Some Ethiopian Women Leaders' Perceptions about Their Leadership

Abstract

This research aimed at exploring the perceptions of women leaders on their performance on three key areas of leadership - on ten leadership qualities, type of power they use and their leadership performance - as perceived and assessed by the leaders themselves. A total of 45 women leaders 15 each from public, NGO and private sectors participated in the study. Two questionnaires were distributed each consisting of two parts. The first part solicited information, among others, about a participant’s organization, position in and number of years in the organization as well as years in current position, educational level and whether or not she has participated in leadership training programs. The second part of the questionnaire contained three sets of questions on the three key leadership areas. The findings of the study show that with minor differences among them, private sector leaders seem to possess the ten leadership qualities better than and followed by NGO and public sector leaders. Both in terms of individual and group performance, NGO leaders seem to use power of the person to the highest degree followed by private sector leaders and last come public sector leaders. NGO leader seem to be more able to work with and through other people (Stateswomanship) followed by both private and public sector leaders. The overall average performance rating for all sectors in the three performance types puts NGO women leaders at the top followed by private and public sector leaders. The overall findings indicate that the relatively higher performance of women sectoral leaders in the study could be attributed to their corresponding high levels of educational qualification, over all work experience and experience in leadership positions, and training on leadership.