Exploring Theories of Female Leadership in South and Southeast Asia

Abstract

L EADERSHIP STUDIES have long attempted to explore the extent to which leadership is dictated by structure, culture, and overall environment and to what extent it is the product of individuals seizing the initiative and manipulating events. We have seen this debate most prominently in the discussions of Soviet leader Gorbachev. Are his meteoric rise in influence and the dramatic events in Eastern Europe and the USSR the result of the forceful imprint of man's vision or is he riding a tiger he cannot control? Do events happen because he is pushing them along or because he is powerless to control them? Do we explain the leader as one in charge or in command of in terms of Great Men or Great Events? Or in a more democratically organized society, is it enough to label as those who head a political party or organization?2 John Gardner in his studies of leadership would argue not, as would many others whose books and articles have examined the concept.3 A dictionary definition looks pallid and simplistic. Yet many studies of leadership also yield unsatisfactory definitions because they suffer from inadequate models. Most studies of leadership are based on particular western cultures. Most are not simultaneously concerned with gender, and most do not agree with each other except in the degree of complexity associated with the notion of leadership and the importance of the topic. Thus, with regard to gender, it is worth exploring why countries so long associated with patriarchy and the subordination of women should be the focus for so many politically prominent females. This subject seemed particularly germane in 1990. At that point, there was every prospect that the most famous Asian female leaders might soon be gone from the political landscape: A pregnant Benazir Bhutto barely survived a vote of confidence in Pakistan in December, 1989 before being unceremoniously replaced by