Women in Leadership

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to enlighten and explore women at leadership level. The core objective of the paper is to analyze and describes roles and responsibilities encountered by women at leadership level. Moreover, the paper also describes the approaches through which the women leaders execute their roles and responsibilities. The paper descries the leadership styles adapted by women that diversify from the styles that are usually preferred by the male leaders. In addition, the paper compares and contrasts women leaders from the male leaders in diverse contexts. Nevertheless, the paper also describes the issues that are encountered by women leaders and the tactics through which they dead with such concerns.

Table of Contents

Introduction4

Men Leaders vs. Women Leaders5

The Rise of Women Leadership7

Barriers Encountered by Women Leaders in History8

Leadership Approaches and Styles of Women10

Conclusion12

References13

Women in Leadership

Introduction

As women began leaving their homes for the work-place in the 1960s, gender and leadership emerged as a topic of interest for psychology. Early questions centered on barriers to the advancement of women into positions of status and power. In the past decade, four meta-analyses were conducted investigating whether there were gender differences in leadership style, effectiveness, evaluation, and emergence. These meta-analyses found few large gender differences, and most were small. Today, labor statistics show that gender differences in the number of men and women in higher-level positions, and wages that they receive in these positions are smaller than they have ever been before.

According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, since 1993 there has been a 29% increase in the number of women in managerial positions (compared to a 19% increase for men). Also, since 1993 the number of Fortune 500 companies who have at least one woman on their board has increased by 21%. Though the situation for women is better than it has ever been, it is still not what it should be. Industries with the highest proportion of female board members are “female-oriented” industries (toys, cosmetics, savings institutions, publishing, etc.), and women still earn 73 cents for every dollar a man earns.

What factors prevent women from having equal representation in the higher-level positions and earning equal wages, and how can these factors be eliminated? In an attempt to answer this question, findings from the literature on gender and leadership will be reviewed, focusing on the meta-analyses. Then, Virginia E. O'Leary's 1974 model, describing barriers to women's leadership will be presented and evaluated against the current research evidence. Finally, a new model of barriers to women's leadership will be presented.

Men Leaders vs. Women Leaders

Recently, an area of leadership that had received much attention is transformational leadership. In 1978, James M. Burns argued that transformational leadership involves mobilizing power to change social systems and reform institutions and raising the consciousness of followers by appealing to their higher ideals and moral values. A number of researchers have speculated that there are gender differences in the use of transformational leadership though there is a notable lack of evidence for this ...