Women in leadership are one of the many social issues that have dominated talks, debates, and academic studies for a long time. Coming from a society that has largely practiced patriarchy since time immemorial, it is a positive fact to see women making advancements into the leadership positions and doing things that were largely reserved for men. In developed countries like the USA, women's participation in leadership started a long time ago, with most of them entering into the professional and managerial ranks of businesses, cooperates, and government institutions at the same rate as men. Despite these positive developments witnessed in the recent past, women still face challenges unique to them in leadership positions. This paper examines the challenges women face in leadership and why they need unique and specialized leadership training to beat the odds and scale the heights of leadership in political and corporate spaces.
Prohibiting Factors for Women Leadership
Many factors derail women's advancement in leadership positions. They are societal, organizational, and individual factors. Beginning with social factors, the most pronounced of them all is the social stereotypes of women and their capability to lead. According to Yadav and Yadav (2018), women still have to contend with the social stereotype that they are not seen as leaders by many and mostly in corporate leadership circles. In a survey involving employees working in the banking industry in India, Yadav and Yadav (2018) discovered that the gender of a leader is a significant moderator of the link between organizational commitment and transformational leadership. According to the research, male managers using the transformational leadership style had a great impact on the employees. The same was the case with female managers, but the level of impact was significantly lower than that of men. The outcome points to the existence of the traditional stereotypes of women in leadership.
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Organizational/Corporate Factors
There are organizational factors that derail the progress of women in leadership. Despite efforts made by organizations around the world, it remains the case to transform the workplace environment to be more accommodative to women as opposed to the past. For example, women in leadership positions expect a higher standard of performance of themselves compared to men. According to Stamarski and Son (2015), a study on military personnel revealed that both male and female officials gave their young female trainees a low-performance rating compared to males. They are also more likely to get risky assignments and limited development opportunities, which in the end, work against their leadership progress. As Stamarski and Son (2015) add, evidence indicates that women experience a biased evaluation of performance in assignments that are generally considered male tasks. Furthermore, women in leadership positions get lower results after performance evaluation compared to their male counterparts.
Human Resource Practices
Human resource practices are also to blame for creating a stumbling block for women's progress in professional leadership positions (Shin & Bang, 2013). In many organizations, succession planning and choices made during recruitments are all carried out in line with informal connection networks and underlying organizational rules. These networks and rules are biased against women in terms of giving them employment opportunities and promotion into leadership positions. They end up in disadvantaged positions with regards to mentorship and networking opportunities. Citing Diversity Institute and Catalysis' research, Shin and Bang (2013) observe that most women believe that workplace connections are more important than what someone is capable of doing. In other words, progress in training and getting promotions in many workplaces do not depend on merit. As a result, many women find all of the odds stacked against their progress to the pinnacle of professional leadership.
Individual Factors
There are also significant individual attributes of women that somehow work against their progress in leadership. Although positive from superficial analysis, these attributes are some of the reasons men perceived as efficient leaders (Shin & Bang, 2013). For example, women are generally transformational leaders with a primary focus on the development and inspiration of employees. They tend to take the achievement of organizational goals as a secondary task giving priority to the employees' development. It implies that their impacts on productivity are significant but not immediately realized. They are not self-branding, unlike their male counterparts. They are generally silent or modest when talking about things they have accomplished (Shin & Bang, 2013). Similarly, women are less likely to blame others for any failure under their watch. These unique differences, however, positive, have negative contributions towards the acceptability of women as leaders.
Tackling the Challenges
Women are different from men in diverse ways, but that does not condemn them to a minority identity in leadership matters. The progress made with regard to this is significant, but more needs to be done to ensure that no woman is experiencing any undue difficulty in striving for leadership opportunities. As Hopkins et al. (2008) observe, there is a need for specialized and unique leadership training for women. The training formula should be unique and tailored to address the specific issues and leadership development needs. The development plan should be widespread, including consultation with human resource professionals and psychologists who have experience dealing with female clients and understand them well.
Gender Differences in Leadership
As observed before, women and men approach leadership differently to the point that they apply different leadership styles. Similarly, their challenges in leadership are unique, implying that they need specialized attention. The theory of Tokenism proposed by Kanter helps states that individuals who are underrepresented within the high tanks of an organization need exclusive techniques for them to be successful and achieve their goals. It is so because they are forced to respond to different expectations, yet they have different resources compared to the mainstream group. It explains the position of many women in the corporate and political environment who are trying to achieve leadership.
Leadership Training at the Organizational Level
Organizations should begin to assess individuals for leadership capabilities instead of falling for mainstream stereotypes, which deprive women of leadership positions and development. According to Hopkins et al. (2008), many organizations carry out leadership assessment in a way that discriminates against women. As a result, organizations and institutions need to be aware of prevalent gender roles and norms to avoid such biases. Training at the professional level is also important in developing leadership skills in people. Studies show that leadership training has resulted in promising outcomes for women. As a result, workplace training opportunities should be fairly given without gender discrimination to ensure that women also get the opportunity for leadership training and development (Hopkins et al., 2008). Many organizations have improved the number of women leaders within their ranks by offering them more leadership training opportunities.
Conclusion
Women and leadership is a topic that will continue to dominate many academic, corporate, and political circles as more women rise into leadership in different fields. It is important to note that much work has been done over the years compared to the old days when men dominated every sector. Today, women are getting employed at the same rate as men, and many of them are getting into leadership positions. Despite the progress, there are age-old social, corporate, and individual factors that are still derailing the progress of women in leadership. Going forward, women need specialized leadership training that focuses on their uniqueness. Organizations and institutions also need to open up more opportunities for women to get leadership training and promotions into senior leadership positions. Their uniqueness is not a leadership weakness but a potential that should be harnessed and used for the greater good.
References
Hopkins, M. M., O'Neil, D. A., Passarelli, A., & Bilimoria, D. (2008). Women's leadership development strategic practices for women and organizations. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research , 60 (4), 348.
Shin, H. Y., & Bang, S. C. (2013). What are the top factors that prohibit women from advancing into leadership positions at the same rate as men. Student Works , 1-7.
Stamarski, C. S., & Son Hing, L. S. (2015). Gender inequalities in the workplace: the effects of organizational structures, processes, practices, and decision makers' sexism. Frontiers in psychology , 6 , 1400. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01400
Yadav, L. K., & Yadav, N. (2018). Gender stereotyping of leadership: A study of transformational leadership and commitment in public sector banks in India. Paradigm , 22 (1), 30-45. doi.org/10.1177/0971890718758199
