Women in Leadership

Authors:

Kimberly
Rhodus, Graduate Student

Michael
J. Bradley, Ph.D., Associate Professor

Department
of Recreation and Park Administration

Eastern
Kentucky University

www.recreation.eku.edu

Women
in Leadership

Women’s movement, burning of the bra’s, equal rights, and
more women than ever in the workforce and yet, women still find themselves
lagging in the world of leadership. Today, only 26 women are in CEO roles at Fortune
500 companies, making up 5.2% of the female population (Forbes Coaches Council,
n.d.). Woman have been in leadership dating back to Queen Elizabeth and
Cleopatra.  Even though women in leadership dates to some of the earliest
recorded time, they are still behind in the corporate world of leadership.

Why is there such a large
gap, men over women in leadership?  It is not from a lack of qualified woman,
according to, “Barriers and Bias: The Status of Women in Leadership”, women
earn most of university degrees. Woman receive
almost 60 percent of undergraduate degrees and
60 percent of all master’s degrees in the U.S., they comprise only 25 percent
of executive and senior-level officials
and managers, hold 20 percent of board seats and only 6 percent are
CEO’s (Rio, 2018).   With these statics we
can see education with women is not an issue. 
We can also see that women are more than qualified to hold these
leadership positions.  According, to
“Elevating Women in Leadership,” most organizations see this as a problem but
have not been successful in fixing it. CEO Greg
Morton agreed there needs to be more action in changing the demographics of leadership.  Many of these organization leaders push back
at the fact they are the ones expected to hire a mix of leaders.  They state, “It’s not my fault the applicants
are all white men."  Well, it is your fault because you have to be
proactive in solving this (Miller, 2016).  This negative way of thinking cannot help in
solving this barrier.  They cannot just
sit back and do nothing and expect things to change.  If they do nothing, then, things will happen
the way they always have, but they will turn around and say, it is not their fault.

There are barriers that women face when in or
obtaining a leadership position.  One of
the barrier’s is sexual discrimination, and
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports that 30,000 cases of
sexual discrimination in the last five years were settled or decided in favor
of the person who filed the charge.   Another barrier is hostile work environments,
negative stereotypes about women in leadership, and bias also keep women out of
the top spots (Miller, 2016).  One of the
most significant barriers is the
structural barrier.  Women in leadership
positions worry about paid family leave and childcare
offerings while most men do not have any concerns with family leave nor child
care. 

Another significant
barrier is equal pay for women and having equal pay would help advance women in
leadership.  According, to Kevin Miller,
“As women gain higher levels of pay they
are subsequently, perceived as better candidates for senior positions and are
less likely to take time out of the workforce."  When, a couple
has two incomes, but one is higher, the person with the lower income is more
likely to take time out of the workforce to raise children or for some other
purpose.  By giving women higher pay
and equal pay, it makes them less likely to take
breaks out of the workforce, which means they will continue to climb ladders
more quickly (Miller, 2016).

Now, there are some who argue that despite these
barriers, it is still the woman herself that must take ownership of her
career.  They feel that a women’s self-acceptance
self-development and self-management are the driving forces to advance their
careers. “Certain behaviors typically observed more in women are also said to
undermine their career chances, such as disinclination to self-promote,
limiting volubility and invisibility." 
In, short, whether consciously or unconsciously, women tend to undermine
their efforts and contributions (Miller, 2016). 
Many organizations believe this
gender gap in leadership is something that can only be fixed by women, themselves. They suggest that what
women need has been inside of them all along.

Regardless if the problem is inside the woman or an
actual outer barrier, organizational leaders need to be trained on how to
reduce implicit bias.  These leaders
should take diversity training classes, especially ones that focuses on bias and stereotypes.  Another way to help to change this gap is to
incorporate sponsorships, senior leaders sharing their views, offer formal
programs where women are included in
informal cultures of mentorship and sponsorship.  For example, if a male colleague invites
another male out for a drink, they need to invite both male and female
colleagues, and that can be done
appropriately in the workplace.

We can see faster progress where leadership takes ownership of the problem and chooses
to invest energy, time, and money as needed to fix it.  It is important to recognize that it is a society-wide problem and as a result, the solutions need to be careful,
deliberate, complex and multipronged as
necessary (Miller, 2016).  Having more
women in leadership positions are important to society and more studies are
being conducted to try and figure this gap out. 

References

Barriers
and Bias: The Status of Women in Leadership. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.aauw.org/research/barriers-and-bias/

PhD, J. C. (2018, January 30). Five Myths About
Women In Leadership. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2018/01/30/five-myths-about-women-in-leadership/

Keywords: #recreation #leisure #EasternKentuckyUniversity #EKU
#parks #NRPA #equality #women #leadership #promotion #mentorship