Women in Leadership: Challenges, Progress, and Workplace Impact

Introduction: Women's Expanding Role in Leadership

Leadership is a role that has been male-dominated for centuries, largely as a result of the patriarchal societies in which Western civilization has been situated. However, with the advent of the women's movement in the 19th century, the role of women in leadership began to expand. Women abolitionists came to the fore, suffragists emerged, women's rights advocates surfaced, and finally the Feminist Movement — under leaders like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem — took shape. Yet the idea of women in leadership positions does not have to exist arbitrarily within the confines of a revolutionary movement. Women can, have, and do lead in areas completely separate from political discourse, ideology, or agenda.

For instance, there are female CEOs, female political representatives, female leaders in the financial sector (such as Janet Yellen at the New York Fed and Christine Lagarde at the IMF), and leaders of nations (Margaret Thatcher in the UK, for example). In short, the role of women in leadership has developed over the years to be more inclusive and expansive, with women serving as leaders in various sectors around the world. However, the issue is not without its mixture of positive and negative aspects regarding the workplace, society, and workers — and there is still much work to be done in the West to level the playing field. Hate speech, misogyny, and glass ceilings still exist and remain a problem for women who seek leadership positions, as scholars note (Herrbach & Mignonac, 2012). This paper discusses the social issue of the role of women in leadership as it impacts the workplace environment and society, examines the negative and positive aspects of this issue as it relates to workers and organizational culture, and explores how negative issues can be addressed.

Negative Aspects: Gender Role Typecasting and Bias

One of the negative issues related to women in leadership positions is the notion of gender role type (Schneidhofer, Schiffinger, et al., 2010). Gender role type refers to a situation in which a woman is essentially typecast within a certain role because of her gender, and no matter what she does she cannot maneuver her way out of it. This is a real problem for women who want to navigate their way up the corporate ladder and take leadership positions in circles that have been traditionally held by men.

In the political realm, for example, the United States has never had a female president. Britain has had a female Prime Minister, Germany has Angela Merkel, and Israel has had one as well — but the U.S. has never had a female president or even a female vice president. Gender role typecasting is not just a workplace phenomenon restricted to the organizational environment; it is a social issue as well, political in spectrum, and politics is built upon, impacted by, and impactful of society. Issues that affect women in politics affect women in social sectors as well, as Garcia (1989) indicated in her study of Chicana feminist political advocates, whose work impacted both family and social life as well as the political spectrum, precisely because of the interrelatedness of the two.

Political rhetoric can also reflect and reinforce this typecasting. Verbiage that is perceived as degrading toward women fits into the category of gender role type negativity that Schneidhofer, Schiffinger, et al. (2010) identify in their study — a reminder that such bias operates across both the corporate and civic spheres.

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