Advancing Women in Leadership Journal
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Women and Multi-tasking: Strategy or pitfall for Career Advancement?
Get PDFDespite its ubiquitous adoption in the workplace and home, research suggests that multitasking is not an effective strategy forproductivity (Cabrera, 2016; Crews & Russ, 2020). Workplace demands and the disproportionate division of labor in the homemake multitasking unavoidable, indispensable and a necessary coping tool, especially for women with professional and domesticresponsibilities (Holdsworth, 2020; Kirchberg et al., 2015). Women multitask more than men do and are also perceived to bebetter multitaskers than men but sadly multitasking decreases productivity and increases error rates (Cabrera, 2016; Crews &Russ, 2020). The purpose of this concept paper is to share research on multitasking and its effects on productivity and to assistwomen in making informed decisions about whether multitasking is a strategy or a pitfall for career advancement. We offerperspectives on why women multi-task, the challenges associated with multitasking and cultural differences to be considered. Weconducted a literature review and concluded that multitasking is the de facto coping strategy for most women in the modern-dayera given the competing demands on their time. We also suggested strategies for career advancement in professional andpersonal spaces
Violence Against Women in Street Level Prostitution: Women Centered Community Responses
Get PDFBecoming a community advocate fighting violence against women in street level prostitution has been a ten-year experience for me. It has been both fulfilling and stigmatizing. Mobilizing and organizing a community to seek out solutions to the problem of prostitution and the associated violence became the impetus which propelled me to become a community leader. My work enabled me to successfully influence both the criminal justice and social service systems, along with local government, to create a program to help women victimized by prostitution. Fighting off feelings of perpetual passiveness and socialized silence, I found my voice. It was a voice that gained momentum over time, a voice that didn’t ask for permission or beg for forgiveness. An unlikely advocate, I established meaningful connections with oppressed women. From these connections a coalition of individuals emerged that stimulated community level social change.
The negative outcomes of women in prostitution was never so profoundly felt as when my childhood friend was found murdered in Toledo, the victim of a serial rapist. Over the years as we aged and grew apart, I focused on college. Through a series of unfortunate circumstances, my friend stayed behind and succumbed to the street life. Addicted to drugs, she was forced to finance her habit by selling her body on the streets. Her life ended when she was brutally stabbed in an abandoned parking lot and died a few hours later in a hospital five blocks from our childhood homes.
I was a social worker at the time, committed to the ideals of the profession and devoted to a code of ethics that outlined a social worker’s primary mission to work with the poor, vulnerable, and oppressed. I memorized this section of the code because it gave me focus, meaning and purpose.
I had driven past women in prostitution many times on my way to assist children and families living in the area. I had little knowledge of these women’s experiences and even less empathy for them. I hadn’t realized that my ignorance and unwillingness to engage them prohibited me from fully realizing the meaning of the creed I had so strongly claimed as my own. Instead of working with the poor, vulnerable, and oppressed, in whatever experiences led them to their current set of circumstances, I was only willing to work with the needy, the deserving, and the worthy. I was willing to meet that person at the place in life that made me feel most comfortable. In a self serving and non-altruistic way, I wanted to help people as long as I maintained a reasonable balance between what I thought was a deserving population and feeling good about the work I did.
After a bit of reflection and soul searching, I began conducting research to identify the problems associated with this population. I built a relationship with an informant who took me out on the streets where I spent six months, three times a week to learn the language and culture of street level prostitution. Two days per week I spent in the library reading and learning.
I met a woman who would be eventually become my informant the day she came into our neighborhood community center for services. She needed food. It was her son’s fourth birthday and she hadn’t made any money on the streets. For his birthday, her son wanted a blue cake. After finding some cake mix, frosting, and food coloring to add to the standard bag of food items, we parted. Weeks went by and I began to smile and wave when she returned to the center. She would occasionally stop and talk. On one of those occasions, I worked up enough courage to ask her to take me out on the streets and teach me about prostitution.
My days on the streets were spent learning about the people, the language, the culture, the key players, the location of drug houses, and the houses used specifically for prostitution. I learned who local pimps and drug dealers were and how to avoid contact with law enforcement.
Months after immersing myself into this culture in order to learn how help, I found it almost impossible to confront the truth and conceptualize the brutal lives women lived while involved in street level prostitution. I created false rationalizations about why women were sold their bodies, and why I would never be out there. I had to strip away the explanations I conjured up. Once I did this, I was left with the profound realization that this was a social justice cause for women whose lives were a daily nightmare and whose very existence could be snuffed out in a moment’s notice with little community concern. This profound revelation moved me. Indeed, it would move even the meekest from silence and fear to voice and power. Helping these women find a voice was a kind of selfishness that allowed me to harness our collective power and not seek consent or authorization for doing so. It is what propelled me to conduct research, mobilize a community, and respond to a pressing need
The Process of Tenure: The Effect on Women and Faculty Members of Color
Get PDFTenure is perceived by many academics as the pinnacle of professional success. Gaining membership into this much-sought-after exclusive group so prized by faculty members on campuses around the world may be more of a hazing ritual than anything else. The abuse and torture sustained by many seeking tenure, including white males, is legendary. For some women and faculty members of color, the barriers to achieving tenure may be insurmountable.
The subject of tenure has been hotly debated in journals and the media for years. Most of the issues surrounding this debate focus on due process and academic freedom of academics, who are often judged by administrators who may have institutional perspectives that limit diversity and dissension.
What has been ignored is the prevailing, agonizing, and unfair process that tenure has become for women and faculty of color. It is a closed system where a few individuals can easily open gates, while making it unnecessarily harder for others, as the deciding committee sees fit. Too many of these committees are made up of tenured and promoted white males who are feeling the pressures of change around them. They are privileged within institutions of higher education and the tenure process has served them well. Although it may be difficult at times, the system works better for them than for other groups
Preparing Sport Leaders of the Future To Lead Equitable, Diverse, and Inclusive Sport Organizations: The Insights and Strategies of Professors
Get PDFResearchers have documented the tangible and significant benefits to organizations having more diverse senior leadership teams. However, not all industries have embraced his practice. While gains have been made for women securing senior positions in professional sport, the rate of change has been slow, despite the fact that men and women equally aspire to these roles, and women outnumber men in many sport management educational programs. Systemic and structural barriers exist for women seeking senior leadership levels in the industry, a fact that only the women students seem to appreciate (Gray & Weese, 2021). This descriptive study extends this research by engaging sport management professors to determine if they understand the issue and, if so, what they were doing to ensure that their students understand the benefits of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). The professors clearly appreciated the issue and recognized the gender differences that exist between their men and women students. They also shared activities and strategies they use to help ensure that the next generation of sport leaders value and advocate for EDI leadership practices. The professors agreed that they needed to continue to heighten the awareness and sensitivities of their students on the topics of EDI, and they all believed that they could do more to incorporate EDI perspectives in their classes and mentorship sessions. Ten recommendations are provided to assist current and future sport management professors address this critical issue
Students\u27 Perceptions of Women in Management: 1988-2018
Get PDFReplicates a study completed 30-years before regarding college students\u27 perceptions of women in management. Questions include descriptions on semantic differential scales of male/female managers, personal preferences for a boss, and estimates on when management equality would be achieved by women. Factor analysis in 2018 defined the same three factors as in 1988. Male managers\u27 factor scores are higher on "Managerial Behavior," female managers higher on "Consideration," and no significant difference for "Initiation of Structure" in both studies. When asked the preferred boss of a mixed-gender group, women are more likely to select a man, although this preference has decreased. There was a significant increase for females to choose a woman manager as their personal boss preference. Results indicate little change in the stereotypical description of a woman manager, and that current female students have the "Think manager - Think male" attitude. There is also the perception that in the population at-large, it is not yet acceptable for women to pursue a managerial career when married with children. However, men have significantly increased their personal acceptance of career women.
Keywords: woman in management, college student, perception of manager
Gender and Organizational Culture: Perceptions of Leadership Style and Effectiveness
Get PDFThe purpose of this paper was to demonstrate changes in the definition of effective leadership and present an argument for how the shift relates to evident changes in perceptions of women leaders. Perceptions of effectiveness estimations for female and male executives were compared, while taking into consideration organizational culture. Scenario methodology was used to manipulate gender, leadership styles, and organizational culture through an experimental online survey looking for differences in perceptions of effectiveness. Findings, in part 1, show that female executives were viewed as more transformational than male executives with no significant differences in perceptions of leadership effectiveness. Leadership style mediated relations between leader gender and perceptions of leadership effectiveness. In part 2, organizational culture was shown to increase the associations of gender and leadership style with expectations of effectiveness. Female leaders may over time be perceived as effective as male leaders, if the present shift in definitions of effective leadership styles continue to align with female gender roles and organizational cultures embrace collective practices. However, this paradigmatic change is slow and women continue to be stereotyped in leadership roles. This paper gives an explanation for why nil results are becoming more prevalent in the literature on gender in leadership.
Organization Development and Effectiveness: Essential Female Leadership Competencies for Industry 4.0 Transformation
No full textThis paper summarizes and synthesizes research evidence on different women leadership characteristics and behaviors from men and identifies essential female leadership competencies that are necessary to address the new challenges of today’s workplace and the paradigm shifts for female leaders to remain competitive in Industry 4.0. Recent neuroscience and social science research findings regarding women’s leadership characteristics and behaviors were reviewed and discussed. Critical leadership traits, abilities, and skills for (international) business success were studied. Six essential female leadership skill sets for Industry 4.0 were then proposed to provide human resource development practitioners a strategic framework that will be necessary for women leadership development and to promote gender equality in the workplace. Some feminine traits can be women’s leadership strengths such as sensing, listening, accepting, approaching, collaborating, supporting, and encouraging skills. Finally, implications for human resource development and recommendations for future research were provided
Promoting Diverse Leadership: An Examination of Professional Experiences and Career Advancement Perceptions of Black Women in Higher Education
Get PDFThe professional experiences and career advancement perceptions of Black, female, higher education professionals were examined in an effort to obtain qualitative and quantitative data that could positively impact practice and policy in higher education leadership. Data were collected using a mixed questionnaire that included survey items, open-ended questions, and demographic inquiries. One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVAs) was conducted to assess the difference in mean perception career advancement scores based on participants’ professional classification, highest level of education, and years of professional experience. No statistically significant differences (p > .05) were found. The lack of differences across demographics indicates that Black, female, higher education professionals have similar perceptions of career advancement, regardless of professional classification, education achieved, or years of experience
“IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO HOLD THAT POWER”: THE GENDERING OF ADVICE IN CORPORATE DISCOURSE
Get PDFIn this qualitative study, we analyze advice literature written by corporate women for women readers who want to rise in the corporate ranks. Advice is pervasive social practice, and rests on an asymmetry of knowledge between authors and readers. We use discourse analysis to examine how authors of advice books deploy strategies to instruct, encourage, and exhort women to do better. We identify four strategies that expand on the current literature: pronoun choice and alignment, credibility, the assertion of necessity, and the use of metaphors. We find that advice literature re-creates narrow gender categories and dichotomous performances of gender for women to carry out. Rather than offer alternatives, advice to corporate women works toward ratification of gender norms, ratifying a notion of women’s shortcomings
The Female\u27s Journey to the State Superintendency
Get PDFSeveral studies have emerged over the past several decades attempting to pinpoint potential factors for occupational inequity and inequality for prospective and current female educational leaders. Although women are increasingly obtaining leadership positions in the field, one position has remained elusive to the aspiring female educational leader: the superintendency (Bilken & Brannigan, 1980; Brunner & Björk, 2001; Brunner & Grogan, 2007; Dana & Bourisaw, 2006; Mertz, 2006; Shakeshaft, 1987). Overcoming societal perceptions, handling hardships associated with attaining and maintaining one’s position, and building powerful, meaningful relationships are some of the foci of previous research; however, there seems to be a piece missing from the current available literature. While one may evaluate the struggles females have faced in attaining district-level superintendent positions, research detailing the female’s journey to the state superintendency remains incredibly limited to nonexistent. Through a postmodern-feminist lens, this qualitative study employs Harter and Monsour’s (1992) Self-in-Relationship (SIR) interview protocol, in addition to open-ended interview questions, to explore a conceptual framework blending perceptions, reality, and relationships that potentially impact females on the journey to and in service within the state superintendency. From a constructivist, Grounded Theory approach, the study investigates a glaring gap in the current available literature in an effort to answer the overarching question: Do female superintendents perceive gender as playing a role in fulfilling one’s duties at the state level?
Keywords: female state superintendent, gender and educational leadership