FEMALE LEADERSHIP

Female Leadership

Table of Contents

Introduction2

Discussion and Analysis3

Historical background:3

Female Leadership Barriers:5

Attitudes to Women in Leadership Roles:6

Institutional Styles of Leadership:7

Domestic Life Balance:8

Difference in leadership styles:9

Female leadership in business companies:10

Theories of female leadership:11

Liberalism and Feminist Theory:13

Marxist Feminism:14

Conclusion14

References16

Female Leadership

Introduction

There are various approaches to the study of leadership. Some studies are normative in that they suggest in what ways leadership can be good or bad. They are normative not just in the sense that some leaders succeed in their aims and some fail, but also in that some leaders provide what their followers want and some do not, thus making good leadership an aspect of the welfare function of the group. Some studies concentrate upon psychological characteristics or traits. Others focus upon contextualized accounts of leadership that specify the types of issues leaders face and the structures in which they operate. Some approaches are situational in the sense that they draw attention to the facts that leaders emerge in certain circumstances and that leadership can be considered a niche that has to be filled. Other approaches borrow from both structural accounts of the situations and circumstances within which leaders emerge and accounts that examine personal characteristics, suggesting that the two factors interact. Such studies suggest that what makes a good leader might be contingent or a matter of luck rather than something inherent in a person, yet they do not deny that there are important personal characteristics in leaders (Cha & Edmondson, 2006).

In almost every social, political, and economic sphere, positions of leadership are largely held by men. An overview of some of the statistics reveals the current level of imbalance. In the early 21st century, on a global political level, only 15 countries are currently led by a woman serving in the role of president, prime minister, or governor general. Women constitute 17.3% of the world's parliamentary representatives, although this is subject to wide regional and national variations, with the Nordic states achieving the highest average representation at 41.6% and the Arab states the lowest at 9.6%. Rwanda has the highest proportion of women in parliament, with 48.8% of seats held by women, followed by Sweden (47.3%), Finland (42%), and Costa Rica (38.6%). Women hold 7% of the world's ministerial positions, but again there is variation. In Sweden, 52% of cabinet portfolios are held by women (www.quotaproject.org). This paper discusses women's leadership in a holistic context along with historical background about female leadership, female leadership barriers (social barriers and glass ceiling), differences in leadership styles between male and female, female leadership in business companies.

Discussion and Analysis

Historical background:

The history of U.S. women in business is overviewed in the Life magazine special report (1976) “Remarkable American Women 1776-1976.” While many women in the sections “winners in a man's world” and “the tastemakers” were women of law, politics and media, others were businesswomen, including Helena Rubinstein (cosmetics, personal fortune of $100 million in 1965); Tillie Lewis (tomato grower and food processing, annual sales of $145 million in 1976), Rebecca Lukens (ironworks, personal fortune of $100,000 in 1854); Mary ...