So, in the matter of diversity, where do women fit in? Well, hopefully we are included if the diversity is true. While at Penn State’s main campus for the 2011-2012 school year, I was included in the Women in Engineering Program Orientation (WEPO). While in this program, we learned how we as women are able to succeed in a male dominated field. This program was so inspiring to me because I, personally, have always done things..not so expected of a girl. I was always what some would call a “tomboy.”
Besides that, there have been many studies that prove women can be just as effective as men in a leadership role. Women can be responsible, organized, and anything else a leader needs to be. A leader is not about brute strength or macho essence, it is about what you do as a leader and what you do for your followers, and how you do it.
In many organizations, a woman may come in and become a leader. There are always those people that do not want to accept that a woman will be able to do the work. With education and training and leadership instincts, men or women can do the same work. Everyone has their own styles, but that makes them unique and possibly the great leader that they may be.
Women have been looked down on in leadership positions since very early in time. Women could not get an education, and some could not read or write. They were expected to be in the home, in the kitchen, cooking and cleaning and taking care of the kids. That has changed in the recent times. Now, women are being looked at more and more as equals. While we have not gotten there 100%, the world is making great progress. We will get there, and we will be successful in whatever we take on.
I have have never been considered girly. I am actually the only girl in my family so growing up I did everything that the boys did. I believe that this has given me the mindset that I can do anything that I set my mind to and the my gender does not hold me back.
I too believe that women can be just as effective as men in leadership roles. In the last two companies that I have worked for while being owned by men, there was a women who ran the office. At my last job when my previous boss left the company it actually collapsed without her. I currently work for a small architectural firm. Other than the owner there are two females and two males. The females are more productive than the males without a question. In fact there have been several days in the last month that it was just the two females in the office and we not only handled all of our own work but managed to also finish up the work left by the other two males.
Women can definitely be as effective as men in leadership roles. If this were not the case then Yahoo would not have a female CEO.