The Power of Gender In Effective Leadership - Essay Example

?[The power of gender in effective leadership] By Insert Presented to Location Due The issue of gender in leadership has been a major human resource concern. This has not only been a way of responding to feministic issues but has also been based on the theory that having diversity in the composition of boards improves decision making. This is because men and women think differently based on their different biological makeup. Having a representation of both genders in leadership provides a wider perspective on different issues and this improves decision making. In the past, women in all parts of the world have been marginalized and it is only in the 19th century that women have been given leadership position. The representation of women in organization be it government cabinets or private organization boards of director is far from equal to that of men. In countries which have a 30% female representation many organizations are yet to achieve this mark (Northhouse, 2010: 56). This paper looks at the influence of gender on the leadership. Literature Review Female representation in leadership position has continued to increase. For instance in 1970s, female in managerial position in America was only 18% but had risen to 46% by the year 2002. Similarly, there has been an increase in female representation in the government leadership posts. This trend has been reflected on other countries around the world. However, despite these developments, Men still occupy that largest percent of positions of power and influence the making of major decisions. This has led to the development of theories regarding women and leadership (Sinclair, 2005:67). Most of these theories have suggested that having a third representation of women in the management is enough to have an effect on the board decision making strategies. Several management studies have been conducted which try to understand which factors make management more effective. Having female representation in the management has been recognized as an effective way of achieving this goal. Unlike previously when the engagement of female in leadership was a topic popular among feminist, today the issue has penetrated the main stream and is a common topic on the business magazines and newspapers. According to Business Week women have been identified to have the “right stuff” (Sharp, 2002). We are living in a society that is now focusing more on mental power rather than physical might. This is because previously, male dominated leadership position as their masculinity was seen as a form of power. The sentiments in the articles represent the postmodern views which are contrary to previous articles on leadership which illustrated that gender has no effect on gender. The issue of gender was created in the 1970s by some feminist and has been used to show the difference between male or female. It has been recognized as a social construct of what consist of maleness and femaleness. The feminist tried to show that men and women have their unique identities and this influences the way they relate to different issues in the social construct. It was also aimed at showing the there existed biological differences between men and women and this affects the way they relate to each other. According pot social scientist, gender is a construct that forms the basis of every social order. The perception of gender differs across different organizations (Duerst-Lahti, n.d: 19). There are some organizations which have set apart some position for the female gender while others are preserved for the male gender alone. The inclusion of women in the managerial positions also reflects the changes that are currently taking place in management place. There is the erosion of managerial hierarchy with the manager gaining the role of a coach unlike in previous leadership model where they were expected to exercise authority. Moreover, leaders are encouraged to empower, engage and support workers. These changes give women an advantage in taking managerial positions (Klein, 2000: 76). Women have a natural predisposition to nurture listen and empower subordinates which are some of the traits that conversely, the prejudice where leadership was associated with masculinity is slowly being eroded. According to a report on Catalyst (2002: 28) news release, the top 500 companies which had a highest women representation in their board of directors had shown the largest increase in financial growth. The companies which had women representation of three or more board members had the highest financial growth compared to other companies with lower female representation. The increase in gender diversity on the board was seen to increase financial performance on return on capital, return on sales and return on equity. According to Brown (2002: 431), there are two reasons why women should be included in the board of governors. One of the reasons is symbolic. Having women on the board sends a message to shareholders and stakeholders of an organizations who fell that they voices are being heard by the top management. This move is also practical. This is because it promotes diversity in terms of diverse views, experiences, skills, gifts and perspectives. This then implies that having a diverse board transforms the deliberative skills and changes its functioning in a positive way. Another article by CED (2012: 3) argues that having women in management position is crucial in the improvement of global competitiveness. This is because the current age is characterized educated and talented women with the number of women graduating with MBAs increasing. Companies should thus tap on this talent otherwise they would miss out on a great opportunity to be competitive. The article however suggests that although there is a large number of a woman who are talented and educated, this number is not reflected in boards. This implies that although appointment to boards should be based on merits, it possible that this is not being followed. The author of this article recommends the expansion of opportunities for advancement of women education. This will provide enough pool of women to occupy management position and will increase their representation making the managements to be more functional. Methodology This research will base its findings by reviewing the numerous studies that have been conducted on gender and leadership and will highlight the common findings on this topic. However, in using studies whose findings are based on meta-analysis, care will be taken to ensure that results are valid and do not deviate too much from the expected value. Making conclusion based on qualitative study such as the effect of sex on leadership effectiveness is sometimes hard and care should be made to avoid jumping to biased conclusions. The articles reviewed in this study have used a wide range of research methods that include quasi-experiments, true experiments, organizational studies and survey researches. Met-analysis studies are the main ones t is analyzed here because they give results of a wide range of studies and not just a single study. Besides executive leadership, the article will also look at women representation in the board of directors. This is because this is the board has the ultimate power in making decisions in an organization. Findings After the several studies were analyzed these are some of the issues that were realized. As elaborated below. Among the different aspects of gender difference in leadership investigated in this study is the influence of sex differences in leadership style. A person’s leadership style is one of the key things that recruiters look for when hiring a new manager. Moreover, managers may lose their jobs if the leadership style they adopt fails. Today, employers are looking for people who can use a wide variety of leadership styles depending on the situation (Klein, 2000: 210). This article seeks to understand whether sex influences the type of leadership that a manager adopts. Eagly and Johnson (1990: 59) conducted a study that explored the differences in the use of task oriented, democratic or interpersonally oriented leadership styles. This study was based in results from 162 empirical studies which compared the abilities of male and female at different levels. According to this research, studies that used subjects that did not seek managerial posts such as students showed that female are more likely to adopt interpersonal leadership style while men favored task oriented and autocratic style. Organization studies that used both men and women in managerial posts did not show major differences in sex in adoption management styles (Powell & Butterfield, 2002: 189). Both women and men managers were observed to opt more for task oriented style however, female managers were seen to be less autocratic than their male counterparts. Based on the analysis carried out by Eagly and Johnson (1990: 30), it was concluded that organizational studies showed lesser differences in autocratic –democratic leadership style in both men and women. This is because both managers from both genders were selected through a similar criterion that sought for certain characteristics. Moreover, the different managers have been socialized by the organization to show a particular style of leadership. Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt & Engen (2003: 20) research on effects of gender in transactional, transformational and Laissez-faire is interesting. Women were observed to be advantaged in transformational leadership which transactional leadership. Women were observed to be more likely to engage in rewarding the employees for satisfactory behavior. Male were observed to adopt some aspect of transactional leadership such as attending to the mistakes of the subordinate or waiting for the issue to become severe before getting involved. Men were observed to show Laissez-faire more than female manager. Another her issue that was analyzed was the discrimination of female leaders. This study revealed that the society believe that females are more communal than agentic which is opposite to how they view men. Several researches have also across different levels have also revealed that people view of leaders is based on masculinity. Female bosses are also expected to be tough and show some level of masculinity. A show of the feminine side is taken as a show of weakness which is not good for leadership. Female leaders are thus rejected on based on doubts of their leadership competences. This is because they may fail to display some of the masculine characteristics that are deemed important for the role (Bowen, Swim & Jacobs 2000: 32). They may also be rejected if they display too much of the characteristics deemed to be masculine. The article Eagly et al. (1995: 321) showed that the effectiveness in leadership roles in both males and female depended on the correspondence of those roles with gender roles. Men performed better in roles associated with males and women performed better in roles associated with females. Comparison of women on board showed that having three or more than three women on the board increased the company profitability in form of return on capital, return on sales and returns on equity. Discussions From the findings above, it has been observed that the number of female is increasing in leadership positions as a result of several reasons. Women have changed over time and this has led to a change in their traditional roles. Moreover, women education has instilled skills that are crucial for successful management and should be tapped by employees. The society perspective on female leadership has also changed with female leaders perceived as playing a representational role. Women perspectives on leadership roles have also changed. Research on university female students indicate that more female aspire to take up challenging jobs and powerful positions (Black 2003: 30). Moreover, leadership roles have changed. While previously power in leadership was associated with masculinity, today effective leadership is based on the ability to work through the subordinate staff by inspiring them and not commanding them. Current leadership model requires the leaders to communicate more with the employ and make them understand why a certain role should be performed in this way and not the other. It also requires leaders who are able to listen and understand the needs of the employees. Women are biologically wired to behave this way. This gives them an advantage over men in performing the changing managerial roles. Organizational practices have also changed. An increase of female representation at the lower levels of an organization requires to be reflected by the top management. Moreover, different countries have created laws that require companies to hire a certain percentage of female. This should also be reflected in managerial roles. Conclusion In conclusion, it can be observed that the increase of the representation of female in managerial and board position is a way of empowering the female gender and giving them representational role. Moreover, it increases diversity which improves the quality of the decision making process. Having female on the board is a good thing as it has been associated with greater company performance in terms of profitability as shown in the findings. This gives a company a greater competitive edge that crucial for survival in the current highly competitive business climate. Reference List Eagly, A. H., & Johnson, B. T. (1990). Gender and leadership style: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 108,233 – 256. Black, J. (2003). The women of tech. Business Week Online. Retrieved June 9, 2003 from http:// www.businessweek.com/technology/tc_special/03women.htm. Bowen, C., Swim, J. K., & Jacobs, R. R. (2000). Evaluating gender biases on actual job performance of real Brown, David, Brown, Debra & Anastasopoulos, V. (2002). Women on Boards: Not Just the Right Thing . . But the “Bright” Thing. The conference of board of Canada. http://www.europeanpwn.net/files/women_on_boards_canada.pdf Catalyst. (2002). Release: Catalyst census marks gains in numbers of women corporate officers in America’s largest 500 companies. Retrieved February 20, 2003 from http://www.catalystwomen.org/press_room/press_releases/2002_cote.htm. CED. (2012). fulfilling the promise: How More women on the Cooperate board would make America and American Companies more competitive. http://www.fwa.org/pdf/CED_WomenAdvancementonCorporateBoards.pdf Duerst-Lahti, G. (n.d.). Gender power, leadership, and governance. [S.l.], Univ Of Michigan. Eagly, A. H. (1995). The science and politics of comparing women and men. American Psychologist, 50, Klein, E. E. (2000). The impact of information technology on leadership opportunities for women: The leveling of the playing field. Journal of Leadership Studies, 7, 88 – 98. Northouse, P. G. (2010). Leadership: theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications. people: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 30, 2194 – 2215. Powell, G. N., & Butterfield, A. D. (2002). Exploring the influence of decision makers’ race and gender on actual promotions to top management. Personnel Psychology, 55, 397 – 428. Sinclair, A. (2005). Doing leadership differently: gender, power and sexuality in a changing business culture. Victoria, Australia, Melbourne University Press. Read More