Effectiveness Of Female Leaders In Different Fields

Supremacy of Gender in Leadership

Discuss about the Effectiveness of Female Leaders in Different Fields.

In an organization or government the leaders is someone who provides a vision, goals to its followers or sub-ordinates. As opined by Chamorro-Premuzic (2013), at the same time they excite and inspire the employees to achieve the vision through a planned path or execution process.  In this context the effectiveness of the leaders depending on their gender is an issue of debate. There are several researches are done to determine the effectiveness of the male or the female leaders in different fields. This paper discusses about the effectiveness of the women leaders in the different organizations. The different qualities that help the women to be effective in the organizations are also discussed in the following sections. The leaders help their followers to redesign the processes they complete the different tasks and the values they believe in. therefore it can be said that the leaders have huge impact on the way the organizations achieve their goals and the employees work culture.

The debate for supremacy of the genders was started from the beginning of the time. Both men and women can possibly be splendid leaders, yet the subject of 'better leaders' does not lie in a person’s sexual orientation alone but rather his or her different attributes of the character. It can be stated that men are physically more grounded than woman (Asgari et al., 2012). This is evident on the grounds that a man has simply more muscle power than a woman, so as far as administration that needs to do with physical capacity, men win undoubtedly. For instance, in the armed force, most leaders are men that are buffed up and better ready to handle the physical efforts of this field contrasted with women who are more soft and delicate in nature. Women are getting more and more importance and impact on the leadership of the organizations as well as in its ownerships too. This impact is going to increase day by day in future in the different fields. This increasing impact of women in leadership made it a research agenda.

 It is found that there are 50% of the employees in the lower levels of the successful companies are woman. But interestingly the number of the women in the higher levels of those organizations becomes lesser and lesser. Only 3% to 4% employees at the higher levels of the organizations are women (Cook & Glass, 2014). It is observed that, when a female is appointed as a leader of the functional areas that are mainly dominated by men; the success rate is much higher when those are lead by the women. Even though women are considered as weak and emotional from the beginning of the time, but along with this the women are also tough and icy in nature (Anonson et al., 2014). These characteristics of a woman can help an organization to take effective decisions to increase its profitability.

Qualities for an effective woman leader

Today it is observed that the women are getting more and more importance in every field whether it is sports, politics or business. For a good leader the most important virtue is the humbleness.  In this context it can be said that, the humility is much more common in women character than the men (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2013). Moreover, the feminine approach used by the women leaders to resolve any conflicts or problems promotes the sensitiveness towards those problems and to the needs of the society (De Beaufort & Summers, 2014). For example we have Aung Suu kyi, Hillary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher. Being a woman, these leaders are more caring in nature, has a lot of patience while dealing or solving a problem. As an example the CEO of Yahoo Marrisa Mayer, used her transformational leadership style to change the way of business it does previously. Therefore the decisions made by the women leaders tend to be more effective and perfect for solving the problems or conflicts in   the organization.

The qualities that help a woman to be a more effective leader are a) The communication skills, b) Community building, c) Strong business ethics and d) Better passion activation for the employees of the organization.

For being a great leader it’s important that the person should posses a great communication skill. This skill can help the leader to have an in depth knowledge of the problem or the situation. This in-depth knowledge helps in analyzing the situation and taking the most appropriate action to overcome the hazards or risks related to the problem. As it is a well known fact that the women are better listener than the man (Burgess et al., 2012). Therefore this critical skill helps in managing the employees and the clients of the business or organization.  As a reason of this, it can be stated that the women are mostly discussion oriented where as men mainly tend to take action and then discuss about the outcomes of the actions (Fitzgerald, 2013). In simple it can be said that the men tends to communicate through the actions and on the contrary the women tends find solutions through the conversations with the employees and customers of the organization.

The employees and the customer want that the manager or the organization should listen to them and try to understand their point of view. Therefore it is required that the leaders or the managers should identify their problem and try to take actions to resolve those problems (Asgari et al., 2012). As a result of this communication process the organization can have loyal customer base as well as a productive workforce which will be based on trust between the two parties.

In case of leadership the consensus or community building is another important aspect which can improve the leadership quality and help an organization or community to prosper (Anonson et al., 2014). In case of women leaders they don’t have to direct their employees or followers to do something in. instead the employees are involved in the decision making processes. This helps the leader to ask the employees or the followers to provide inputs in the decided course of action. So that the execution of the decided course action can be smooth. Since the women are more collaborative and connected in nature. Therefore it is easy for the women to influence the people by building collaboration with them, instead of forcing them to do something (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2013). This helps the leaders to encourage the employees under the leaders to solve the problems in creative way and cooperate with each other.

Leaders need to incorporate ethical rules and practices in the organization. Furthermore, the main objective of the implementation of the sound ethical rules in the organization is to spread the awareness about the ethical issues as well as to set the benchmark that needs to be maintained by all the employees or the followers (Fitzgerald, 2013).  Therefore for this the leader needs to be leading the work force through examples and have to provide enough room for the employees so that they can have a meaningful dialog about the ethical practices inside the organization (Toh & Leonardelli, 2012).  Different researches suggest that the women are honest and they try to come out with the truth whatever the situation is and however hard it is.

The women have more patience than the men, which is an important quality for the leaders. Therefore they take time before they come to a conclusion (Stearns, 2014). It also provides the required time to communicate with the sub ordinates and employees so that they also can provide inputs to the decisions that are made according to the situations. In addition to that, unlike the men the women can wait for a longer period of time to get the desired result after the application of a strategy or a plan for the organization.

According to many researches, it is proved that the women leaders can motivate the employees much more effectively than the men at the work place. Therefore the passionate employees are loyal and become an asset for the organization (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2013). These passionate employees will be passionate about the growth and profitability of the organization. Therefore activating the passion inside the employees can effectively help to increase the productivity of any particular organization.

 The concept of gender is based on the different emotional attributes that are present in a person’s character. Depending on this attributes the male has the qualities like the independent, logical, aggressiveness, ambitious, confident and much more (Toh & Leonardelli, 2012). On the other hand the female consist of the attributes like sensitive, emotional, receptive to different ideas, empathetic, firm and talkative. Due to this attributes of the character there are some wrong assumptions  are created by for the woman leaders  like, 1) the woman gives priority to the different household works than the official one, 2) they take the negative feedback personally which is meant to be taken professionally so that they can improve themselves. But it is to be understood that the ability to manage the organization depends on the drive, attitude, and the circumstances of the organization and not on the gender (Lyman et al. 2012). Although the previous assumptions are partially true but not true for the women who have chosen the career in the leadership and managerial field.

As the women have to juggle up between the different tasks like managing house hold, raising their child and maintaining their career. Therefore the women can prioritize the different task inside an organization. This characteristic is not present in case of the men thus it became complicated for them to complete the important tasks at time.  Moreover it can be said that the dominant male culture have suppressed the female culture in all the aspects of the life which was unpleasant for them (Gentry et al., 2015). As a result the woman have developed different kind of psychological qualities that are necessary for the leaders based on the encouragement ,co-operation, and support to the people and sub ordinates.

Women being more sensitive than men improve them to comprehend their supporters or follower in the workplace. This is the nature that women are gifted with and it can improve the follower’s performance in the work place (Lyman et al. 2012). For instance, woman tends to their supporters' issues contrasted with men who just think about the efficiency would host manufactured a good relationship between both parties that are involved in the process. The steady communication that happens does inspire the followers to work harder and take in the leaders request all the more successfully (Hall & Donaghue 2013). Besides, being sensitive women are always cautious to the adjustments or changes in the environment. It makes woman to be an observant pioneer that can distinguish their supporters' conditions effortlessly.

The hypothesis of glass ceiling is 20-30 years old (Latu et al, 2013). It has turned into a hypothesis encompassed by myths about the oblivious and undetectable impacts of sexual orientation. Therefore it needs to set out and take initiative with new viewpoints for the sexual orientation in the organizational leadership.

Women have a tendency to leading and making flat authoritative organizational structures that take into account a more collegial environment. This kind of administration style is essential for the creation and launch of new products or different services that requires tight collaboration amongst colleagues or say team members. In the meantime, a level authoritative structure does not contemplate the experience and information connected with a more prepared administrator or leader (Lyman et al. 2012). There is a chance a key segment is disregarded on the grounds that a lower level representative does not have the experience or learning important to recognize a key stride all the time.

Conclusion

A large number of researches observed that the woman usually uses the transformational style of leadership. Since this kind of leadership helps the leaders to gain the followers respect, trust and confidence. Therefore the followers see the women leaders as their role models. This kind of leaders empowers and mentors their followers, at the same time they encourage their followers to develop themselves according to the need and use their capability at full potential, so that they can contribute to the organizations growth more effectively. Since the transformational leadership can make necessary changes that are required to the different business needs and organizational model, therefore it helps the organization to improve the overall performance.

References

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