Blog #30: Shared Leadership

There are many different styles that people employ when they are in leadership positions. Some are good, some are bad, and some fall somewhere in between. One of the problems with our country is that we do not have many women in leadership positions yet. I think that gender expectations are the one of the main reasons why we do not have many women in leadership roles yet. The gender expectations are a direct result of gender stereotypes. Gender stereotypes say that women should follow and not lead, be passive and not aggressive, that they are supposed to raise and take care of the family, not go out and do and bring home the bacon. All these stereotypes contribute to America’s apprehension to put women in power, leadership roles. With these stereotypes come the expectations. Americans’ expect women to fold under pressure and to not be able to make the tough military/war decisions that men are able to make. When women go against the norm and take charge, then they are seen by others as trying to be a man. The qualities that are attributed to being a good leader in a man are negative in a woman. Aggression is seen as having a bad temperament instead of going after what he wants when it is applied to a man. The statement made in “Does Gender Matter: Are Women Leaders Different?” that says because we do have women in high power positions (even though it is a rarity) we “miss them where they aren’t”. These statement hits the nail on the head. I know that for me personally, I feel like we have come a long way in this society. Women are breaking out and making a difference. They are going places they have never been and they are proving that they are competent and capable beings. The problem is that when you look at the statistics we have not come as far as I have previously believed.

Is it possible to attribute positive and negative outcomes to the leadership qualities of men and women? In my opinion, that diminishes everything this class is trying to teach us and make us aware of. We know that there are sensitive men in the world, just as there are aggressive women in the world. Applying certain characteristics and behaviors to them just continues the gender expectations and keeps women oppressed with the double standard they are trying to overcome. We know that men are women are different and that they bring different experiences to the table. I tend to like the way Linda Tarr-Whelan stated her opinion on the matter in the “Shared Leadership: The Value Women Leaders Bring” video. That was that men and women need to come together and lead together. The pipeline myth says that if we get women in the lower tiers of the work force that they will have to be promoted to the higher tiers, but that is not the case. Women have already proved that they are talented and educated, but that is not getting them to the top. They keep hitting that glass ceiling and cannot get any higher. If we get those high power women to leadership positions then they will be able to “move the whole women agenda forward” (Tarr-Whelan). Linda Tarr-Whelan gave a couple of reasons why a shared leadership would be beneficial to America. These reasons include: more money for companies, better economy in general, and more advancement opportunities. Madeline Albright said it correctly when she said that it is harder to be a woman than to be a man. There are sexist comments that are still made in the work place and the worse thing is that they are still tolerated. The comments do more than diminish morale; they also give women the wrong perception on other women. Women tend to judge women harder than the men do. If women and men work together to lead our nation, businesses, companies, schools, and everything else, then we would see improvements everywhere. Each will bring knowledge and experience to the issues and there will be a balance to it. I think that the leadership styles that are the best are those that come from androgynous leaders, those who display both male and female attributes.