I still remember the first time I experienced gender bias as a female leader in a male dominated industry. It was about 13 years ago now, and I was working with a male subordinate. After I had rung up this young gentleman, he hopped in line to talk to the male associate. I found this odd, so I asked him if there was something else he needed help with. The gentleman replied, “No, I just have a question for him.” Satisfied with his response to a certain extent, I went about completing other work that needed to be done. When it was the young man’s turn to be helped by my male subordinate, the young man asked, “Are you hiring manager, cause I really want to get a job here.” My associate promptly and sort of smugly replied with, “No, but she is” and pointed to where I was standing, now smiling at this young man, who had started to turn bright red at this point. Now this bias did not come from the company itself, but from an outside party.
However, I was an anomaly, having quickly ascended to a leadership within an industry that at the time was very heavily male dominated working for an organization that did not understand the impact that diversity, more specifically women, could have on its business. Unfortunately, I faced many challenges trying to be a leader in the organization. One of the biggest challenges was prejudice or stereotyping. As defined by Northouse, “stereo types are cognitive shortcuts that influence the way people process information regarding groups and group members” (Northouse, 2016, p. 404). This was one of the hardest things to overcome, as it did just come from within the company, but also from outside the company like in the interaction I opened with. Women are stereotyped with characteristics such as concern for others, sensitivity, warmth, helpfulness and nurturance (Northouse, 2016, p. 404), and I am none of these. In fact, I have the characteristics stereotypical of men like confidence, assertiveness, independence, rationality, and decisiveness (Northouse, 2016, p. 404). Thus, I had an even harder time being a leader in this male dominated world.
In leadership roles, women are confronted with cross pressures: as leaders we are expected to masculine and tough, but as women we cannot be “too manly” (Northouse, 2016, p. 405). These expectations cause confusion and uncertainty in how to be an effective leader. This stereotyping helps to explain the findings that indicate less favorable attitudes toward female than male leaders, creating a greater difficulty for women to reach top leadership positions and for women to viewed as effective in these roles (Northouse, 2016, p. 405). From personal experience, it is hard to be seen as an effective leader as woman lacking the stereotypical female characteristics. We face a double standard as we must come across as extremely competent, but also as appropriately “feminine” (Northouse, 2016, p. 408).
One thing that had helped alleviate this double standard was the organization starting to embrace diversity. The larger and more diverse pool of candidates created by this change has facilitated greater levels of organization success (Northouse, 2016, p. 409). The organization also changed its overall leadership style to be more transformational, which is not a masculine leadership style, but instead is more feminine as it encompasses behaviors like being considerate and supportive, and is also strongly associated with leadership effectiveness (Northouse, 2016, p. 408). By embracing and teaching this style of leadership, I was able to be an effective leader without drastically changing myself, or worrying about having to fit into two molds to be a leader. The organization still has a long way to go in terms of females in leadership positions. But through the implementation of these two concepts, I can say that they have made exponential improvements in the number of female leaders since I first started with the company almost 14 years ago.
Reference:
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd.