Leadership

PSYCH 485 blog

For the Women Who Take Risks and Are Still Consistently Outstanding

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Throughout our course lesson on Gender and Leadership, it was discouraging to read the findings and implications from previous studies, as compiled through meta-analyses, which confirmed gender stereotypes with regard to the workplace.  Women of all workforce settings have the ability to be discriminated against, not just those who achieve a high rank in a corporate company.  Women who work as blue-collar breadwinner are discriminated against for performing otherwise masculine labor tasks, as they are so perceived, and even more so when they become the breadwinner for their family.  In the corporate setting, and as learned through our course lesson material and according to Sellars (2002), of all of the Fortune 500 companies, only 6 of the CEO are women (Hamel, 2021).

Working as an incoming business consultant for Oracle upon graduation from Penn State this Spring, I have had the opportunity to learn more about outstanding women in business.  Through workshops and researching the company’s history and statistics, it was then that I found out about Safra Catz, the current CEO of the company and an outstanding female within the corporate community.  Having been involved with the company’s board since 2001, Catz was named a joint-CEO with Mark Hurd when the former CEO and company founder stepped down from his position.  Upon learning this fact, I wondered whether this decision to have a joint-CEO power was the result of Catz being a female, and her incumbent company CEO believing that a woman alone could not be the head of the entire tech giant.

While she was serving as CEO during 2020 and after acquiring a major revenue source of several billion dollars for Oracle, Catz became “the 15th most powerful woman in business,” according to Forbes magazine (“The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women 2020,” 2020).  This relates to the meta-analysis of all findings from Eagly et al, (1992), Eagly, Karau, & Makhijani (1995), and Eagly & Karau (2002), because they have concluded that women “should be ambitious, but not receive equal treatment” (Hamel, 2021).  Through the example of Safra Catz not only being named as a joint-CEO with Mark Hurd, giving her then equal treatment to the power of the company, but also exceeded this achievement to become the sole CEO of Oracle, she has clearly defied this implication.

As explained in the Northouse chapter on this topic, there are three explanations as to why women face a glass ceiling while typically white men ride a glass elevator to the top.  One such explanation, regarding human capital differences, states that in contrary, “women are the pipeline, but the pipeline is leaking” (Northouse, 2019).  Through Safra Catz’s acquiring of a rivaling tech giant, PeopleSoft, giving $10.3 billion to Oracle.  Through this acquisition, Catz has shown that without her force and her capabilities, it is possible that Oracle would never have had this opportunity to acquire such revenue, and defies the current stereotype as presented about the Human Capital differences in the chapter.

Safra Catz has been a leading example for women in business everywhere, but especially for those who wish to earn top ranking spots on globally-renowned lists, such as those set forth by Forbes magazine, the notorious publication for all business and wealth-related stories.  Through Catz’s achievements and her ability to single-handedly break the glass ceiling for a notoriously wealthy tech giant corporation, she is a great example of how her first transition to CEO may have been impeded by making her a joint-CEO, she has now proven the ability of a woman to run a company alone.

References

Hamel, R. (2021). Lesson 13: Leadership and Diversity

“The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women 2020.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 8 Dec. 2020, www.forbes.com/power-women/#14cf83cd5e25.

Northouse, P.G. (2019).  Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Diversity in the Workplace — Gender and Leadership

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The effects of leadership are diverse in regard to gender and culture. Each of us has a solidified image of a leader in our minds: what kind of person should be a leader, and how the leader should act. For most of us, this image is male. Women are much less likely to be considered or regarded as leaders. Compared with men, women seem to be more likely to be criticized for their appearance and leadership. Men in charge of most of managerial positions. There are only 6 women CEOs in Fortune 500 companies (Sellars, 2002). The stereotype is still existing nowadays. Cultural diversities such as race, age, and sex have a large impact on effectiveness of leadership as well.

When there is a female leader, people’s first concern is more about their gender, while ignoring the leadership qualities and abilities that the leader possesses. Generally speaking, people concept of male and female leadership is very rigid, that is, women’s leadership style is more interpersonally oriented, while men are more task oriented. To be honest, the concept of equality between men and women in society is basically rooted in the hearts of the people. For example, in life, everyone respects women and even in many cases, women have basically reached a consensus. But why there are fewer women leaders? I find this question very interesting. Perhaps the most familiar reason is that women pay more attention to family management, so that it is difficult to achieve results that convince everyone at work. In addition, for example, many women have at least maternity leave due to physiological factors. During breastfeeding holidays, you may be overtaken by men in the same batch. The image that many women give to everyone in the workplace is often talkative, gossip, etc., and even if they are leaders, many people feel that their minds are too delicate and not generous. I think these are all causes everyone to feel that they are not like female leaders.

However, the advantage of a female leader is that she is more affinity, more inclined towards democracy, and participatory leadership, which is exactly in line with the types of senior management talents that are needed today. Helgesen (1990) put forward the female leadership style doctrine, which believed that female leaders focused on communication, coordination, good interpersonal relationships and collective success. Judy B. Rosener later published articles in the Harvard Business Review to support Helgesen’s views. It is proposed that men mostly adopt transactional leadership and tend to use the position power granted by the organization. Women, on the other hand, adopt transformational leadership styles.

When I was an intern in an investment bank, my leader was a woman who has enough knowledge of her business. Therefore, she can contribute her strength in some major decision-making processes. She is able to establish clear goals for the development of the enterprise. She will often provide guidance and training to her employees. In her opinion, the criterion for judging her leadership ability is the quality of the people she hired, so she will fully understand them before determining the target for promotion. She treats employees with different performances differently in terms of compensation and promotion opportunities. And she is convinced that if she can give full rewards to those who worked hard, her company will gradually establish an execution culture.

Leadership now is not limited to the domineering president with a strong style. We can also see this from Sheryl, the chief operating officer of Facebook, and Leena, the global chief human resources officer of Unilever. Because most women have more delicate emotional characteristics, female leaders have a stronger affinity at work. And we often say affirms that women are good at thinking in images and observing. At work, this trait can keenly detect the emotional changes of employees and help implement refined management at work.

 

References

Eagly, A. H. (1987). Sex differences in social behavior: A social-role interpretation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum

Eagly, A. H., & Johnson, B. T. (1990). Gender and leadership style: A meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin, 108(2), 233.

Helgesen, S. (1995). The female advantage: Women’s ways of leadership. Crown Business.

Hamel, R. (n.d.). Lesson 13: Leadership and Diversity, 2021.

Rosener, J. B. (2011). Ways women lead. In Leadership, Gender, and Organization (pp. 19-29). Springer Netherlands.

Unintentional favoritism: Diversity in the workplace

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As a woman in a STEM field, I have seen first hand the diversity problems for other women in math, science, technology and engineering. Some of it is more casual, where in any in-major classes I’m in are usually about 90% men. This is the same for events, interviews, and workshops. It can be intimidating and I have never noticed anything done at events for the female minority there specifically, but I have been to events just for women in STEM. I have been in group projects multiple times where I am the only female, putting me in the position of being the voice not only of women, but a lot of other minority groups as well. One time for a project, I discussed how our use of technology may be an issue because we would be working with the Amish Community, who typically don’t use technology. Most of the situations I’ve been put into I have the same resources as everyone else, but certain days it feels like I have to do so much more in terms of consideration. 

 

While this can be frustrating, it becomes harmful when men get preferential treatment. One example is when I worked for Ferguson Enterprise as a software engineering intern. I worked with two other white men the same age as myself, and I noticed that a lot of the time they would seek out each other’s advice but not mine.  This was okay with me, I am not always the loudest and wouldn’t push to contribute, I just assumed they were both more outspoken. Sometimes I would chip in if I thought I knew the solution, although they never went with it. This was okay with me too; there’s a lot of different ways to solve a problem in programming, and as long as the code worked that is what is important.

 

I didn’t take it for more than face value until one day one of the other interns was having a problem with the program where he used a portion of my code. I wrote this code 100% myself, and solved the same issue he was having currently a few weeks beforehand. I mentioned to him what it was, but the two other interns basically annoyed me. I explained to them again what the issue was, and they told me that wasn’t it. It took me telling them three times before they even actively listened to me, and then I had to explain what was going on all over again. By the end it was furious, felt so disrespected and realized the whole time I was working there that they did not value my opinion as much as they would had I been male. I don’t think they even recognized it themselves, and I don’t think it was intentional.

 

They were unconsciously participating in in-group favoritism, where members of someone’s own group are given preferential treatment (Hamel, 2021). As a woman in stem, I have always had to work with people who don’t match with my personal identity. People with different gender identities, religions, races and ethnicities, and more. I’ve learned to focus on what we do have in common- whether a common goal, shared knowledge, even a silly opinion. It helps build connections and is constructive. But for people who have not had much interactions with people who they don’t identify with, in this case women in a professional setting, they will only focus on the differences, and it can be incredibly destructive. 

 

References 

Hamel, R. (2021). Lesson 13: Leadership and Diversity

 

Women are Leaders

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Historically, women are not considered “head of the household;” it was always said to be the man’s job to make decisions for the family, yet while the man is working, the woman is running the house. The children see her as a leader and someone who should be respected.  But why does the woman typically say, “Wait until your father gets home!” when scolding? Other than being a common occurrence in movies, many people in my generation still grew up this way.

Studies show that women are just as capable of being leaders (Hamel, 2021).  Is being a parent not a form of leadership? In my opinion, the woman is teaching the children that the father is to be more respected than her in the scenario describe previously. This post is not to criticize parenting methods, but rather to relate this kind of thinking, respecting men more than women, to the work place.

Just as in this scenario, women should not willingly give their power to men in the work place, making it seem like they are teaching their followers to respect men more than them. In my opinion, confidence plays a key role in respect, and a quick google search proves others think the same. From experience in the construction industry, when a man is questioned, they make it clear that they are confident in their answer; a 1992 study shows that men have an autocratic/directive leadership style (Hamel, 2021). From the same study, women are more democratic in their leadership style, which leads me to believe that if a woman was questioned there would be more of a discussion in this situation rather than a confident answer that does not lead to questions.

Woman are made to prove their abilities in the work place before they “earn” the same respect that men get (Hamel, 2021). In addition, past studies (1990s-2012) have shown that women “should not act like men” and if they do they will be “perceived more negatively because they are not acting in ways consistent with their gender role” (Hamel, 2021). However, in my opinion, the best way for women to get past this is showing confidence in their knowledge and experience. Obviously, if they are hired for the job, they are qualified to be there and have sufficient education to fall back on when questioned. Women need to demand the respect that the position holds and this is the same whether a woman or a man is holding said position.

From experience, I have felt as if I do not know as much as male peers in the work place and in academics. What I have found is that this is all in my head. I have learned that most of the time I have just as much experience or more than someone (a peer – same age) who I had previously thought to know more about the industry than me. Most of the time it is people who are very confident–even when they are wrong. Maybe everyone feels this doubt, but maybe it is because I am a woman in a “Man’s Industry.”

Sources

Hamel, R. (n.d.). Lesson 13: Leadership and Diversity, 2021

Who Says Women Aren’t Leaders?

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Women bring a lot of good qualities to leadership, as do men, neither should be picked to be a leader based on gender but rather experience, effectiveness, and personality strengths. More perspective is better when problem solving, and if there are different perspectives offered due to gender, then theoretically there should be equal number of women as men in leadership positions. This however is not the case, especially in the construction industry.

In the construction industry there aren’t many women, let alone women in leadership roles. Having been in the industry for four years, through internships and part-time work, I have not seen many women Project Managers, and I don’t recall any women Superintendents or Foreman. Of course, there are women in management of the company such as Human Resources, Accounting, Estimating, etc. but few in the field, meaning physically managing the project by being on site. My personal opinion as to why, is not because women cannot do the work or are discriminated against, but because women typically do not want to work in construction.

Women are just as good candidates for leadership roles as men and woman should be encouraged to look for a career in the construction industry. It is becoming more common for employers to incorporate some kind of personality test into their company’s hiring process, likely to predict how applicants will behave in certain situations. A commonly used test, due to the amount it has been studied, is the Big Five or Five Factor Model. Interestingly, after evaluating results taken from the Big Five test, a study found that women and men have generally no difference in three of the five traits: conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness/intellect. The differences between men and women according to the study is that women score higher in agreeableness and in neuroticism (Weisberg, 2011). Having a higher score in agreeableness is typically good whereas scoring lower in neuroticism is more favorable (Northouse, 2013). Based on this study, men and women offer slightly different traits but neither is proven to be better than one another.

Based upon personal experience, women in the construction industry are treated fairly by their employers. At the Construction Roundtable, a conference held by Penn State’s department of Architectural Engineering in the fall of 2020, some women in the industry even feel that they are treated better than their male coworkers by those they are managing. Since women are outnumbered in the construction industry, this could be why men treat them more respectfully than they would a male authority figure. Meetings oftentimes will include less swearing and yelling if a woman is present, according to some women at the conference.

I think that women can be just as good in leadership roles as men. I also believe that there are stereotypes, especially in the construction industry, that women are looked down upon, however from personal experience this is not the case. Not everyone is suited for leadership, some people actually turn away from leadership roles, but if being an industry leader is a goal, gender should not keep anyone from achieving it. In my opinion, leadership in the construction industry is an obtainable goal for women, and the industry needs more women leaders to break the stigma.

Citations:

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Weisberg, Y., Deyoung, C., & Hirsh, J. (2011, August 1). Gender Differences in Personality across the Ten Aspects of the Big Five. Retrieved January 30, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/#B20

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