professional networks. Additionally, gender bias and sexism challenges continue to plague female authority figures. While there are many variables contributing to the shockingly low