Feminist Leadership When Professionalism Meets

Feminist Leadership

When Professionalism Meets Patriarchy: Practical and Interpersonal Issues in Female Leadership

The issues of gender inequality and preconceptions are often dealt with in a largely abstract and obtuse manner, and is seen as belonging wholly to the realm of the humanities; they are something for critics, philosophers, and artists of every stripe to dwell on and discuss, but not really relevant to scholarship outside of these fields. Even scholarship in these areas, of course, notes the practical ramifications of the abstract concepts in at least a basic and almost rote fashion: the reduced employment opportunities due to perceptions of lessened ability (or increasing demands as women are expected to be both homemaker and career-oriented, according to some), fewer positions of authority in a variety of social institutions, etc., but they are limited in the extent to which they can explore the practical implications and effects of the patriarchal framework that has been posted to exist in Western culture.

The fact that research with feminist implications and objectives has been so lacking in areas of more direct and specific scientific and/or practical inquiry is itself due largely to the patriarchal framework itself. The framing of a feminist objective or research question is itself seen as an inherently abstract and subjective act in the patriarchal framework, and is automatically seen as subjective and non-scientific as it explicitly defines the perspective of the research. All research has this perspective, of course, but it remains implicit in the dominant framework until attention is called to it precisely because it is the dominant framework.

Empirical, practical research is a growing part of the feminist tradition, however, and points to issues that are both as simple and direct as those identified by feminist literature at large, and also more subtle and personal than mere philosophizing can establish with any sort of certainty. This paper examines the published results of three recent peer-reviewed studies regarding femininity in leadership roles -- how it is perceived, reacted to, and engaged in, and what its effects are for the leaders themselves as well as members of their team and organizations as a whole. Some of the conclusions that this research arrives at seems to uphold conventional wisdom and anecdotal evidence, but the empiric method of achieving these results and the level of detail these research endeavors have produced make them well worthwhile. Ultimately, the research shows that "feminine" leadership traits and methods differ significantly in their operation and influence from traditional leadership methods, and that failing to proactively account for these differences can lead to interpersonal difficulties as well as organizational inefficiencies.

Research

Qualitative research necessarily runs the risk of having less easily defined terms, and in most circumstances less control over variable control. All three of the studies synthesis are primarily qualitative in nature, but significant attempts have been made at variable control and at the presentation of clearly defined variables and terms. This research constitutes a significant inroad for the furtherance of feminist achievement and recognition in empirical studies.

Scott and Brown (2006) determined through a series of connected studies that there are two basic categories types of leadership, agentic leadership and communal leadership. The first study conducted by these authors determined that communal leadership traits -- those which foster greater collaboration and a sense of peer-leadership -- were more accessible when females were leaders than were agentic leadership traits (traits that have a more commanding nature, and the compartmentalize and can create competition), and furthermore that the opposite was the case for male leaders (Scott & Brown 2006). Leaders were able to rate themselves accurately in this way, demonstrating that there is a distinctly different perspective on how leadership should be approached and effectively accomplished among men and women, generally (Scott & Brown 2006). This is far form an inborn and characteristic difference between the sexes, however, and is more likely a symptom of the continued patriarchy in which the leaders feel (often with good reason) they must operate.

It has been demonstrated through further empirical study, for instance, that attitudes towards gender roles in the workplace, and especially in the case of leadership, are heavily influenced by the existing attitudes and approaches of leaders (Szymanksi 2005). The use of feminist supervision practices, which was unique to women and to men that self-identified as either homosexual or bisexual, created a resistance to traditional concepts of gender roles and other issues of sexism and led to a greater awareness of these issues (Szymanski 2005). An awareness of this fact can be very useful for leaders and their team members in a variety of situations.

Issues of gender are not the only inequalities that need to be kept in mind for any practical leadership attempt or scholarly discussion to succeed/have merit, however. Oppression based on systems of cultural, racial, and socioeconomic hierarchies (as well as others) also persist in modern society, and have much in common with issues of gender disparity in many regards (Nelson et al. 2006). At the same time, cultural and racial oppression may outstrip gender-based oppression in terms of the degree to which they are felt by women in certain areas and certain communities, which demonstrates the need for a heightened sensitivity to the various types of oppression and their potentially complex interactions for many individuals (Nelson et al. 2006). Leaders that fail to take the multicultural, multigendered, and multiracial aspects of modern groups into account are almost certain to alienate certain individuals in the group, and potentially create other organizational problems.

Synthesis

Nelson et al. (2006) suggest that possessing the courage to not know the answer is an important step to effective leadership in the feminist multicultural perspective, and this is related in certain ways to the concept of communal leadership as identified by Scott and Brown (2006). The patriarchal framework that tends to be oppressive of other cultures and genders, then, is actually most effective when these oppressive constraints exist, as when the overall framework changes to one of sensitivity to individual differences, agentic leadership ceases to be as effective (Scott and Brown 2006). Feminist theory actually leads to better leadership in this regard, then.