According to Friedan & Anna (2001), gender refers to the character traits that are seen to be creating the distinction between a male and a female. The most discriminating traits under its disparity include the sexual dimensions as well as the social roles and the gender identity of an individual. The factual definition is traceable to a true sexologist referred to as Money John. He in his work was able to create the boundary between the biological sex and gender roles and confines. Feminist literature does embrace the same argument that was brought about then, to facilitate the realization of what they are out to achieve.
The segregation of the males and females is what gender is concerned with moreso when the leadership and organizational management are concerned. Gender roles are conjectural constructs within the social and humanitarian field and it is perceived as a set of norms that are within the definition of society and behavior. These are taken to be particular to a certain culture and are considered applicable to the specific gender individuals.
Gender offers two main divisions of the human race: the males and females. For one to be taken to be of either side the gender identity shall have to be realized and this is dependant on a particular set of social modes of identification.
Susan (2001) says Leadership on the other hand refers to a process of availing some relative sociological assistance to others for the sake of realizing a mutual goal in an organization. It is the process of organization that is related to human beings for the sole aim of having to realize an objective and target that is perceived to be beneficial to all the parties involved to the least. Leaders need some sought of an official authority to execute the responsibilities attached to leadership. If one lacks authority, then the leadership roles and realization of goals shall be hard to realize.
It is commonly taken that gender disparities do affect the leadership of an organization and community at large. If one is a man or a woman, the chances of having to be accorded the resources paramount to realization of the certain target is based on how people perceive the party can handle the challenge. The masculine gender is taken to be stout and strong to face the vicissitudes associated with leadership as opposed to the feminine gender hence resulting in the sidelining of women. It is from this perspective that gender is perceived to be influenced either positively or negatively by leadership and the choice of the leaders. Segregating women and the weaker sex in general while making proposals for the leaders to be is what led to the feminist movement that saw millions of women in the streets demanding the right of equality. The giving birth of the feminist movement was influenced by gender imbalances in literally many of the organizational leadership. Affirmative action where women are supposed to get a thirty percent share of all leadership posts is also traceable to the gender preferences of men at the expense of their counterparts. The majority of the world’s Chief executive officers are men because women who can face the challenge are countable. Many of them do not even think of themselves as the leaders who are holding the topmost organization posts but they prefer being the secretaries and other low standard workers. Women are comfortable when they are serving men who might be their bosses and very uneasy when they have men of great reputation under their service. Such ways of running away from the reality of equality do make the women be undermined even when chances of employee promotions arise. If all human races were of the same sex, leadership would be a common thing and people, who have the skill and expertise to steer the organization to profitability, could hold many of the top posts (Colvin 2010). Gender does affect such managerial roles to a very extreme extends.
According to Malcom (2008), Gender and leadership are related to the determinants of the male as well as the female’s variability about who does have the mandate of leading the others. Covey (2008) says that Leaders are the people who hold the executive offices within an entity. Since time immemorial, gender has precluded the female counterparts from being leaders in organizations. Due to such, the males have been for a long time unquestionable about the leadership roles that they do play.
From Simone & Parshley (1989), the low number of women as leaders is related to the initial discrimination of girls as far as the schools are concerned at the expense of men. The equal chance that could have enabled the women to gain the same qualifications academically hence challenging men as far as leadership is concerned was denied right from below due to the underrating of a baby girl when she too needed the chance.
Various other reasons are related to why there is a small portion of women as leaders. From Millet (2000), Nuclear family initial socialization of the women deters their aspirations in the industrial and job market. Ladies are natured ever since they are young on being submissive as well as passive and if possible, they should avoid competing with men. Their reticence to jeopardy amongst other variables that the society defines as being related to feminine more than masculine is what does facilitate their segregation and misappropriation of posts (Moustakas,1991). If the culture did allow them to face men and rub shoulders as they formulated policies and strategic plans for a particular goal, the high cases of gender imbalance in leadership could not be prevailing. Thus, the cultural and communal definitions of role boundaries should be avoided at all costs.
Traditional stereotypes of women as being less suited for the leadership roles is also one of the reasons why gender has been linked to leadership( Murphy, Hildebrandt &Thomas( 1997). It has been investigated and found that people think the most successful leaders are linked to masculine characteristics yet for one to be practical enough as a leader, embracing both the male and female traits is reasonable. A good leader needs to be task-oriented as an example and should too have a people’s bother, which is a feminine trait. Stereotypes give a man a higher chance of being preferred as opposed to a woman who possesses similar qualifications when they are contesting for a leadership post.
It is common from all sides that for a woman to make it into a leadership role and position, she needs to be able to fight with the socialization at childhood and the people’s perception of the males as the preferred leaders.
Women’s discrimination during the promotions, selection, and recruitment decisions by the personnel in charge and the biological clock that is highly influenced by gender perspectives are the other reasons as to why leadership about sex is not even (Marcuse & Kellner, 1991).
The leadership of the organizations is more tinted by gender issues because it, is one of the logical points of view where programs to be implemented are based (Hooks and Shapiro, 2000). The majority of the social needs in an organization are related to gender reason being it places all the employees in their rightful position. Gender-based led organizations do expose to the whole world the ills and bottlenecks that women have been exposed to at the expense of men as they tried to go up the corporate ladders. Leave alone being pulled back by the stereotypes, the weaker sex is ignored wherever they forward their applications for leadership roles against other applicants, which are masculine.
According to Friedan and Anna (2001), Leadership is the act of influencing the human resources to get them to do things that are paramount to the productivity of the organization with quality and accepted standards; it does not speculate the most probable gender to do so. Due to the traditional points of view of men’s roles and women’s chores, gender has been dragged into it to the benefit of men at the expense of feminine characters. Leadership should be involving visionaries and the effort of ensuring the human resources have what it takes to handle the jobs they do effectively with good communication and charisma building. Competence of the staff is what can make them hold the positions available and not the gender, which they belong (Georgia & Rita,1996).
References
Colvin, G 2010, Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, Portfolio Trade, Sydney.
Covey, M 2008, The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything, Free Press, SYDNEY.
Friedan, B &Anna, Q 2001, The Feminine Mystique. W. W. Norton & Company, ND.
Georgia, D &Rita, K 1996, Gender Power, Leadership, and Governance, University of Michigan Press. New York.
Hooks, B &Shapiro, P 2000, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, South End, NY.
Marcuse, H & Kellner, D 1991, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Beacon Press.Uk.
Malcom, G 2008, Outliers: The Story of Success, Little, Brown and Company,NY.
Millet, K 2000, Sexual Politics, University of Illinois Press, Illinois.
Murphy, A., Hildebrandt, W., &Thomas, P 1997, Effective Business Communications, McGraw-Hill/Irwin, UK.
Moustakas, C 1990, Heuristic Research: Design, Methodology, and Applications, Sage, NY.
Simone, B &Parshley, M 1989, The Second Sex, Vintage, Uk.
Susan, C 2001, The Impact of Women in Public Office, Indiana University Press, NJ.