Originating in the 1800s as a means to study figures in authoritative positions, the Great Man Theory focused on traits and characteristics that were thought to be attributed to great leaders. Although it brought attention to traits and characteristics associated with leadership, it primarily focused on men and left women altogether excluded. Thomas Carlyle, a famous historian at the time, is known for his famous quote, “The history of the world is but the biography of great men.” (Carlyle, 1840). This theory, although now considered to be significantly lacking in scientific validity by the majority of academics and historians, is still impacting our culture and influencing unconscious bias against women even today.
The perpetuation of sexist societal norms is still widely prevalent and can be seen in many forms such as the wage gap, lack of women in leadership roles, and the way we refer to and discuss women in general. For example, we often hear men in positions of power refer to their counterparts as “great guy” or “great man”, while women are often referred to as “smart lady” or “she’s a real go-getter”. This reaffirms the bias that men are “great” and women are not – or classified otherwise. According to a study by Pew Research Center, “fifty-six of the 146 nations (38%) studied by the World Economic Forum in 2014 and 2016 have had a female head of government or state for at least one year in the past half-century.” (Geiger, Kent, 2017). While this is an improvement from the 1800s, there is still a long way to go before we can truly unwind the impact of the Great Man Theory.
Hiring practices in 2018 show that 79 women for every 100 men were promoted to managerial level. (McKinsey, 2018). While there has been significant effort to embed more transparency in performance evaluations, there still remains a lot of research and human resource policy change to ensure that gender bias is isolated and removed from hiring and promotion processes. Companies are attempting to address these issues through re-evaluation of job specifications for senior level positions, removal of gender pay gaps, ensuring work/life balance is given a priority, making mentorship available to everyone, quick identification of harassment and reporting measures, and the removal of gender in job applications. (Next Generation, 2018). These types of initiatives will help to level the playing field for women in the workplace, but we will also need to hold each other accountable on the wording we choose to describe both men and women.
While it looks like we are still trying to distance ourselves from the Great Man Theory as a culture, we can make more widespread progress through awareness and recognition of its continued influence, particularly through its perpetuation of overt discrimination and unconscious bias. There is little disagreement that the so-called “great men” chronicled in history were part of significant industrial and social progress, but people today would benefit greatly by understanding the marginalization of women and other minorities imposed by such men. Through that understanding, they would come to realize what more we could have accomplished as one human race if all members of society had equal opportunity to contribute.
References
5 Things Employers Can Do To Improve Gender Equality In The Workplace. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.nextgeneration.ie/blog/2018/04/workplace-gender-equality
Cherry, K. (2019, October 20). How Does the “Great Man” Theory of Leadership Hold Up? Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/the-great-man-theory-of-leadership-2795311
Geiger, A. W., & Kent, L. (2017, March 8). Number of women leaders around the world has grown, but they’re still a small group. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/08/women-leaders-around-the-world/
McKinsey. Women in the Workplace 2018. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/gender-equality/women-in-the-workplace-2018
McNeill, L. A. (2018, March 14). Episode 7: The Great Man Theory of History. Retrieved from https://www.ladyscience.com/podcast/episode7-greatmantheory
Spector, Bert. (2015). Carlyle, Freud, and the Great Man Theory more fully considered. Leadership. 12. 10.1177/1742715015571392. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276348276_Carlyle_Freud_and_the_Great_Man_Theory_more_fully_considered
I really enjoyed reading your perspective on this. Certainly one can see the impact of the Great Man Theory today in our society. Your example of the language used to describe women vs men in a professional setting really stuck out to me. In a women’s studies class I took a previous semester we listed qualities that one would think a successful man had. Words like strong, assertive, leader etc were listed on the board, quantities that one might categorize as masculine. While women had qualities such as caring, emotional, empathetic, gentle, etc, traits that were more feminine. Not to say men and women don’t embody these qualities, but often times it’s hard for one to see past these gender norms. One may assume a man shouldn’t be gentle or a woman assertive. When the professor asked students in the class to describe any experiences with descriptive words, men and women had stories to tell. When women had exemplified some of these qualities they had been referred to in a negative connotation such as bossy or b*t*h(explicative). Men also had similar experience being called offensive words when they had embraced these softer qualities.
Excluding the fact that women are excluded from this theory, I’m not entirely against it’s central idea. I believe if the theory were modernized and backed by some type of data, it could sustain a valid school of thought. Females that would fit into this modernized Great Man Theory that come to mind are Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Marie Curie.
Though there have been many great men throughout history I believe women have been become more noticed more now than ever. From the 1800’s the job or what may think the job of a woman was to stay at home and take care of the house and the children. This is not the case anymore and you can see a change that has been taken place throughout the years going into 2020. Looking at the most recent presidential elections you can see women coming into the running’s and actually holding the title of speaker of the house currently. I think the process of mitigating the pay gap of men to women is something that has to be done throughout the workforce on their terms and will not happen overnight. Looking at the military everyone within the military gets paid the same throughout based on their rank and has nothing to do with there gender. The military has also recently opened up special force jobs to women something that was unknown of before last year. Something in which a lot of companies are seeing now more than ever are that women show the same traits and effective leadership in which males do. Through the continuous of strong women being added to leadership roles and society breaking the norm of men being superior in the workforce an equality of pay and effective leadership will be given to women.