Leadership

Abstract

Racism and sexism both have a deep effect on handicapping a selected group of minorities at workplace, related to their promotion, salary and other facilities. However the categories of both sexism and racism are differing in many ways. This paper compares and contrasts the two articles which explain the concept of racism and sexism on leadership. The first paper focuses on the synergistic leadership theory that focuses on the male dominance at workplace and how women leaders and their growth opportunities are suppressed. The second paper is based on the racism factor on leadership. Both the papers are compared and evaluated according to their relevance in today's world.

Leadership

Introduction

The transformation of prejudice is based on race or gender by exercising power and authority, against a specific group of minorities by individuals or organizations, defending it on the basis of culture. People have migrated places from time to time since the beginning of time. These migrations bring people of different culture together that differ in terms of their race. Society likes to categorize people and the easiest way to do that is by categorizing them on the basis of race, gender and culture. The group that exceeds in terms of quantity and power are the dominating. They have the control over the resources and they make policies. Discrimination can be done on the basis of ethnocentrism in which people believe their ethnic group is superior over all other groups. The other aspect of discrimination is done on the basis of stereotyping, in which people develop a certain concept about a group of people that they apply on everyone from that group. It has been frequently observed that the male has dominated over the society from the beginning. The female working in an organization is not given the same power and support, compared to the male dominance.

Discussion

The synergistic leadership Theory

The modernist theories in leadership were dominated by masculine incorporation and lacked the feminine presence in language and development. The synergistic theory of leadership seeks to fill in the gaps of the traditional theories. The theory is based on different aspects among which six aspects are based on the issues regarding diversity and inclusion of female voice in the theory. Four factors are based on the interdependent relationships and explain the interactive and relational nature of the theory (Brown et.al, 2001). The theory uses four factors of external forces, organizational structure, leadership behavior and attitudes, beliefs and values to define the affect of leadership on various positions and institutions. The theory is validated internationally and it uses a qualitative approach.

For many years the leadership theories have been criticized for the lack of feminine voice in the theory development. The key features of the research were that the theories were limited to male dominance and the theories described they male positions on higher rank. The theories were also sponsored by male-dominated corporations so they were biased. The other criticism about the theories was that there was a sexist language used in them (Brown ...