The gender leadership crisis has been one of the most publicly debated topics not only in the USA but globally. It is indeed true that there have been improvements towards ensuring gender inequality is eliminated across all spheres of society. Western (2013) cites that there is still a long way to go concerning gender equality in leadership. The shocking factor is that there is no lack of qualified women to fill these leadership positions. Women are the majority in the modern-day workforce including earning the highest number of university degrees. It is an indication that there must be something inherent in the system that continues to work against them. This research aims to highlight why implicit and unconscious bias is the key obstacle towards women attaining key leadership positions as it clouds people’s judgment in ways they are not aware of.
Data Collection, Preparation and Analysis
Data is a vital element of any research process. It is essential that a researcher ensures credible and reliable data is gathered as it will be used in coming up with findings. A researcher who does not select an efficient and effective data collection methodology is bound to gather invalid and inaccurate data. In this researcher, the main data collection methodology was observation. The main advantages of this method include offering one greater accuracy of data, it does not require technical knowledge, and it is cheap and is a universal method. There is a variety of observational data collection methods and this case, the naturalistic methodology was selected. A naturalistic observation allows a researcher in studying the subjects within their natural environments (Eby, 2011). This method eliminates the need to place the subjects in a controlled environment, which affects their behaviors. Within the natural environment, a researcher can track the subjects’ behaviors and observe how they make their decisions without any external influence. Naturalistic observation will enable a researcher in having a first-hand look at the subjects’ social behavior.
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In naturalistic observation, researchers may utilize various techniques to gather the data. In this researcher, a video recording was used in recording the number of times a certain behavior occurred. Observer narratives were also used whereby the researcher took notes during the entire session. However, it is vital for the researcher to make sure that the data gathered is a representation of the participants' overall behavior to eliminate any form of bias. Random time sampling was used to ensure that the representative sample reflected the entire participants’ behaviors.
The data gathered during the observation was analyzed through coding. Coding encompasses an iterative, systemic and rigorous process that allows a researcher to identify a specific behavior from the participants’ video recordings or field notes (Pesch & Lumeng, 2017). One must determine the coding time interval, and this is mostly dependent on the detail levels a researcher wants to capture. The interval coding technique was used in this study as it eliminates the challenges encountered by duration and frequency coding. In this method, the researcher determined the occurrence of a particular behavior within a smaller tie frame during the observation (Pesch & Lumeng, 2017). The coding schemes used in the analysis of the data were binary based in this case a Yes/No.
Literature Review
According to the Great Man theory, it believes that great leaders are God-gifted and not human-made. This indicates that leadership traits are inbuilt. The Great Man theory was popularized during the 1800s by analyzing the behaviors of main military leaders during the time. According to the Great Man theory, the characteristics of a great leader were only evident in a man. The theory postulated that men had intrinsic leadership traits despite no scientific evidence proving that this was true. According to Malos (2012), one’s character is what determined a great leader, and thus they could not be learned. The great man theory of leadership thus sidelined the women as not being effective leaders and this explains why during the 1800s and 1900s, most of the women were not given leadership positions. However, this approach is still being evidenced in the modern-day work environment. In the contemporary workplace, a considerable number of people would prefer having male leaders than female leaders as they feel women are incapable of leading. These prejudicial beliefs by people are what contribute to the increased gender inequality in the workplace.
According to the trait theory of leadership formulated in the1930s and 1940s, it proposed that it is various traits that determine a good leader. Malos (2012) states that individuals who were deemed to excel in certain traits were categorized as being good leaders. The Trait theory and Great man theory share similarities as they both focused on the leader’s character quality. However, most of the traits used in formulating trait theory were confounded by biases based on social role expectations. However, the trait theory did not focus on other factors such as race/ethnicity and gender diversity (Chin, 2011). In the study of what encompasses a charismatic leadership, the trait theory focuses more on the masculine aspects and these locks out women as not being charismatic leaders. Trait theory views leaders as having inborn traits, it ends up overlooking the socio-environmental factors influence leadership, and this has precluded racial/ethnic and female groups from such positions.
Discussion
Western (2013) states that one of the greatest challenges people deal with at the workplace is dealing with diversity. This is despite diversity and inclusion being a means through which a company use to gain competitive advantage within its operational market. One of the greatest diversity and inclusion challenges is evidenced form the gender representation in leadership positions. Following a boardroom meeting involving the marketing, R&D and sales department at ABC International, 80% of the members were male. The boardroom meeting had 10 members, and 8 were males while only 2 were women. The head of the meeting was a male while one of the women was the secretary recording the meeting’s minutes. The other woman was a customer representative within the marketing department. The meeting took 2 hours, and out of the 2 hours, the customer representative was only given 15 minutes to air hare views. Most of the time, she was shut down by fellow men as she tried to air more views. The customer representative despite having an in-depth awareness of what the customer needs are, she was not given ample time. The males aired most of the views recorded in the minutes. This is an indication that the leadership of the customer representative went unnoticed, as none of the other members wanted her input. As for the female secretary, she was not allowed to offer any options in the course of the meeting.
From the above results, it is evident that female representation in the boardroom is minimal at only 10%. This is supported by an OECD 2017 report that indicated that 7 out of 8 heads of special entities and agencies and 16 out of 21 directors in the OECD nations are men (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2017).Similarly, 11 out of 1932 nations registered under the UN are represented by 11 female head of states, and 12 nations have females as heads of governments (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 2017) This is an indication that there I increased gender inequality in leadership positions. The major barriers to leadership include individual mindsets and institutional mindsets. The managers of organizations must ensure that they eliminate institutional and individual mindsets within their organizations, which leads to the formation of biases. The stereotypical roles of women from society are used in making assumptions against female leaders, and this limits their ability to advance. Managers should ensure that they come up with a workable diversity and inclusion program that will ensure that women occupy various positions at the company.
Summary
The research was carried out to ascertain gender inequality in leadership positions. The study was carried out at ABC International. The study involved15 participants comparison of marketing, R&D and sales department heads who had convened a 2-hour boardroom meeting. The data was gathered using a naturalistic observation methodology. This allows a researcher in gathering data from the participants within their natural environment. The participants are allowed to behave normally, and thus the data gathered is first-hand. The data were analyzed using coding techniques whereby specific behavior from participants was gathered. From the entire study, it is evident that gender inequality will continue to become a major issue in the future, as it has remained etched in society for already hundreds of years. It is vital for the entire globe to recognize that gender inequality is an issue that needs resolving, especially concerning women’s ability to attain leadership positions.
References
Eby, D. W. (2011). Naturalistic observational field techniques for traffic psychology research. Handbook of Traffic Psychology 3(1), 66-74.
Chin, J. L. (2011). Women and Leadership: Transforming Visions and Current Contexts. In Forum on Public Policy Online (Vol. 2011, No. 2). Oxford Round Table. 406 West Florida Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801.
Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. (2017). Gender inequality persists in leadership positions . Retrieved from
https://gem-report-2017.unesco.org/en/chapter/gender_monitoring_leadership/
Malos, R. (2012). The Most Important Leadership Theories. Annals of Eftimie Murgu University Resita, Fascicle II, Economic Studies .
Pesch, M. H., & Lumeng, J. C. (2017). Methodological considerations for observational coding of eating and feeding behaviors in children and their families. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity , 14 (1), 170.
Western, S. (2013). Leadership: A critical text (2nd ed.). London: Sage Publishing. ISBN 13: 9781446269909
Appendix: Raw Data
| ABC INTERNATIONAL BOARD ROOM MEETING | |||||||||
| Name | Position | Department | Time Spoken (minutes) | ||||||
| Mr. Davis Edward | Marketing | Senior VP | 20 | ||||||
| Mr. Michael | Marketing | Head of the department | 10 | ||||||
| Mrs. Victoria | Marketing | Head Customer representative | 5 | ||||||
| Mr. Hillary | CEO | ABC International | 15 | ||||||
| Mr. Joseph | CFO | ABC International | 10 | ||||||
| Mrs. Angela | Secretary | ABC International | 0 | ||||||
| Mr. Victor | Senior VP | R&D | 25 | ||||||
| Mr. Jackson | Senior VP | Sales | 15 | ||||||
| Mr. Jacob | Chairman | ABC International | 10 | ||||||
| Mr. Barrack | Head of the department | Sales | 10 | ||||||
Data Collection Worksheet
How many people are the meeting?
Does the meeting observe gender equality? Yes/No
If No, what is the number of women and men at the boardroom meeting?
What is the meeting about?
Is the meeting’s leader, male or female?
What leadership roles do the females have at the meeting?
What leadership roles do the males have at the meeting?
Do the males have ample time to offer inputs? Yes/No
If No, why?
Do the females have ample time to offer input? Yes/No
If No, why?
