Of Women as Managers - Case Study Example

Management psychology: An overview: The 21st century woman is standing shoulder to shoulder with man. The fast mood of the dynamic environment of themodern world has served to eliminate gender differences in the managerial jobs. Increased awareness and opportunities have encouraged women to take a step forward and compete with men in all walks of life. Some owners today are of the view that women can be equally good at management as men. A few corporations actually have women on executive posts and rely greatly on these female executives for sound and efficient working. This view has partially materialized because of an increase in the literacy rate in societies all over the world. The highly educated societies have started to believe in the capabilities of human beings irrespective of their gender. Besides, the opportunities in the modern world call for equal participation from both the sexes, in all matters. However, critiques still view it as an irrational approach toward managing company’s affairs. “Research suggests that women may be underrepresented in top management positions because of organizational policies and practices that subtly influence their career paths.” (Richardsen, 1997). Another report by (Owen and Todor, 1993) mentioned that although the number of female managers has raised by 60 % in the past decade, women representation in executive posts still remained small. This paper analyses the effectiveness of women as managers, finds their potential characteristic features that make them good managers and also their weaknesses that come in their way. Woman in the natural family structure: Nature has decided certain roles and responsibilities both for man and woman that they are supposed to fulfill. A woman is a daughter, a sister and a mother. In a sound and strong family system, a woman has to be devoted wholeheartedly to play these roles efficiently. These roles are so demanding that they are equivalent to a full time job for a woman in a real sense. It becomes quite challenging for the women to fulfill their responsibility as a manager since they have to devote their attention to their family besides working. Nature has placed woman in the center of the structure of a family and a woman’s negligence in playing the central role can shatter the family system altogether. In a proper family system as designed by nature, the husband and children are dependent upon the woman. And it is her moral responsibility to take care of her family above all other works. Role of a manager: Male vs female magers: Nature has undoubtedly designed woman’s nature in such a way that makes a woman eligible for the managerial jobs in a number of ways, that a man lacks in. Rather, a more rational argument would be that both men and women are naturally equipped with certain qualities typical of them that are essential requirements of a manger. In fact, the role of a manager is so demanding that very rarely somebody fits perfect in the figure of a manager. What to talk of women, many times men can even not do justice to the requirements of their role as a manager. A perfect manager needs a perfect blend of qualities of both a man and a woman. However, dedication and sincerity is the first and foremost requirement of the post of a manager. And men supersede women in these aspects because their role as decided by nature is to solely work. No father can look after his children better than their mother. Many women deny this distribution of roles as decided by nature. Even then, it is an established fact that a woman is designed by nature for taking care of home while man is at work. The trend is more followed in the East than in the West. That is why, Eastern nations have managed to maintain their natural family system and structure where men work and women tend to stay at home and look after their children, their nourishment and studies and ensure the development of their children’s prosocial behavior through sound upbringing. Women’s nature and their suitability to the job of a manager: Women by nature are more emotional than men. They generally are bad at keeping secrets. They are much more talkative than men. Their heart is an ocean of secrets and they can bear more than most men would do. They are better observers than men and can judge what is in the mind of the other person better than men, but the decisions they take are often less wise and rational as compared to men’s approach toward a certain issue. They are more likely than men to be preoccupied with the thoughts of their children’s education, the cleanliness of house, marriage of a maid, what dress to wear in the upcoming wedding of some friend and other thoughts typical of women. Due to their involvement and interest in matters of less importance and severity, they generally develop a mood of romance and luxury. Besides, their nature and physique has been designed by nature not to take loads. Women are generally short tempered and take big notice of petty matters. Such qualities of women do not justify their eligibility toward the position of a manager and compliment the company’s reliability on women. Managers are expected to deal with intricate matters strategically and patiently. Women are good in apparent dealing and can generally manage things well but dealing with intricate matters requires dedication of due time, consideration and strategic planning which most women are simply not good at. They are very rare to make an in-depth analysis of any situation because it would require a lot of time and activity which women generally can not afford to offer. (Lasser cited in Kerr, 1944) argued that most women managers who care a lot about the owners’ budgets and earn them big profits fail to manage to earn enough for their own needs. The physique and look of a manager plays a very important role in earning him / her subordinates’ respect and obedience. Staff expects their manager to look graceful, be effective and dominating, dedicated, caring, ambitious and protective. Women generally appear so graceful that they do not need to be giant or muscular to gain the obedience of their subordinates. The charisma of their personality is enough to convince the workers to move in the direction shown by them. What differentiates a woman greatly from a man is her style of interaction. One thing that a worker desires most of his manager is his politeness, and that is why many workers prefer to work under the management of a woman. Besides, women are more considerate than men so workers feel they can convince them to allow them a leave or vacation. But not all women have these qualities. (Crimaldi, 2009) argues that every woman has her own powers and deficiencies and the generalization of qualities to be associated with all women is not rational. However, staff wants to see their manager as a role model for them. They expect their manager to be already practicing what he / she demands from them. If the managers put an emphasis on punctuality, they must first be punctual themselves and not many female managers are known to have managed that. “In 1998, about 4 percent of full-time workers were absent from their job during an average work week - meaning they worked less than 35 hours during the week.” (U.S. Department of Labor cited in Heathfield, 2010). It might not be that harmful if the nonpunctual females were anything but managers. Managers need to be punctual. Management is a full-time job. It requires a very efficient and meaningful division of time everyday. A manager needs to be precise in his / her allocation of time to various important aspects of work. Such a practice absorbs so much energy and mind that a good manager is hardly left with any energy to look after aspects of his life other than work. First, the women managers are aware of their responsibilities besides work. They know their families are dependant upon them. Accordingly they are convinced to exert less so that they may save energy for taking care of their families. (Apperson et al, 2002, p. 9) found that most women prefer their family over their work and give more value to their role as a parent than as a worker. On the other hand, even if they exert their maximum to do justice to the requirement of their managerial post, it is not morally right and can not be considered as ethical because they tend to achieve that on the cost of their relations with their family members and their responsibilities toward their husbands and their children. “The nuclear family unit consisting of a set of parents and their children is now much rarer, with new structures such as lone parent families and step-relatives much more common-place.” (www.fpsc.org.uk, 2009). Women’s commitment to their job: Generally a woman tends to do a job just to make an addition to the salary of her husband. The fundamental source of her income is her husband’s salary who is responsible to run the finances of his family as followed typically in the East, and as decided by nature. What a woman earns is basically a bonus for her family. Thus, the family is not fundamentally relying on the income of the woman. Therefore most women choose to do work even if they do not really need money just to spend their time. Many women do jobs just to show their husbands that they are not dependant on their money and can run their finances themselves. Thus the reasons of women doing jobs are plainly psychological and rarely sound. And many women are aware of that. Accordingly, they are far less likely to take their work seriously as compared to men because they know they do not really need to work. And many can not manage to do their work seriously even if they need to work to earn their living because of the frequent secondary thoughts of home and children which hinder the development of their tempo and motivation. “There is a general consensus among researchers that many married professional women experience significant levels of work-family conflict” (Aryee et al cited in Lo, 2003) Since this is not what nature shaped their nature, physique and talents for, women’s involvement in business as managers is fairly artificial and does not conform much to the law of nature. Social issues confronting female managers: Besides there are other social issues that hinder the efficiency of a woman as a manager. Such issues originate from the gender differences. Men tend to maintain and nourish their ego. It is more of a characteristic feature of men to see women as their subordinate. Many men actually satisfy their ego by misbehaving with women, knowing that they are physically less stronger and represent the dignity and integrity of their whole family. Many men treat the women wrongly just to take a revenge from their husbands or brothers they might have developed grudge with. Even if they do not say it out, men fundamentally do not accept women as their manager. “It has been women’s fate to produce many striving and successful individuals in male domains, but no pattern of general acceptance for their sex”. (Mackie and Pattullo, 1977, p. 81). Most lower class workers visualize their female manager as a sex-symbol in the company, and speak about her with one another in erotic words when nobody is around. It is not out of routine for working women to receive unethical proposals from men in their company or whom they meet to discuss important business matters. A large number of cases of women sexual harassment have been reported in the history. (Tahmincioglu, 2009) noted about Ellen, who lived and worked in San Francisco, and experienced sexual harassment in her course of becoming a manager. In Tahmincioglu’s report, Ellen reported that she had noticed that her colleagues and even superior managers started to narrate their sexual experiences when she would be around. She also mentioned that it all started as she was nearing a more powerful post in near future. Such social evils not only hinder the development of women as managers, but also shatter their self confidence and spirit for the work. Conclusion: It is an established fact that women have to modify their style, attitude and behavior in an attempt to be effective as a manager. Also, there is no doubt in the fact that some degree of rudeness must be reflected in the attitude of a manager for him / her to be successful. The delicacy of the femininity hinders the bossy image that is quite essential for a manager to project in order to earn his / her employees’ respect, attention and obedience. Many women have been successful as a manager just by projecting a rough and tough image that would undermine their delicacy. In fact, some women can be bossier than men. But they have to compromise upon their originality, delicacy and femininity which is the natural jewel of a woman. This way, they may succeed as a manager, but fail as a wife in particular. Besides, critiques are of the view that such transformed women managers lack originality in their approach toward making managerial decisions because after all, they are women. Concluding all what is said above, women can adopt two approaches toward playing their role as a manager. Either they maintain their femininity and naturally prefer their family over their work, or else they transform into “artificial men” and lose their femininity. In either case, women can be a threat to the organization, though the level of threat is far greater in the former approach than the latter. References: Apperson, M., Schmidt, H., Moore, S. and Grunberg, L., 2002. “Women managers and the experience of work-family conflict”. American Journal of Undergraduate Research. 1 (3). Available at: http://www.ajur.uni.edu/v1no3/Apperson.pdf. [Accessed: 24 April 2010]. Crimaldi, N., 2009. “We don’t agree: Women are not better managers”. Brazen Careerist. Available at: http://www.brazencareerist.com/2009/07/29/we-don-t-agree-women-are-not-better-managers. [Accessed: 24 April 2010]. Heathfield, S. M., 2010. “Women and work: Then, now and predicting the future for women in the workplace”. Available at: http://humanresources.about.com/od/worklifebalance/a/business_women.htm. [Accessed: 24 April 2010]. Kerr, A., 1944. “Are business women often bad managers?” Herald-Journal. Available at: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1876&dat=19440117&id=E00sAAAAIBAJ&sjid=DMsEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2601,1064902. [Accessed: 24 April 2010]. Lo, Susanna, Wright, Philip, Wright and Robert, 2003. “Article: Job-family satisfaction and work-family conflict among female married professionals in Hong Kong: a dichotomy of attitude and outlook.” Available at: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-151608777.html. [Accessed: 24 April 2010]. Mackie, L. and Pattullo, P., 1977. “Women at work”. London: Tavistock Publications Limited. Available at: http://books.google.com/books?id=d4gOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA81&dq=women+are+bad+managers&ei=-u3TS4zHFKqUkASEqriqCA&cd=6#v=onepage&q=women%20are%20bad%20managers&f=false. [Accessed: 24 April 2010]. Owen, C. L. and Todor, W. D., 1993. “Attitudes toward women as managers: still the same – few women hold executive positions – women in business”. Available at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1038/is_n2_v36/ai_13815059/. [Accessed: 24 April 2010]. Richardsen, A. M., Mikkelsen, A. and Burke, J., 1997. “Work experiences and career and job satisfaction among professional and managerial women in Norway”. ScienceDirect. 13 (2). P. 209 – 218. Available at: doi:10.1016/S0956-5221(96)00038-3. [Accessed: 24 April 2010]. Tahmincioglu, E., 2009. “Female managers face more sexual harassment”. Available at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32476564/ns/business-careers/. [Accessed: 24 April 2010]. www.fpsc.org.uk, 2009. “Family policy social centre”. Available at: http://www.fpsc.org.uk/. [Accessed: 24 April 2010]. Read More