The Female Leaders’ Obstacles to Gain Leadership positions in Universities Research Paper

Introduction

There are significantly new challenges that are now facing many universities all over the world and some are very fascinating as they present unique opportunities in the remarkably competitive global context.

There is however persistent under-representation of women at the top management level of many universities, though recently, this has been receiving renewed attention having realized that there is no way the counties and institution of higher education could continue overlooking the management abilities and potential leadership.

This representation at top management has to be equally for both men and women. The paper will also give information that is necessary for handling some of the factors that could have otherwise stop the contribution of talented people.

Problem Statement

Women face greater challenges when they are seeking to gain leadership positions within the hierarchy of management in higher education. There is enough evidence to support this statement. Women are often seen as minorities and are in most cases underrepresented in management roles. Despite the obstacles, women still pursue leadership opportunities in universities.

The Impact

This paper addresses the obstacles that female leaders must go through in their pursuit to gain leadership positions in higher. Though correlation between the leadership skill and those that organization need for their success need to undergo challenges of the emerging globalization process has not today been translated into advantageous use either for universities or for social benefit.

Women are disgustingly under-represented and this has impacted negatively on the way management of universities has been handled in the past. Research in the past has shown that men outnumber women by about five times in middle management positions.

In terms of administration posts, a study by ACU shows that women have a greater possibility of succeeding as registrars, head of human resources than when put in posts like vice chancellor or even deans of university schools.

Research Aims

1. To undertake a study of women leadership styles in women concentrating on leadership theories, equal representation and obstacles of women strife to attain management positions.
2. Address the women attitudes towards matters of leadership.
3. Offer an example for practical means that are set to train women in leadership.
4. formulate commendation for engendering and also set means of supporting more women to take up responsibilities in management positions.

Hypothesis

The immediate problem that face women especially in leadership in higher learning is not so much that there is no attributes that are required by challenges that face institutions, nor that the organizations are less-equipped to react to the challenges, but rather that the style or input of leadership and further potential are still uncared for, under-acknowledged and inadequately integrated into the designs management of the universities.

Research Questions

1. Do you think female leaders can perform better in higher education management?
2. What aspects of women character do you think develop leadership skills?
3. Does university management encourage development of women’s leadership?
4. What types of support are critical in higher education workplace to assist women in developing their management/leadership opportunities and skills?
5. Are there differences in the efficiency and style of leadership between men and women?
6. What obstacles challenge women’s efforts to obtain management position in university leadership?
7. What measures are there to enhance the recognition of women interests?

Significance of Study

In leadership, gender matters a great deal. It is actually true that there is some difference between female leaders and male leaders? In light of this, there is need to explore the unique qualities necessary for female leaders to be regarded as effective leaders. This paper identifies the unique characteristics that women posses to make effective as men or even more.

Annotated Bibliography

Ramsay, E. (2001). ‘Women and Leadership in Higher Education: Facing International Challenges and Maximizing Opportunities’, ACU Bulletin.

This paper talks about the ability of women in leading universities. Whereas this could be very tricky to tell whether women have been working hard enough to work through to the management class in Australian universities.

The proportions of female leaders in senior posts in the academic and general administrative positions are gradually but bit by bit increasing. More considerably, the visibility of the female leaders in universities of Australia and their impact in terms of their public policy say have increased more speedily than their real figures as a consequence of these plans.

The concerns for gender equality is highlighted o be critical in two respects. This will ensure that the government policies concerning leadership are fair. Priorities and directions of the higher education sector are enhanced by the experiences of the top management women in this sector.

Additionally this formal, efficient and public voice makes sure that the female leaders in the universities cannot be ever overlooked as individual or as groups, realizing audibility, integrity for the women across the industry. This factor also standardizes the existence of women as senior and important players, lively in creating and manipulating the policy directions of the Australian University.

The Australian government has seen the development of the policy and emphasis has been made on the development of specific skills and attributes that are required by the ever-changing international context.

Thus whereas every step has demonstrably established situations, procedures and proposals which have increased the possibility of women advancing to senior positions, they have at the same time provided them with capacities that these institutions need in order to be

Kulati, T. (2003). From Protest To Challenge: Leadership And Higher Education Change In South Africa, Tertiary Education and Management, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 13 – 27.

This paper investigates the budding and different moves towards female leadership and more equity in higher education particularly how the new approaches are shaping organizational transformation strategies in the higher education colleges in the republic of South Africa.

The study of these issues hinges upon the adoption of novel policies in the management of higher education, in addition to the ensuing challenges to the education sector, thanks to globalisation.

White, K. (2003). Women And Leadership In Higher Education In Australia, Tertiary Education And Management, Vol. 9, Issue 1, pp. 45 – 60.

In this paper, White notes that leaders in Australian universities especially the heads of departments and deans of schools usually get very little management training and are allocated leadership responsibilities.

When addressing issues of under-representation of women in the university management hierarchies, White says that women express very little human capital compared to their men counterparts as rated in terms of formal academic qualifications and job experience.

Middle managers are the central dogma of the study because there has been so much research on women at topmost level in universities but there has been very little on the middle managers who are aspiring to be top managers in future.

Several studies have investigated women and equal representation principle at higher level in the positions of management in universities. Is specific study of universities Australia, White has assessed gender equity change in most universities, and all-encompassing climate and culture was designed from exceedingly conventional, male-centric job setting.

The culture makes practical, varied changes like modification of the promotion system to acknowledge training and executing a convenient leadership program for women that shore up promotion aspirations.

The writer also explains very good examples that cite the way women have been advancing in leadership. It seems that there has not been so much study in Australia concerning the overall development of female managers in the middle management in the academics sector.

This recognizes human capital standpoint to present knowledge; those official and unofficial development opportunities that offer women the qualifications, experience, skills and tacit understanding and the connections to make on more senior duties.

Bond, S. (2000). ‘Culture and Feminine Leadership’, in Women, Power and the Academy, ed. M. Kearney, UNESCO and Berghahn Books, New York, pp. 79 – 85.

This piece of work provides an opportunity for people to improve the situation on the ground as they embrace feminine leadership. In order to build a strong management team that displays equal representation in terms of gender, it’s important that the leadership skill and capabilities be tapped from all potential leaders as these are critical to the success of universities and perhaps even only way to ensure survival.

Such interests are the ones that instigated additional investigation into management at higher education level, particularly those related to the representation of women minority.

It has been found that women leaders are persuasive or assertive in their leadership styles. They also have stronger desire to get things moving and take risks. Women are also flexible and empathetic and have better interpersonal skills than men. This is very critical for reading situations more accurately and they also can integrate information from different sources.

Hilary, W et al. (2006). “Academic women’s promotions in Australian universities”, Employee Relations, Vol. 28 Issue: 6, pp. 505 – 522.

The purpose of this paper was to study the premise that under-representation of female leaders in Australian higher learning sector reflects the obstacles in the academic process of promotion. The paper used three complementary models. Documents from the Australia University are used as a basis for assessing strategies and policies.

There were 17 universities used as a sample for the interviews with the main gatekeepers to investigate the way promotions are done. Information promotions by level and sex orientation were examined for these universities.

The findings of the paper shows that analysis of the policies set in practise are varied. The interviews underline the significance of support for and identification of women aspirants and the need for the organization of institution-wide and performance objectives for higher-ranking managers.

Implicitly, many interviewees agreed the assumption that women faced barriers in the promotion strategy, including discretion in making application and stereotypically gendered ideas of merit. Nonetheless, the assessment of promotions information revealed a more encouraging picture. Application rates and achievement rates for the female leaders are the same as those of male leaders and at the professional level, a little higher.

Nevertheless women remain under represented in senior positions as only a professoriate 16%. Practical implications drawn from this paper are that the vice chancellors’ committee will have a number of recommendations that will assist improvement strategies in the university policies.

Ramsay, E. (2000). ‘Gender Employment Equity for Women in Australian Universities: Recent Research and Current Strategies’, In Second European Conference on Gender Equality in Higher Education, Zurich, pp. 1 – 17.

Workforce is becoming more diverse as the world advances to global integration and in terms of demographic changes, women are getting more recognition. The cultural differences like race and sex and characteristics that describe member’s personality. This diversity is reflecting the changing international market. The diversity of workforce is can either be negative or positive impact on the way organizations perform.

Therefore it’s very important that a better medium and bigger business should embrace diversity.

For the businesses to be able to manage the increasingly challenging workforce in the universities of Australia and to be able to stop discrimination there is need for strict policy on management is now regarded as a main element of tactical human resource management the purpose of this paper was to help the policy makers in establishing various aspects that discrimination occurs.

This gender difference in Australian university is worth addressing since equality is a global concern and it helps in tapping the potential that women have as leaders.

Managerial policy, character, the social and cultural organization and the laws governing work factors like educational qualification gender, community norms and workplace opinions have impacted on discrimination greatly. According this paper, gender discrimination in Australia universities is evident in job processes like appointments and promotion to management.

The Human resource is accused of being biased when it comes to job examinations, selection of candidates, interviews and appraisal of good performance. Failing to recognize and appreciate gender differences can result in sex prejudice, underperformance and deprived work relations.

Jones, D.S. (2005). Leadership in Higher education: Influences on Perception of Black Women, Unpublished.

The African women are underrepresented in many leadership positions in America. Although several articles of research address leadership at workplaces, very few have specifically addressed the fate of black women in universities.

The pathways that lead to management of administration are highlighted. For many academicians, management of higher education is an addendum and not an ambition, since assumption of these positions would be viewed as changing careers, whereas others view the higher education as a job of those with excellent intellectual skills hence believing that university faculties should take part in the administration of a university.

This concept is founded on the idea that administrators should be drawn for the positions of faculty. In spite of the view one holds on this issue, there is one clear thing from this assessment. Effort is needed to advance towards a balanced representation black men and women in American universities at administrative level.

The paper reports that women have made great progress in going further than the entry level position but are still not equally represented as men are. Men are possibly presenting fear of feminist ideas in management positions. When black women are appointed in the top leadership positions, would be a challenge to the normative connotation for executive leaders as white males.

As a consequence, black women have been neglected from leadership posts and they have gained undervalued posts, esteem and eventually quality within higher education.

About one out of ten professors is a woman in most parts of America and in the academic sector when the institution is more prestigious, fewer women will be professors and in management. Women have been forced to adapt to leadership by men and even though women are being incorporated, the model is designed according to male model.

Jacobs, D & Witt, J. (2006). An Indigenous Perspective on Women Leadership: An Example for Higher Education, Advancing Women in Leadership Online Journal, Vol. 21.

For several years, many indigenous populations have been made to understand that the critical role of women in building and sustaining healthy communities and egalitarian relations is implicit. Women have hence carried the same values to other generations. They adapt to new regimes and continue renewing societies and their traditions at the tribal level.

Unfortunately, women have been ignored even when they make bigger contribution to social and historical growth of a community. There are eight styles of leaderships that are discussed as being used by indigenous women to demonstrate that female leadership is similar to those applied in higher education though they have not attained all of their goals.

Women understand that community issues are more significant that isolated individuals when trying to decide on interpersonal disagreements. This type of notion could be the explanation of why many indigenous cultures were matrilineal and actually the true authority was vested in women. This could be why men in European setting were so determined to change things by use of pen and paper.

Women however used authority in a manner that would give fair judgment to men and women and even to non-humans. Even to date, women activists across the world have engaged in most critical issues of all time. Portraying political influence with dignity and modesty is said to be demonstrated by the president of the Fielding University called Kuipers Judith among others.

In early ages, the Europeans did not comprehend the major differences between their sex-duty stereotyping. In the first nation gendering of responsibilities, they in most cases called the councilmen wearing skirts with words that were offensive sexually.

However, homosexuality was respected and there was not confusion of roles in society despite the orientation. In the Fielding ELC, it’s common to see gay and lesbian students address their issues outside their closet to deans. They bring their loved ones to graduation parties and talk about topics of sex comfortably.

Traditional cultures have supported transformative kind of leadership rather than a model that is retributive. Through her, the Great Law about peace was created and ultimate solutions were set for challenging problems.

Northouse, P.G. (2007). Leadership: Theory and Practice, Thousand Oaks, Ca: SAGE Publications.

Transactional theory: This paper addressed various leadership styles that employed at workplaces including universities. For the transactional leadership model, employees usually seek that factor that would cause immediate reward or motivation for their work. Otherwise, this can be explained as the transaction that goes on between the manager and the workers to meet their needs.

Employees are promised a negotiated reward for the tasks that they would perform. The motivation is that reward. Women leaders are not transactional leaders. They concentrate on the needs of employees and even get involved in their personal development. However transactional leadership does not take care of the works personal ambitions and their need are not individualized.

Path-Goal theory: in this approach, Northouse notes that employees are motivated since they realize that they are improving their performance and more effort will translate to specific results, and if they believe that the outcomes for doing a certain job is worth.

Women leaders are hence critical because they can communicate with employees and make this assurance that they can work even better and that their work is very important for achievement of long-term goals of the organization. Nothhouse suggest that such leadership can form in groups and it’s likely to breed trust between the manager and the employees.

Transformational Leadership recognizes leadership as a process of growth whereby an individual used to be part of a group and growth to be the one influencing that group to meet a specific goal. In this case, it is important to have women leaders. That feminine contribution to management decision can turn university departments around.

Specifically, women are likely to engage others in creation of a relationship that boosts the level of motivation and building of morality. Additionally they are likely to pay more attention to the employee’s needs and motivating factors and attempt to assist them to achieve their greatest potentials.

Stuart, J. (1999). ‘The Position Of Women Staff At The University Of Western Australia: Some Reflections on the Outcomes and Process of Two Reviews of Gender Equity’, International Review of Women and Leadership, Vol. 5, No. 4, Pp. 46 – 56.

In the year 1995, Western Australian University revised its position on the role and responsibility of women leaders amidst concerns that there was a very low representation of women in its management staff especially the top management team.

The university was just performing like others with regard to the process of recruitment and strategies of retention of the female workers. There are several considerations that came about after the review.

Currently, there is good progress and its quite evident overall. The university now recognizes gender issues in the higher education management team. There are also excellent policies that have been put in place and this confirms that the university is dedicated to bring about improvement in the position of women in university leadership.

Whereas the progress has been very clear, the implementation of the major improvement proposal has been in some way uneven across the university departments. Some department have set strategies that demonstrate good progress while other have no clear set of information flow and not indication of results.

The challenge has been that the university departments have not adhered to the affirmative action requirement up to date. The faculties do not keep their documents on equity measures in a proper way.

The accountability level is varied at all levels though the performance goals include objectives on equity of gender. Full support from management is still a challenge and qualifications into management position have to be revised.

An assessment of two institutions of higher education (Harvard and Cambridge)

At Harvard University, the executive board of the institution is referred to as the Harvard Corporation. In this regard, the Harvard Corporation constitutes one of the two governing boards at the institution. The other board is referred to as Board of Overseers. At Harvard University, the academic leadership is organized around the various schools.

For example, school of engineering. In this case, every department is headed by a dean, who heads a specific school. There are also area deans who reports to the dean of a school (Harvard University, 2010).

The area deans are charged with the responsibility of addressing the academic issues that affects a proposed or existing academic concentration. The deans of the various academic programs manage cross-school programs, educational policy, and coordinating teaching.

On the other hand, at Cambridge University, the Faculty constitutes part of a school in a given discipline. For example, the faculty of education at Cambridge University is under the Scholl of Social Sciences and Humanities. There are a total of six schools at Cambridge University and collectively, they are referred to as ‘councils of the schools’ (Cambridge University, 2010).

They include biological sciences, arts and humanities, physical sciences, clinical medicine, technology, and humanities and social sciences. There are various faculties that are affiliated with the aforementioned schools.

Conclusion

The issue of underrepresentation of women has infiltrated leadership positions in higher education. This is because previously, an increasingly higher number of men occupy positions of leadership in universities and colleges, in comparison with their female counterparts. However, this trend appears to be changing in favor of women.

The immediate problem that face women especially in leadership in higher learning is not so much that there is no attributes that are required by challenges that face institutions, nor that the organizations are less-equipped to react to the challenges, but rather that the style or input of leadership and further potential are still uncared for, under-acknowledged and inadequately integrated into the designs management of the universities.

Reference List

Bond, S. (2000). ‘Culture and Feminine Leadership’, in Women, Power and the Academy, ed. M. Kearney, UNESCO and Berghahn Books, New York, pp. 79 – 85.

Harvard University. (2010). The President and Fellows of Harvard College. Web.

Hilary, W., et al. (2006) “Academic women’s promotions in Australian universities”, Employee Relations, 28(6): 505 – 522.

Jacobs, D & Witt, J. (2006). An Indigenous Perspective on Women Leadership: An Example for Higher Education, Advancing Women in Leadership Online Journal, Vol. 21

Jones, D.S. (2005). Leadership in Higher education: Influences on Perception of Black Women, Unpublished.

Kulati, T. (2003). From Protest To Challenge: Leadership And Higher Education Change In South Africa, Tertiary Education and Management, 9(1): 13 – 27.

Northouse, P.G. (2007). Leadership: Theory and Practice, Thousand Oaks, Ca: SAGE Publications.

Ramsay, E. (2000). ‘Gender Employment Equity for Women in Australian Universities: Recent Research and Current Strategies’, In Second European Conference on Gender Equality in Higher Education, Zurich, pp. 1 – 17.

Ramsay, E. (2001). ‘Women and Leadership in Higher Education: Facing International Challenges and Maximizing Opportunities’, ACU Bulletin, 14 – 17.

Stuart, J. (1999). ‘The Position Of Women Staff At The University Of Western Australia: Some Reflections on the Outcomes and Process of Two Reviews of Gender Equity’, International Review of Women and Leadership, 5(4): 46 – 56.

University of Cambridge. (2010). About the Schools, Faculties & Departments. Web.

White, K. (2003). Women and leadership in higher education in Australia, Tertiary Education and Management, 9(1): 45 – 60.