Understanding of Men and Women Leadership - Essay Example

Gender and Leadership Name Institution Introduction Leadership roles in different business organization in the world have been a major challenge. This is because leadership of any business organization is responsible for the success and failure of the business organization. Leaders in different business organization have skills and expertise that enable them to offer good leadership for the increased performance of their business enterprises. For a long time leadership positions in various business organization has seen dominated by male individuals who are perceived to be better leaders than their female counterparts. This can be contributed by the factors that different environmental and social cultural as well as economic factors have been favoring men in terms of academics and leadership (Bellou, 2011). Different cultures have different perception on the ability of women to have different roles in the society. With the increased academic awareness and humanitarian efforts to ensure equal treatment of men and women, there has been an increased number of women leadership in different organizations (Dencker, 2008). The issue of gender equality has seen different women in most parts of the world share the same treatment that was otherwise enjoyed by men. Women and men leadership have been challenging each other with some economic and management experts believing that men are better leaders and managers of business organization than women. On the other hand, some believe that women if given leadership positions perform better than their male counterparts (Stroope & Hagemann, 2011). This implies that different individual have differing opinions on leadership styles presented by both men and women in different business organizations. In addition, men and women hold different profiles in the society hence men and women may not be considered to have uniform leadership (Ibarra et al., 2010). This literature review explains the different understanding of men and women leadership and presents a critical review on whether men and women should have uniform leadership skills. Evidence of Leadership Skills in Women Women in different levels of management make about 50 percent of the total work force in the world. Women are considered to have different leadership skills that are not found in men. These skills make them as better leaders in managing business organizations. According to a research by Cohen & Broschak (2013), women are seen to have skills such as honesty, hardworking, compassionate and outgoing. In addition, women when compared to men were found to be creative and ambitious in achieving the goals of the business organizations they lead. Good leadership requires that an individual should be honest and ambitious in achieving the goals and objectives of the business organization. Leaders are also required to show creative skills that are important in problem solving in a business organization. This research was able to establish that business organizations that have a highest number of women who were in senior management positions had an increased performance and increased productivity when compared to business organizations that were led by men (Utah Women and Education Project, 2010). This implies that women also have leadership skills that are necessary for the increased performance of a business organization just like men. The number of women in the United States congress has raised from the past years a clear indication that women have the skills just like their male colleagues in leading different areas and sector of the economy. It is because of these skills women make up to 4.7 percent of the total number of state corporation managers in the United States of America. In addition, women have been found to increase the productivity of nonprofit organization which was found to record better performances when left in women management than in men managers (Stroope & Hagemann, 2011). Mceldowney et al (2009), argues that women make unlike men are friendlier in at their respective work places. This attribute make them to be liked by many employees and customers of the business organization. The fact that women are friendly means that employees of the organization become motivated hence increase their productivity. This translates to increased productivity and performance of the business organization. In addition Mceldowney explains that women are more pleasant and interested in other and have self-expression skills that are lacking in their male counterparts. This means that women have the leadership skills that include client sensitivity and being sensitive to the needs of the employees. Since they are pleasant and socially sensitive, women can make good leaders in areas where social responsibility and social needs of customers in needed (Dencker, 2008). On the other hand, men are described as aggressive and insensitive to the feelings of other individual. Good leaders have good leadership academic qualifications. This means that to be a good leader, one need to be trained in different management skills which will help the individual to deal with challenges that face managers in business management positions. Research has that women have the necessary academic knowledge and skills that are required to leader others. This is because women have been graduating with higher academic qualification like other men. In some cases, women show exemplary achievements in terms of academic than their male colleagues. This means that if given a chance to lead, women make better managers and leaders just like men or even better (Mceldowney et al., 2009). In order to be a good leader, one should have idealized charisma, intellectual stimulation an inspirational conceptualization. According to Cohen & Broschak (2013), women are more idealized charismatic than men which makes them better leaders. This is because transformational leadership requires a leader to have idealized charismatic skills. In addition, women have good management skills and experience from their families. Unlike their male counterparts, women who are single parent are likely to bring up a well behaved child when compared to single male parents. This is because women have what it takes to make good leadership. Although men are perceived to be the heads of the family, women have shown good management skills in their homes by taking care of both the husband and the children (Dencker, 2008). Factors Favoring Men as Better Leaders than Women According to Nobel (2013), there are a number of factors that hinders the ability of women to appear or to be seen as good leaders in business organization and in the society. Negative stereotyping from men has hindered the ability of women to assume leadership skills and roles. The society has viewed women as being unable to leader other making bit difficult for them to showcase their leadership skills. Unlike women, men have shown good leadership skills in different areas of economy. In terms of academic performance men have always have the best performances in most areas. However, there are number of factors that may have contributed to the inability of women to achieve better leadership skills than men. For example, some cultural beliefs that educating women is of no help and that women should take their roles as house wives. This has been mostly experienced in African countries. This means that women have not been able to show good leadership not because they do not have the skills but because they have to balance between their life and work (Huffman et al., 2010). This implies that work-life balance have hindered their abilities to become good leaders in business organizations. In fact, there are investor who are reluctant to give management position to women in child bearing age for fear that they are likely to become preoccupied by events in their lives as compared to their work (Stroope & Hagemann, 2011). In addition, women lack some important leadership skills that are seen possessed by men. For example, women are not decisive. This means that they are not able to take responsibility of some issues affecting a business organization and make a good decision that will not affect the performance of the business organization (Stroope & Hagemann, 2011). Both men and women who are under the age of 29 are seen to search for jobs that have greater responsibilities even if they have kids. Despite the fact they are ambitious, women need to have ways in which they will be able to deal stressful life with their kids and work life arrangements. In addition, women have shown interest in flexible working arrangement in order to deal with their family issues. As a leader, one should be readily available in the working environment in order to give instructions and make decisions where necessary. Having flexible working arrangement means that women have much time to spend at their homes with family issues than work related issues resulting in a divided attention. Men leave the women to take care of their children while they concentrate with work related issues. This means that, apart from the academic knowledge and skills, men have experience in leadership skill since they have ample time to perfect their leadership skill unlike their women (Ibarra et al., 2010). The lack of decisiveness in women is that they base their decision on the values and impact that decision will have on other people. As a leader, one should be able to make a decision that will help the business organization to improve its performance irrespective of the effect it will have on other individuals. Hence, for women to be seen as better leaders than men, they should improve on their decision making skills in order to become good leaders who are able to take responsibility of their decisions. Women need assertive communication in order to become good leaders (Seymour & Wairepo, 2013). Although women have been shown to have other skills that men have, they are too soft in their ways of communications which makes the men to be better leaders than them. On the other hand, men have been shown to be aggressive and show good communication skills. Some women in leadership positions have struggled to learn the aspect of assertive communication, but are not able to balance between aggressive perception and speaking assertively something that make them loose leadership positions (Stroope & Hagemann, 2011). Based on the above arguments, ne is able to understand that both women and men have leadership skills that are necessary for improving the performance of a business organization. Both men and women who are in leadership position have shown good company performances with a few exceptions (Prime & Carter, 2009). This is because there are several factors that contribute to good business performance apart from good management of the business organization. This means that women have good management skill just as men only if they are given the opportunity to showcase their abilities in leadership. However, there are a number of factors that favor men rather than women in leadership roles (GhanashyambhaI, 2011). Historical and cultural factors are among the reasons that men are seen to be better leaders than women. In addition, negative stereotyping of women is seen as the reason why men are better leaders than women. This does not mean that the women are poor leaders but simple because the men do not give the women a chance to lead. Moreover, the society is dominated by men chauvinist who believe that women are incapable of leadership. Women also find it difficult to balance between their work and their family life in that they have a lot of family responsibilities, responsibilities that the men should also have. This does not mean that men are better because they have a lot of time at work but because they get more time to perfect their leadership skills (Nobel, C2013). Conclusion Leaders in different business organization have skills and expertise that enable them to offer good leadership for the increased performance of their business enterprises. For a long time leadership positions in various business organization has seen dominated by male individuals who are perceived to be better leaders than their female counterparts. However, women have shown good leadership skills in different management positions which have resulted into increased performance of the organizations. Despite this evidence, men have shown to be better managers as a result of factors that tend to favor men than women. Moreover, women lack special leadership skills such as decisiveness, assertive communication, and balancing their life and work making men to perfect their leadership skills. Therefore, one can collude that men have better leadership skills than women making them better leaders due to factors that favor them and hinder the women from having better leadership skills. References Bellou, V. (2011). Do women followers prefer a different leadership style than men? The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 22(13), 2818-2833. Cohen, L., & Broschak, J. (2013). Whose Jobs Are These? The Impact of the Proportion of Female Managers on the Number of New Management Jobs Filled by Women versus Men. Administrative Science Quarterly, 58 (4)509–541. Dencker, J. (2008). Corporate restructuring and sex differences in managerial promotion. American Sociological Review, 73, 455–476. GhanashyambhaI, T. (2011). Woman Leaders: The Visionary of Today’s Competitive Market. An Overview. Asia Pacific Journal of Research in Business Management, 2(7). Huffman, M. L., Cohen, P., and Pearlman, J. (2010). Engendering change: Organizational dynamics and workplace gender desegregation, 1975–2005. Administrative Science Quarterly, 55 (3), 255–277. Ibarra, H., Carter, N., & Silva, C. (2010). Why Men Still Get More Promotions Than Women. Harvard Business Review, 80-85. MCeldowney, R., Bobrowski, P., & Gramberg, A. (2009). Factors Affecting the Next Generation of Women Leaders: Mapping the Challenges, Antecedents, and Consequences of Effective Leadership. Journal of Leadership Studies, 3(3), 24-30. Nobel, C. (2013, January 14). Few women on boards: Is there a fix? Working Knowledge. Retrieved from http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7159.html?wknews=01162013. Prime, J., & Carter, N. (2009). Women “Take Care,” Men “Take Charge”: Managers’ Stereotypic Perceptions of Women and Men Leaders. The Psychologist-Manager Journal, 12, 25–49. Seymour, S., & Wairepo, A. (2013). An Exploration of Institutional Climate and Supports Enabling Career Growth for Female Leaders at Utah Valley University. 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