Developing Women Leaders Research Articles

How Did They Get There? What Perspectives From the Top Tell Us About Developing Women Leaders in Academic Anesthesiology.

How Did They Get There? What Perspectives From the Top Tell Us About Developing Women Leaders in Academic Anesthesiology.

The Hill We Climb: The Future of Women of Color Leadership Development

The Problem There has been sparse research on the intersectional nature of the leadership practices of women of color since the last special issue in Advances in Developing Human Resources (ADHR). Included here are insights and recommendations for HRD practitioners and scholars on developing women leaders of color. The Solution In this concluding article, we make recommendations for future theory and practice centered on leadership for women of color using Amanda Gorman's 2021 inaugural poem as a backdrop. Stakeholders In order to encourage further thought and action for researchers and practitioners in Human Resource development (HRD), this article is intended to provoke thought on women leaders of color and provide impetus toward future HRD scholarship.

Board level (in)visibility and critical mass in South African companies

Purpose Women still face barriers that delay their upward mobility in organisations. This study aims to examine whether women experience critical mass as sufficient to shift deep level discursive dynamics, theorised as an (in)visibility Vortex. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative method was used to collect and analyse data on the lived experiences of 16 board-level female leaders who have been appointed to male-dominated boardrooms in South Africa. Findings The findings confirm that numeric representation is too simplistic to resolve deep level gendered dynamics. At a personal level: self-confidence, a bigger purpose and competence-experience were found to be counter-forces to Vortex. The role of the chairperson was also crucial. Practical implications Organisations must be reminded that even where the number of women on a board has reached beyond a critical mass, hidden barriers still exist. When developing women leaders, practitioners need to penetrate below the surface to appreciate the undercurrents and address them at that level. Organisations need to nurture the personal attributes that counter the forces of the Vortex. Mentorship, sponsorship and coaching may be beneficial. The role of the chairperson is especially important in disrupting deep level dynamics. Chairpersons need to be more deliberate and proactive to refute behaviours that exclude and undermine women’s full participation. Originality/value Contrary to the (in)visibility perspectives, the women in this study did not “withdraw” or “conceal” their gender when “exposed” in male-dominated boardroom dynamics. Reasons for this are explored including the potential for further research on the construction of a “trailblazing” identity.

Strategies to Reach Gender Equity in Radiology.

For decades, women have comprised only 25% of practicing radiologists in the United States, even though women now represent approximately 50% of medical students [ 1 Sepulveda K.A. Paladin A. Rawson J. Gender diversity in academic radiology departments—barriers and best practices to optimizing inclusion and developing women leaders. Acad Radiol. 2018; 25: 556-560 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (20) Google Scholar ]. Even fewer women in the United States rise into radiology leadership positions, with only 17% currently serving as a department chair. In contrast, globally, women represent over 33% of radiologists, with Thailand having the highest female representation at 85% [ 2 Walter M. 3 key statistics about gender disparity in radiology around the world. Radiology Business. https://www.radiologybusiness.com/topics/leadership/3-key-statistics-about-gender-disparity-radiology-around-world Google Scholar ]. Despite increased awareness of this gender disparity in the United States, the field has seen little change in the diversity and inclusivity of its workforce. Women Up! Time for Gender Equity to Be Part of the Radiology PracticeJournal of the American College of RadiologyVol. 18Issue 10PreviewWe read with great interest the article of Slanetz et al titled “Strategies to Reach Gender Equity in Radiology” [1], which remarks on the importance of delegitimizing the disparity between men and women and promotes female empowerment in radiology, through the point of view of three radiologists, who proposed different approaches to successfully address the issue. Full-Text PDF

Changing perceptions of HRD in India

ABSTRACT The Indian HRD special interest Group deliberated on topics related to contemporary HRD such as gender inequity, changing status of women leaders, skill development programme, and HRD for agriculture sector. The panel observed that gender inequity is often considered unimportant on everyday economic and business life. HRD professionals can provide adequate training and development for developing women leaders, fostering employment through skill development across all sectors including agriculture sectors, and raising awareness and subsequent actions towards gender equity. Regarding the changing status of women leaders, the panel observed that Indian women underrepresented at the leadership level as patriarchy still dictate the Indian society and unfair practices and gender-bias against women leaders prevail. The panel proposed for hiring and retaining more women talent and introduction of progressive HRD practices for enhanced women leadership in India. The skill development programme deliberated on sectorial industry requirement, replacing short-term skill courses with long-term vocational courses, and implementation of the Standard Training Assessment and Reward programme has been suggested for Skill development programme. Finally, HRD in agricultural sector has advised the stakeholders to focus on merging indigenous knowledge of farmers with the latest scientific innovations to improve productivity, working conditions, and safety.

Deciding to lead: a qualitative study of women leaders in emergency medicine

BackgroundThe aim of this study is to highlight career paths of senior women leaders in academic emergency medicine (EM) to encourage younger women to pursue leadership.MethodsThis was a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with female EM leaders. We interviewed 22 recognized female leaders selected using criterion-based sampling and a standardized script of open-ended questions derived from the Intelligent Career Model. Questions were related to job purpose, skills, and networking. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and three trained reviewers analyzed transcripts following grounded theory principles and using Dedoose®. Researchers used an iterative process over several meetings to produce the final set of codes and themes.ResultsOur iterative process identified four themes: women leaders made an intentional decision to pursue opportunities to influence emergency medicine, women sought out natural mentors and sponsors to facilitate career development, women leaders intentionally planned their out of work life to support their leadership role, and an important focus for their work was to help others achieve excellence.ConclusionsOur study provides insights from senior female leaders in EM; supporting the value of women pursuing leadership. There is a widely acknowledged need to diversify leadership and support gender-specific needs to develop women leaders in medicine. Becoming a woman leader in EM means making intentional decisions and taking risks. Leaders found benefits in natural mentors and sponsors. Those relationships have power to change the trajectory of emerging women leaders by identifying and reinforcing potential. Work/life balance remains an area which requires intentional planning. Woman leaders encourage succession planning and corroborate the need for increasing the percentage of women leaders to benefit the organizational culture. Leadership in academic medicine is changing with reorientation of a largely autocratic, vertically oriented hierarchy into a more democratic, consensus-driven, and horizontally organized management structure which should complement the strengths women bring to the leadership table.

Rethinking Women’s Leadership Development: Voices from the Trenches

As recent graduates of a women’s-only leadership development program in higher education in the United States, we used autoethnography as a research methodology to provide critical insight into effective women’s leadership programming and evaluation. The potential of this methodology as both a learning process and product helped elucidate two key findings: (1) to effectively develop women leaders, work must be done at the personal, interpersonal, and organizational levels, as these levels are interrelated and interdependent; and (2) women’s multiple identities must be engaged. Therefore, relationship-building should be a central learning outcome and facilitated through program curricula, pedagogical methods, and evaluation. Including autoethnography as a program evaluation methodology fills a gap in the literature on leadership development, and supports our goal of making meaning of our personal experiences in order to enhance women’s leadership development.

Advancing Women's Health and Women's Leadership With Endowed Chairs in Women's Health.

Gender-based bias and conflation of gender and status are root causes of disparities in women's health care and the slow advancement of women to leadership in academic medicine. More than a quarter of women physicians train in internal medicine and its subspecialties, and women physicians almost exclusively constitute the women's health focus within internal medicine. Thus, internal medicine has considerable opportunity to develop women leaders in academic medicine and promote women's health equity.To probe whether holding an endowed chair-which confers status-in women's health may be an effective way to advance women leaders in academic medicine and women's health, the authors explored the current status of endowed chairs in women's health in internal medicine. They found that the number of these endowed chairs in North America increased from 7 in 2013 to 19 in 2015, and all were held by women. The perceptions of incumbents and other women's health leaders supported the premise that an endowed chair in women's health would increase women's leadership, the institutional stature of women's health, and activities in women's health research, education, and clinical care.Going forward, it will be important to explore why not all recipients perceived that the endowed chair enhanced their own academic leadership, whether providing women's health leaders with fundraising expertise fosters future success in increasing the number of women's health endowed chairs, and how the conflation of gender and status play out (e.g., salary differences between endowed chairs) as the number of endowed chairs in women's health increases.

Women’s Leadership

The Problem Women are well prepared to assume leadership roles—They have the education and the will, yet, they do not conform to gendered organizational images of ideal workers. Women often find themselves in a double bind once they advance into a leadership role: They must be cautious not to appear too masculine or too feminine while also personifying the “ideal” (male) worker by exhibiting masculine behaviors and unwavering commitment to the organization. Holding this line is challenging and often at odds with women’s identity and experienced conflicts between life and work. Our understanding of how best to prepare women for careers and create organizations that are hospitable to them is limited by implicit bias, inadequate learning and development strategies, and cultures resilient to change. Current human resource development (HRD) theory inadequately addresses the issues and challenges women leaders face because most leadership theory is based on privileged White males and highly essentialized. The Solution The world is burgeoning with global business, technological innovation, intense competition, and multinational workforces. HRD has a role to play in building effective global business if it can more robustly and broadly address issues related to diversity and inclusion in organizations, particularly the creation of cultures that accept a range of leadership styles and women leaders. It is time to challenge traditional, masculine views of leadership and question how leaders are developed. It is critical to understand women’s leadership if women leaders are to be developed and if persistent gender inequity in organizations is to be addressed. Stakeholders Women are obvious stakeholders, but, ultimately, everyone in organizations is a stakeholder benefiting from women leaders and improved leadership, in general. HRD professionals also benefit by understanding better how to develop women leaders, in particular, and leadership, in general. Globally, elected leaders, nongovernmental organizations, and nations can develop policy that has the potential to influence and create educational, occupational, and economic change for women.

Women Leaders in China

The Problem Leadership research has received extensive attention; however, leadership research that focuses on women is still not part of the mainstream. Furthermore, our current knowledge about leadership is primarily built upon studies situated in the Western context. As a result, while we know much about leadership in general, our understanding of women leadership in a non-Western setting, specifically in China, is still limited. The Solution This scoping study was conducted to provide a holistic and balanced picture of women leadership progress in China through a literature review. By focusing on women leaders in China, we intend to extend our current understanding of the leadership phenomenon beyond the Western context and the mainstream research foci. The Stakeholders Developing women leaders is a collaborative effort, requiring multiple stakeholders. For China, findings from this research will benefit national policymakers, organizational leaders, human resource development practitioners, and women leaders. It will also inform Western organizations and managers who will interact with women leaders in China, as well as all scholars who pursue this line of inquiry.

Building ties to solve the identity dilemma: An identity-based model for developing women leaders

In most organizations, women are still significantly underrepresented in top management, and despite efforts by both researchers and practitioners, are failing to ascend into leadership roles. In t...

Developing Women Leaders through Entrepreneurship Education and Training

Based on extensive firsthand experience with entrepreneurship education and training programs for women and a thorough review of the literature on women’s entrepreneurship and leadership as it relates to entrepreneurship education and training, the authors present a framework for designing and implementing effective programs for women. The framework provides the core factors that need to be considered to effectively achieve a program’s goals: the elements of the program, human factors, the contextual environment, and funding. While the framework is applicable for entrepreneurship education and training programs in general, the authors demonstrate its specific utility by sharing firsthand examples from their work with women entrepreneurs from more than 20 developing countries throughout the past 10 years. This paper provides guidelines that can be used by scholars researching entrepreneurship, leadership, women in business, and developing economies, as well as by program directors offering entrepreneurship education and training programs.

Developing Women Leaders through Entrepreneurship Training

Developing Women Leaders through Entrepreneurship Training

Preparing adolescent girls for school and post-school leadership: recommendations to school educators from educational staff, female students, and women leaders

This paper explores the concepts of adolescent girls and leadership by investigating how girls might be best prepared for future leadership roles as a result of their schooling experiences. A qualitative study was conducted utilising three forms of data collection. Firstly, the electronic survey of staff members from girls' schools located in Australia and New Zealand took place. Secondly, focus groups were performed with female students from Australia and South Africa. Finally, interviews with current women leaders from Australia and the United Kingdom were carried out. From each participant group recommendations for developing future women leaders were collected. These findings were then collated and synthesised in order to present a cohesive understanding of how educational settings may be used to better develop women leaders of the future. These recommendations may provide assistance to schools in developing adolescent girls' leadership potential as well as present areas of interest for further research.

Tips on How to Confront Others—When You Must

Draw a cartoon of yourself in a confrontation. Has the blood rushed to your face or drained from it? Do your nostrils flare? Is your mouth narrow and tight? Are your hands curled into fists or arms crossed protectively across your chest? This exercise opened Erin Fischer's workshop “Building a Bridge in Stilettos” at the Women's Leadership Institute on Amelia Island FL in December. She is director of training services at The Leadership Institute: Women with Purpose, a non-profit organized by Alpha Gamma Delta to develop women leaders. The “bridge” concept refers to the need to bridge a potential threat to the relationship. Most women (and some men) hate to confront. We're people pleasers who avoid conflict, which makes us feel icky. We don't want to hurt feelings or be considered unkind. Thinking the situation will resolve itself or the student employee will graduate, we don't want to invest the time and energy. Confrontation is exhausting. But when a problem arises, a failure to confront can be costly. The offending person won't improve without feedback. The bad situation continues and snowballs. Other staff lose respect for the supervisor, whose blood pressure continues to rise. Hissy fits and tears of anger don't help. Knots in the stomach spoil the appetite. Shouting matches let off steam but rarely resolve a problem. Learning how to manage a confrontation can improve your relationships on and off campus. Fischer had participants complete an assessment form to identify their dominant confrontational styles, then gather in three different parts of the room according to style. She asked each group to write a one-sentence definition of their style, identify a well-known public figure who uses that style and offer tips for confronting someone who shares their style. When useful: This approach can be useful in an emergency, when a decision must be made quickly or when policy rules leave no room for negotiation or compromise. Tips for dealing with them: Be prepared, honest and direct. Recognize the time factors underlying a push for speed. Understand that people with this style have value and emotions, which they process internally rather than using words. When useful: This approach can help when emotions are running high and everyone needs a break. It helps to level the playing field when you have far more power in a situation than the person you're confronting. It also works well for minor issues that aren't worth the battle. Tips for dealing with them: Validate a reflexive person by your words and body language, acknowledging her feelings. Listen well. She may not want to be looked in the eye. When useful: Self-assured confrontation is appropriate in most day-to-day situations. Use it when you have experience with a topic and you are trying to coach others. Tips for dealing with them: Be action oriented, honest and concise. Bring a suggested plan but also an open mind, ready to finalize the solution together. Take responsibility for your actions. Effective confrontation builds a bridge between you and the other person, and to a better future in solving problems. Erin Fischer: efischer@tliwwp.org or 317-566-2159

Developing Women Leaders on Campus

The Problem. Despite significant gains in the number of women leaders in higher education, there are still challenges for developing women leaders in higher education. The Solution. Effective collaboration between women’s centers and other campus organizations that support women’s leadership can provide opportunities to overcome these barriers. This article presents leadership development programs offered by the Women’s Center at the University of Minnesota, focusing on those facilitated in partnership with the university’s Office of Human Resources. Several lessons emerged from the review: the value of collaborative relationships, the importance of emphasis on individual and system-level leadership, and the need for ongoing assessment and evaluation of the climate for women leaders within postsecondary institutions. The Stakeholders. These lessons, and the principles used in implementing them, reveal practices that may be useful for other Women’s Centers, HR departments, and internal and external entities who seek to develop more women leaders in higher education.

Book review: Developing Women Leaders: A Guide for Men and Women in Organizations

Book review: Developing Women Leaders: A Guide for Men and Women in Organizations

Transformational Learning and Role of Self-Authorship in Developing Women Leaders

Given the challenges of the workplace and the historic exclusion of women and people of color from positional leadership, this dual case study explores women's experiences in two graduate programs designed to support transformational learning of educational leaders. Data included participants' structured reflections on learning about leadership, examined through the lens of two adult learning theories: self-authorship (Baxter Magolda, 1998, 2004) and transformational learning (Brooks, 2000; Kegan, 2000). Cross-case analysis indicated that participants developed confidence in their own knowledge, articulated the importance of personal support and collaboration, gained voice to advocate for themselves and their students, and experienced a fundamental change in their sense of themselves as leaders in their schools. These findings have implications for the provision of systematic graduate instruction that supports reflection and critique, offers multiple opportunities to step into leadership roles, and integrates informational and transformational learning.

In Focus/Diversity: An action plan for developing women leaders

Leadership in ActionVolume 26, Issue 5 p. 16-19 In Focus/Diversity: An action plan for developing women leaders Anna Marie Valerio, Anna Marie Valerio Executive Leadership Strategies, LLCSearch for more papers by this author Anna Marie Valerio, Anna Marie Valerio Executive Leadership Strategies, LLCSearch for more papers by this author First published: 20 December 2006 https://doi.org/10.1002/lia.1180Citations: 4AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume26, Issue5Special Issue: Issue Focus: Leadership in AsiaNovember/December 2006Pages 16-19 RelatedInformation

Beyond Stereotypes: An Exploratory Profile of Australian Women Mayors

Women continue to be under-represented in senior positions in local government. This study draws on interviews with 19 women mayors who held office in the Australian state of Queensland during the period 2000–2004. The paper finds that the profiles of women in these positions has markedly changed over the last decade, and concludes that if the local government sector is to remain robust and viable in these changing social and economic times there is a need to focus on dismantling the stereotypes and implement well-designed and considered strategies to develop women leaders.