The Role Of Women 's Leadership Roles Essay

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

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.

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

Chin, J. L. (2011). Women and Leadership; Transforming Visions and Current Contexts. Forum On Public Policy Online, 2. Retrieved from http://www.forumonpublicpolicy.com

Throughout the span of American history is can be said with confidence that the roles of genders have played a huge role in both the success and downfall of this great nation. From the rural up brings of the Puritans to the successful businessmen and women, politicians, and leaders that have propelled the Untied States to becoming a super power and force to be reckoned with in the world, we are still facing the unfortunate debacle of treating women differently or inferior when it comes to leadership positions. Some of our greatest leaders such as Mary Kay, Condalisa Rice, and Irene Rosenfied have been

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).

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.

One reason women are not directly associated with leadership roles is the inconsistency between the qualities that are associated with women; friendly, kind, unselfish, caring and the qualities that are believed necessary for a successful leader;

Barbara Kellerman begins to talk about women in leadership and the continuous obstacles faced by women in her book, Women and Leadership. Throughout the book she talks about obstacles women face as leaders. She goes over how women address these challenges and how they exercise their power. Barbara has dissected the mythology of leadership and we know that context matters; theoretical models and the resultant disconnect have limited our enduring qualities of leadership in practice.

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.

According to the dictionary, leadership is defined as, “a person who guides or directs a group. An act or instance of leading; guidance; direction.” We are faced with leadership roles in every dynamic of life. In school, every click has a “leader,” every team has a captain, at work there is always a manager, always an editor when writing books. There is always a chance for someone to stand up and take a leading role. However, do both genders possess the same chances? Throughout this paper we will look at gender differences in leadership roles in the classroom, an emphasis of leadership in sports, and how leadership roles translate into the office among chosen career paths.

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).