Perceived Incongruity of Gender and Leadership Roles: Experiences of Top Women Leaders in Malaysian Sports Associations

Mirian P Aman,Roxana Dev Omar Dev,Abu Bakar Razali,Aminuddin Yusof

doi:10.6007/ijarbss/v9-i11/6709

Abstract

This study investigates the of top women leaders in Malaysian sports associations with regard to discrepancy of gender and leadership roles, organizational discrimination, and pipeline problem in sport organizations. Data were collected through in-depth, face to face semi structured interviews, observations and document analysis involving seven women leaders in national sport organizations. The theme that emerged from the data was experiences related to the discrepancy of gender and leadership roles, organizational discrimination and leadership pipeline problem. These result in the bias judgment against women as leaders, being denied of access, less supported and women being denied access to leadership positions. The results were discussed using the role congruity theory, homologous reproduction and pipeline problem. The findings in this study concluded the prejudices within the sporting system of the country contribute to the diminishing number of women role models because they opt to get out from the system than to embroil themselves into the situation. Consequently, there is a higher possibility for a fewer aspiring women leaders to pursue for leadership position.

Highlights

Leadership can be described as the ability of an individual to influence, and enable subordinates to achieve the goals of an organization (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, and Gupta, 2004; Saybani, Yusof, Soon, Hassan, & Zardoshtian, 2015)
In sport leadership predominantly dominated by men, female leaders would likely to receive a negative evaluation to possess leadership roles for such premise of violating women’s social characteristic standards
The theme that emerged from the data was “experiences” related to the discrepancy of gender and leadership roles, organizational discrimination and leadership pipeline problem

Summary

Introduction

Leadership can be described as the ability of an individual to influence, and enable subordinates to achieve the goals of an organization (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, and Gupta, 2004; Saybani, Yusof, Soon, Hassan, & Zardoshtian, 2015). Even though leadership is not a male prerogative, the literature suggests leadership has been predominantly dominated by males, in sport, and in other sectors such as business organizations, political parties, and the military (Eagly & Karau, 2002). In sport leadership predominantly dominated by men, female leaders would likely to receive a negative evaluation to possess leadership roles for such premise of violating women’s social characteristic standards. This negative evaluation prevents women from even being categorized as leaders (Scott & Brown, 2006) in sport organizations. Other reasons for the lack of women leaders are women’s family responsibilities and the tendencies for women to display leadership traits and of level positions (Browne, 1999). Greenhaus & Parasuraman (1999) proposed the idea of a “pipeline problem” to explain for the lack of qualified women leaders

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion