Currently in the world there are many ongoing debates about gender and diversity. Women having equal chances at being as successful as men in leadership positions is an important topic. In my profession, there are almost no females that I am working with, which is because the male and female ice hockey teams are completely separated. I understand that it is not possible to have female ice hockey players and male ice hockey players competing in the same league, but females should still be able to work in the ice hockey industry as for example commentators, coaches, in the medical department, in marketing, etc. Even though they are capable of working in these positions, I have only rarely witnessed it during my career.
There are certain organizational barriers that make it more difficult for women to receive a job in these positions. This includes “inhospitable corporate culture” which means that, “In these cultures values and norms discourage the balance of work and family, communicate that women should not be in top positions, and require that women accomplish tasks without resources” (Northouse, 2021). Women are expected to deliver much more in the same position as men which makes it extremely more difficult. For example, if a woman would be a coach for a men’s hockey team, it would be expected of her to be more successful than a man and if the team is not successful in the slightest then it is immediately attributed to her missing skills.
Another organizational barrier for females is the, “Preference for gender similarity in promotion decisions”, which states how men tend to hire people with similar characteristics and gender as them (Northouse, 2016). As the ice hockey world is dominated by men it makes it more difficult for females to get a foot in the door as male coaches don’t tend to hire female coaches, or male CEOs don’t tend to hire female commentators. In the German first league there is not a single female that is general manager of a club which makes me believe that there will not be an increase in females in leadership positions in this field of work anytime soon due to the organizational barriers even though many females are capable of doing the same job or even be more successful at it. If females were able to receive a job in the industry they tend to achieve less than men due to, “Ignorance by male CEOs and male peers and a lack of development opportunities” (Northouse, 2021).
Other barriers that females are fighting against are interpersonal barriers. These barriers include for example gender prejudice. It is very common for people to identify people with leadership roles to have male characteristics, but “…it has decreased in the last 30 years” (Northouse, 2021). Even though it has decreased, many people still see ice hockey coaches to be dominant, aggressive, strict, and having played in male leagues before. This does not also put females at a disadvantage but also men that might not have these characteristics which does not automatically make them a bad ice hockey coach. Then, finally there are personal barriers that make it more difficult for women to reach a leadership position in an ice hockey organization which includes the work-home conflict (Northouse, 2021). Many people want to create a family and often the female part of the family is assigned to take care of the duties at home and care for the baby a little bit more which makes it difficult for her to take on a leadership role in an organization that requires her constant attention.
Even though the gender related issues in leadership roles have decreased in the last years, I hope that they will still decrease more and that nobody has any restrictions due to their gender.
References:
Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and practice. SAGE.
This is where you see the leakage and where we really need these intelligent women. Now, this makes me go onto gender differences within the workplace and what is shown there. The similarities between the two are; Men and women leaders do not differ in actual effectiveness, the center for creative leadership found that there were no differences in each gender’s leadership style and they both generally support their employees the same way (Psych 485, L.13). Now for the differences, females are looked at as more negative whenever they come into this leadership role. If they are perceived as “too masculine” then men were afraid that they might not be needed anymore. If women were looked at as “too feminine” then they were seen to be less effective (Psych 485, L.13). Along with this, if they seem to be more dominant, they are given less positive reactions from people psych (Psych 485, L.13). A very interesting article that I found was based on women and how can they stop being labeled as “bossy.” According to a study done in 2010, women were less likely to receive promotions if they asked for it. (Standford.com, 2015). An interesting twist to this is that it said if they asked for someone else, then that person was likely to receive the promotion. I’m not sure about you, but this seems to be very odd. Don’t we want people in a company to be assertive and go after what they want? I believe this is a very positive way to look at leadership and who should be at these top level positions.