Leadership and gender have been seen as opposite issues for a long period of time. A leader’s opportunities to change or enlarge the unit’s domain can also be constrained by prevailing attitudes toward possible new outputs and by the attitudes of subordinates to any changes in the kind of work that is done. Then there may also be resource constraints including the number and qualifications of subordinates.
Many managerial jobs offer at least some opportunities for managers to extend their domain outside their own unit. it is possible to predict that in a definite period of time, we will not discuss such problems as women’s leadership because women are perceived as great and talented leaders.
There will not be great changes in 5 years. During this period of time, women will occupy managerial roles and positions but they will not play a leading role in business. Many of these opportunities are determined by the kinds of contacts that the job demands or which the manager can choose to have (Thomas 147). That progress has only come about because a number of women — some of whom are described below — were willing to take or make opportunities and so lead the way. Not that the story is yet over. For there are still barriers to the advancement of women as leaders that need to be dismantled, especially in industry and commerce (Bourgeois 56).
There is no evidence, however, that male and female qualities as such exist. There are women, for example, who lack both intuition and a sense of responsibility. Courage and aggressiveness, on the other hand, are by no means uniquely male characteristics. All attempts to generalize about the leadership qualities or abilities that women possess, as opposed to men, upon closer examination seem to collapse like a house of cards.
There seems little point in labeling certain attitudes or characteristics — such as compassion, warmth, gentleness, and humility — as being ‘feminine,’ and other qualities as being ‘masculine.’ For all these qualities are to be found in both sexes in different measures or combinations (Thomas 149). It will be fascinating to observe how leaders adopt very different styles, depending upon their personalities, their peoples, and their times.
In five years, women will experience the same problems as today limited by social and economic problems. Following Reis: “the conflict between personal and professional lives was evident in the population of gifted females who often had a difficult time distinguishing between personal and professional accomplishments” (245). These problems cannot be eliminated in a short period of time, but women will fight for social support and policies for mothers and children.
In 10 years, women will be perceived as good managers and business partners but they will not play a great role in politics and international politics. Their best route to senior leadership positions is to found and grow their own businesses, like Laura Ashley or Anita Roddick. A recent survey shows that among the thousand directors of the top United Kingdom companies, there are only eight women, and not one of them is a chief executive.
Like men, women have to face the issue of whether or not they can pay the price of leadership and still grow as whole people. We all want to have our cake and eat it. Many women want to be happily married and have a family, and — at the same time — pursue a successful career (Bourgeois 59). Having young children means that you are always on the emotional first call, however much you delegate to home-helpers (Maxwell 54).
The main challenge will be to join work and job, mother’s role, and the role of a great manager. In 10 years, the main challenges for effective partnership will be too much emphasis on similarities, not enough awareness of differences, too much emphasis on friendship and relationships (Thomas 151). It will be difficult for managers and executives to maintain stable and close relationships and partnerships. it is known that the supervisor’s leadership behavior can be represented as a time series of stimulus events for the subordinate where the intensity of specific events and the frequency of events may vary in different dyads.
If one extends the underlying opponent-process phenomena to explain the subordinate’s response to a time series of leadership events then the hypothesis could be made that the manifest response to intense leadership incidents will be inversely related to the frequency of the supervisor’s leadership activity. Thus, males and females have different stimuli which cannot be replaced or ignored. “Partners will have to respond to the attribute and behavior diversity” (Thomas 151). In the global context, women will play a leading role in social and medical associations, not-for-profit, and voluntary organizations. Thus, they will not be a part of international politics.
There are problems with this approach: individuals may perceive the characteristics of the job differently so that one is getting information about perceptions rather than an objective description of the job, and the statements are often couched in rather an abstract language which may not describe actual behavior. The model of demands, constraints, and choices, and the illustrations of some of the choices taken by different district administrators, show some of the limitations to trying to describe a job by asking a particular individual, or even several individuals, to rate different characteristics.
This is somewhat puzzling because even on a priori grounds one ought to assume that organizational experience, technical and interpersonal competence of managers, of their supervisors, peers, and subordinates must have something to do with how managerial problems are defined and solved, when and where advice is sought, what interaction patterns emerge (Bourgeois 59).
It is possible to assume that in 25 years only, women will be accepted equal to men and no gender differences will exist. They will be great the transforming leaders seen as a benevolent father (mother) who remakes friendly and treats the respondent as an equal despite the leader’s greater knowledge and experience. The woman leader will provide a model of integrity and fairness with people as well as being one who sets clear and high standards of performance. Similar to men, women leaders will be accepted by society and will be able to encourage followers with advice, help, support, recognition, and openness (Thomas 147).
They will give followers a sense of confidence in his intellect, yet will be a good listener. Other characteristics less frequently mentioned included: seeking others’ highest good, treating others with dignity, showing respect for others, and genuine interest in them. He also was seen to be firm and to reprimand when necessary, to give autonomy to followers, to encourage self-development of followers, to be participative, to be willing to teach followers, and to mix easily socially with followers. Yet she could be formal at work and be firm and reprimand if necessary (Maxwell 59).
Leader behavior scales that focus, as most of them do, on superior-subordinate relations, assume that the manager will be spending most of his or her time supervising their subordinates, rather than exercising their leadership skills in other types of relations. If any conclusions are to be drawn about leadership effectiveness from such studies it is essential that great care be exercised in the selection of effectiveness criteria.
In the beauty salon managers studied by Yukl and Nemeroff, this would probably not be difficult. They are jobs that necessarily belong in the Man Management contact type, but in jobs in Hub or Peer Dependent contact types, the selection of criteria becomes more difficult. In as complex a job as that of the district administrator, with such a wide choice of domain, a high scale for leader behavior with subordinates might be accompanied by a neglect of other, and perhaps more important, domains (Maxwell 54). The global leadership style can be identified as a hybrid one based on openness and collaboration. Following Bourgeois “hybrid leaders are open, collaborative, and unafraid to draw emotions” (58).
In 25 years, a woman leader will be associated with greatness. Greatness is a word that signifies a matter of degree. It can be applied separately or collectively to position and rank, knowledge, or character — the three main strands of authority in leadership. In democracies, there is a subdivision between great position and great rank, in so far as the highest born, or those first in the social order, do not necessarily rule the country.
The people choose their supreme governor or governing body. They tend to elect those called ‘the natural aristocrats’: men and women who exemplify the nation’s virtues and who are perceived to have qualities of leadership (Maxwell 132). President Ronald Reagan’s popularity in America stemmed in part from the nation’s perception that he personified the qualities of a good American. Gender will not play a great role in selection and appointments because sexual differences will be eliminated and seen as unimportant..
All employees will recognize an existing need for a potential follower but then moves forward seeking to arouse and satisfy higher needs (in terms of Maslow’s need hierarchy) to engage the full person of the follower. The followers themselves may be converted into leaders. The women will have face challenges connected with gender and family life. The success will be caused by the global cooperative movement and partnership between male and women leaders around the globe (Thomas 147).
In 25 years, women leaders will be perceived as great personalities and charismatic personas. Charisma first became a popular term in America during the 1960s and 1970s. It can be defined as a ‘personal magic of leadership arousing special popular loyalty or enthusiasm for a statesman or military commander.’ It has since been applied much more widely to leaders in fields other than politics or war (Maxwell 87). It is now in danger of losing all its distinctive meaning and becoming synonymous with public attractiveness: a mixture of good looks, a striking manner, and self-proclamation.
In sum, in 5 and 20 years, there will not be great changes in gender roles and position of women thus in 25 years gender differences will be eliminated and reduced. It will open new opportunities for women leaders to participate in international affairs and become a part of global business and social life. So often such ‘charisma’ proves to be like a coat of unrenewable fresh paint, which shortly reveals lasting inadequacy underneath it.
Works Cited
- Bourgeois, T. Hybrid Leadership.
- Maxwell, J. C. Leadership 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know.Thomas Nelson; 1 edition, 2002.
- Reis, S. M. Work Left Undone.
- Thomas, R. Jr. Leadership, management, Partnership, and Diversity. Chapter 14.