Advancing Women in Leadership Journal
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Women in Computer Science and Engineering: A Transformational Leadership Approach to Gender Equity
Get PDFThe underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is a phenomenon that needs to be addressed from an educational perspective. Within the domains of computer science and engineering (CS&E) the gender imbalance is even more acute as the underrepresentation of women not only persists but has increased over the past few decades (Corbett & Hill, 2015; Master et al., 2016). In this paper a discussion of the current situation of women’s underrepresentation across broad CS&E domains is presented. This will be demonstrated through a review of research into the historical factors and institutional practices that have been ongoing barriers to the inclusion of women in CS&E. Then, a discussion of how transformational leadership theory can serve as a tool for change to help scholars better understand the present situation, and then guide practitioners in overcoming it, is presented. To this end, the paper concludes with a discussion of how diversity and inclusion ideas, based on a transformational leadership approach, can improve gender equity in CS&E.
Keywords: underrepresented, women, gender, transformational, leadershi
Women of Color in Community Colleges: Leadership Development
Get PDFThis quantitative study assessed the impact of the Kaleidoscope Leadership Institute (KLI) model of professional development on KLI on 140 participants’ personal and professional lives. The model was designed for community college women of color and led by female presidents/chancellors. Participants report gains in career and educational advancements, new networks, and mentorships across races/ethnicities and higher education positions. Researchers conclude that cross-cultural networking, mentoring, and identity development are beneficial and recommend that professional associations and institutions expand the KLI model to increase institutional leadership diversity.
Keywords: Community college, leadership development, women of color, identity-based leadership development, female college presidents, female leaders, mentoring, networking, identity development, institutional racis
Exploration of Women\u27s Leadership Development Challenges and Transformational Learning: A Positional Paper
Get PDFMy review of the positions that involving decision-making roles shows that women still hold less than 26% of the decision-making roles within Fortune Magazine’s list of Top 500 companies, higher education, and politics. Fortune 500 boards of directors and entrepreneurs show increasing rates of women in decision-making roles. Surveys related to the division of labor in households show that women are still responsible for the majority of the work needed to keep the household running. These factors, along with challenges such as a lack of positive social feedback for aspiring women leaders, gender stereotypes, educational methods, and a lack of prominent role models, can affect women’s development as leaders and the number of women in leadership roles. This paper explores social feedback, gender stereotypes, conditional teaching, and lack of role models as affecting women’s potential and development as leaders. This review also explores applying lessons from the transformational learning literature to women’s leadership development process.
Keywords: transformational learning, leadership development, identity development, women\u27s leadership development, gender stereotypes, social constructs
Women Perceive Barriers to Corporate Advancement as Self-imposed
Get PDFThe purpose of this study is to address a disconnect between women’s perceptions of their advancement potential / barriers to success in upper echelon corporate roles and their actual level of representation within such roles in companies in the S&P 500. This study involves the use of semi-structured phone interviews with 13 women in an organization in the S&P 500, who have been identified by organizational leadership as having high advancement potential. The results are evaluated using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to ensure an understanding of respondents’ experiences and perceptions in connection with their own process of meaning-making. In the findings, the participants’ responses indicate a disconnect between primarily positive perceptions on advancement opportunities for women, low levels of gender bias, and diversity initiatives and the actual outcomes regarding numbers of women in top leadership roles. Further, participants consistently espouse a strong sense of personal responsibility and a perception that barriers they encounter are self-imposed. This is consistent with an overall institutional narrative that organizational initiatives have mitigated the problem of women’s barriers to advancement in the corporate pipeline, which serves to reinforce the illusion of an equitable and effective meritocracy. By drawing on a phenomenological research design and prioritizing the experiences and perceptions of women on the edge of advancement into upper echelon corporate roles, it becomes evident that corporate narratives and diversity initiatives may be serving to reinforce, rather than ameliorate, the status quo of gender disparity in Corporate America. Both scholars and institutional stakeholders can build on the results of this study to move toward improving the corporate pipeline for women’s advancement to executive-level roles.
Keywords: gender, women’s advancement, corporate pipeline, stereotypic attribution bia
Navigating the Labyrinth of Leadership in Sport: A Community of Practice of Femininity
Get PDFThe following qualitative study examines a social learning initiative to support the leadership development of women in sport. Specifically, a Community of Practice (CoP) of femininity was cultivated to inspire women (and male allies) to develop their leadership capacities in the androcentric field of sport. Data were generated from 12 sport leaders (10 women and two men) over a year and a half to collect their experiences of participating in this initiative. Data collection included interviews, observations, surveys, and informal discussions and were analyzed using thematic analysis. The themes discussed include: supports to develop confidence, improved leadership skills, self-awareness of leadership capacity and influence, increased leadership opportunities, men supporting women in leadership development, and the value of social learning. The authors hope these findings will inspire others to implement similar initiatives to fields where masculinity is dominant. This may allow other CoPs of femininity to emerge to support women in their leadership development
Women Leaders and Narratives: The Power of Reflecting on Purpose and Career
Get PDFThis qualitative study explored ten women leaders\u27 perspectives about the processes associated with constructing their leadership and purpose stories or narratives. The study participants first wrote, and then talked about their stories in a semi-structured interview. An overarching theme emerged from the data - narrative sharing was a challenging, yet beneficial process for the participants. Three sub-themes also emerged from the collective narratives. First, the process of reflection helped women identify times when their actions and decisions were purposeful, even though they may not have recognized it at the time. Second, reflection on purpose led participants to a clearer identification and articulation of leadership philosophy. Third, citing that sharing their narratives helped them identify times of leadership authenticity, participants indicated they intended to use similar practices to make current and future leadership/career decisions. Recommendations are included for organizations, educational institutions, and individuals who are interested in using narrative sharing as a leadership development tool.
Journey of Women Entrepreneurs for Two decades: A Meta-analytical review
Get PDFThis study meta-analytically consolidates results from two decades of women entrepreneurship research. The objective of this study is to make an index of challenges, factors affecting challenges and moderators from the past studies. Tables are also drawn which would briefly disclose all of them in a meticulous manner. The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) test is run on all those tables to determine the factors which are the consequential or principal one of all. Findings are relevant for practitioners (educators, policy makers) and for future research. The findings of this research would be of utmost use for the researchers who would like to carry their research forward on the same line. It will support them in recognizing a concise number of challenges and factors affecting those challenges which needs to be taken as the foundation for any future research. This research also helps in identifying all the significant moderating variables from past studies
A Legacy of Leadership: Black Female Adult Educators
Get PDFThis paper profiles the lives of four Black female adult educators whose leadership, power, and activism influenced the educational and political advances of the Black community. While it is not the author\u27s intention to marginalize the stories of the women presented in this manuscript, Anna Julia Cooper, Charlotte Forten Grimke, Ida B. Wells, Septima Clark, and Fannie Lou Hamer made significant contributions as activists and educators who embodied teaching as a leadership style that focused on the development of others. Their struggles and lessons learned remain relevant even today. The biographical summaries presented on these remarkable female adult educators are an important reminder of how education became and remains the vehicle for social mobility and economic success that Black women used to not only improve their lives but also the quality of life for the Black community as a whole. Keywords: Forten Grimke; Ida B. Wells; Septima Clark; Fannie Lou Hamer; Adult Educators; Black Women; Adult/Continuing Education; Women and Gender Studies; Race, Ethnicity and Class
Beyond Colleagues: Women Leaders and Work Relationships
Get PDFFramed by the Stone Center\u27s relational-cultural theory (Fletcher, 2007), which proposes that mutual growth occurs through connection, this qualitative exploratory study examines relationships with women colleagues that contribute to the quality of women\u27s leadership experiences in higher education. Women leaders are affected by gendered organizational culture and by stereotypes of leadership that are predominantly male. They also face contradictions concerning their relationships with each other. Women are perceived to be relationally-oriented and socially responsive, but also back-biting and competitive; expected to show relational skills, but with no acknowledgement of what their skills contribute to organizations; expected to practice solidarity but also perceived as "queen bees." In the face of these contradictions, interviews with 15 women in leadership at five U.S. universities illuminate the character and contributions of select relationships that women leaders themselves identify as contributing factors to the quality of their leadership experiences. Ten benefits, which accrue both to the women and their institutions, emerged. Two of these benefits are: (1) strategizing and problem-solving; and (2) clarity of ideas, knowledge, and perspective. The benefits loosely align with the five positive outcomes associated with the Stone Center\u27s relational-cultural model. Results offer alternative ways to think about women leaders\u27 work-related relationships, recasting the usually invisible skills women bring to them as skills critical to enhancing their leadership, beneficial to the organization, and a means of challenging the status quo of gendered institutional culture. Keywords: women, leadership, colleagues, relational-cultural theory, support, friendship, work relationships
Integrating Care and Critical Reflection in Women\u27s Leadership Development Programs
Get PDFWomen\u27s leadership development programs (WLDPs) have been suggested as programmatic additions for achieving gender-equity in organizational contexts. These programs are conceptualized as transformative learning spaces affording women the opportunity to explore uncritically examined assumptions and create new perspectives of themselves as leaders. This paper explains how these types of transformative learning environments are predicated on dialogue that encourages critical reflection in the context of caring relationships. Recognizing that women may arrive in leadership programs with varied capacities for both relational learning and critical reflection, this paper seeks to explore the communication practices needed to create the dialogic conditions of care and critical reflection. It outlines the results of a qualitative study that examined critical incidents of dialogue in a women\u27s leadership development program to demonstrate the ways in which facilitators communicate to create these conditions. The results suggest how taking a communication perspective on dialogue may increase a facilitator\u27s capacity to integrate care and critical reflection.