The Role Of Gender In Leadership Management Essay

The Role Of Gender In Leadership prudence EssayAs wo man post rise to the top of the organization or management, they encounter a problem with nigh half the employees regard slight of their temperament, skills or lead qualities-they argon not men. Its often touted that a big destiny of employees loathe manoeuvering in an environment where the top commander is a woman, however qualified, due to their pitiable drawship styles.Though the attitudes towards the role of women in society may have changed dramatically, and thanks too to the assentient action as buttressed by the events of the World Conference on Women 1985 as well as the Beljing Platform for Action women are still comprehend as being less suited than men for film directorial and leadership positions.Many local Recruitment Agencies witnesser employees for various organizations in the ordinary and personal sector note that some companies prefer men for managerial and executive positions because men are perce ived as more than confident, dominating, competitive, aggressive and independent compared to women. There is a general erudition that women even in leadership are susceptible to being emotional, overly sensitive, moody, easily threatened with a tendency to behave favorites and personalize matters no matter their rung or hierarchy in an organization. This trait gives their virile counterparts an edge, as being more confident and emotionally balanced.In Kenya the majority of key executives in the unavowed and public sector are held by men. There are a handful of women in key positions much(prenominal) as Supreme Court judges, University Chancellor, the Cabinet, Parastatals Heads and the private sector.The widely accepted explanation for the small percentage of women retentiveness top executive positions globally is the negative stereotyping of women as less able leaders. There are many a(prenominal) differing findings from sociologist, management and leadership theories and ge nder studies on this issue.BACKGROUNDAs women increasingly take up leadership positions, prevailing leadership styles of women and men continue to attract attention. Historically, gender, precluded nearly fe antherals from becoming leaders and as a result, the assumption was that men were better suited than women for leadership, since the existing models were primarily developed to accommodate men.The Kenyan character (Section 27(8)) prominently recognizes that the State shall take proactive measures to implement the principle that not more than two thirds of the members of elective bodies or appointive bodies shall be of the same gender. This is to enhance women participation in leadership and nation affairs that prior to the new constitution were hitherto dominated by their male counterparts. Emanating from this constitutional endorsement, and recent favourable action, women impart actively participate in managerial and leadership matters but it could be an upstream move in t he cheek of the existing perception that despite being qualified women are perceived as less able leaders.2.1 Definitions of LeadershipLeadership according to Roach and Behling (1984) is the process of influencing an organized group towards accomplishing a goal. On the separate hand, C.A Gibb (2000) extends the definition of leadership and states that leadership is a concept applied to the structure of a group to detect the situation when some personalities are so placed in the group that their allow for, public opinion and insight are perceived to transmit and control early(a)s in the pursuit of common ends. Leaders are those people in groups who are perceived most frequently to perform roles that initiate or direct the fashion of other towards the attainment of their goals.It is the role of a leader to obtain the commitment of individuals to achieving the set goals. barely, leadership and management are usually confused and used interchangeably. Management is implicated with planning, organizing, directing, coordinating and controlling the hit processes and practices including what the individuals do within the organizational set up. On the other hand leadership is about how oneness person gouge influence others to do what is required for the achievement of goals. Nonetheless not all managers are leaders.Leadership itself may have nothing to do with management, it exists in groups rather organizational structures and therefore depart certainly similarly exists in the informal organization where in management terms it may bring forth problems in controlling workers whose influence comes from elsewhere, consequently not all leaders are managers.A manager from a chief executive, director, section head and supervisor has inherent authority to direct the works and behavior of others by virtue of rank, job description and authority. Leadership thrives both in formal and informal settings. The source of power can be based on appointment or on tempe rament. While power in formal leadership emanates from the appointing authority and rank, personal leadership is where power derives from personal qualities of the persona concerned based on charisma, temperament. Personal leadership is conspicuous among entrepreneurs and empire builders such as Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic, mob Mwangi of Equity Bank Limited.2.2 The Interplay of Gender and LeadershipAccording to existing research on gender and leadership, leadership styles can be categorized either as masculine and feminine, (Eagly et al., and 2000). Although there is general agreement that women face more barriers to becoming leaders than men do, particularly for leader roles that are male-dominated ( Eagly Karau, 2001), there is much less agreement about the behavior of women and men once they attain such roles.According to Jennifer L. Bendahl (1996), masculinity and agenticism relates to traits associated with male leadership such as being assertive, controlling, aggress ive, ambitious, dominant, forceful, independent, self confident, and competitive. Agentic characteristics are ascribed more strongly to men than women.On the other hand feminine or Communal characteristics are ascribed more strongly to women than men and describe primarily a concern of the leader with the welfare of other people-for example, affectionate, helpful, kind, sympathetic, interpersonally sensitive, nurturing, and gentle. other surmisal that distinguishes leadership methods is the traits theory, where leadership is centered on the personal traits and characteristics thought to be essential to direct or influence people. The theory propounds that leaders were born and not made. Hence the behavior exhibited by leaders can be traced to their personality and since women are deemed to be more subtle and gentle against the aggressive, dominant male, there is an assumption of male or female leadership approaches to leadership. This theory lends credence to the gender leadership based on character traits.Another leadership theory distinguishes between democratic versus autocratic leadership (or the similar dimension of participative versus directive leadership), (Lewin Lippitt, 1938 and, roar Yetton, 1973). Although democratic versus autocratic style is a narrower aspect of leader behavior than task-oriented and interpersonally oriented styles (see Bass, 1990), the democratic-autocratic dimension also relates to gender roles because one component of the agentic norms associated with these roles is that men are relatively more dominant and controlling in other words, more autocratic and directive than women are.In the 1980s and 1990s, many researchers turned their attention to other types of leadership styles by distinguishing between leaders who are transformational and those who are transactional (Bass, 1998). Such leaders set especially high standards for behavior and hit themselves as role models by gaining the trust and confidence of their followers . They state future goals and develop plans to achieve them.The existing concepts and theories of leadership styles to wit democratic vs. autocratic participative vs. directive, transformational vs. transactional and laissez faire can be explained on styles that conforms to the gender construct of being male or female oriented. Female leaders exhibit more democratic and participative leadership styles, while men are credited with autocratic behavior perceived as negative when applied by females.That transformational leadership in contrast to transactional leadership is held as a first-class form of leadership. Unlike task and relationship oriented leadership, transformational and transactional leadership are view along a continuum allowing individuals to employ both transformational and transactional qualities at one and the same time.A transformational leader is one who provides visions and a intellect of mission, instills pride and inspires and excites subordinates and highly motivates them to became better and do better. On the other hand transactional leadership is based on rewards for achieving specified goals and is largely based on directing desired performance and deviations and the need for corrective action. organizational experiences vary with experiences and it is the ability to be flexible in particular settings that even offs one leader better than other not the gender divide.Against this background of different leadership styles, it is observed that men and women exhibit different styles of leading. However it is been stated that cultural conditioning and religion plays a role in elaborating the different perceptions of women and men in leadership.RESEARCH PROBLEMWomen face a problem with almost half the employees regardless of their temperament, skills or leadership qualities, when they make it to the top or take up management. They are not a man. According to a survey conducted by the American Management Association, three quarters of me n say they would rather work for a man than a woman, while a quarter of women also prefer to work for a man than a woman given a choice. German researchers have also answer fored a down side from women bosses with employees reporting high cases of heartburn, depression, headaches and insomnia.Women have been criticized as being easily threatened or intimidated, emotionally unpredictable, indecisive, irritable, moody sharp tongued vain and playing favoritism within cliques. An experiment was conducted at the university of Pennsylvania and tested 50 women in delivering a sad statement and found that all of them see pain, however when men were given the same statement they revealed less emotion with 12 not masking any emotion at all. On the other hand it is reported that women make better leaders on the basis of their attention to detail, they are considerate and make good mentors for their employees.OBJECTIVES OF THE guinea pigThe main objective is to establish whether women mak e poor bosses and as a result whether employees loathe having women as bosses. The make will also have these other objectivesTo find out the qualities that are associated with a good leaderTo establish what amounts to poor or bad leadershipTo establish whether employees prefer to work and report to a male or female bossTo determine what challenges women face as leadersTo find out whether women make poor leadersTo determine the preferred gender to head public and private organizationsTo determine the perception of Kenyans regarding voting for a female presidential candidateRESEARCH QUESTIONSWhat are the qualities of a good leader?What are the attributes of a poor leader?Between male and female bosses, who is the employees preference as a boss?What attributes of leadership do women lack?Which gender is better at running public and private organizationsWould you vote for a female presidential candidate in any presidential electionsSIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDYWith more and more women now taking elective and appointive posts its paramount to ascertain whether there are any valid stereotyping that will prohibit their ascension of the corporate ladder as able leaders by merit. More and more local and foreign universities are opening their doors to admit a higher number of female students taking up management oriented courses fondly referred to as masters in business administration (MBA). It is important to netherstand the existing perception and stereotypes leveled against women as commanders of their organization so that it can inform the relevant stakeholders like recruiting agents and human resource departments, the government as well institutions of learning. Furthermore this is an world that would require extensive research to demystify and develop lasting mitigating measures.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGYThe study shall involve descriptive research design. Descriptive research will facilitate the collection of data relating to the issues under study and the nat ure of the relations and perceptions of employees regarding their bosses.The target population in this study shall be bank employees. For purposes of the study, most banks have a hierarchical structure with defined reporting lines as below. The unit of analysis will be junior employees (such as tellers, clerks and officer) and their warm supervisors that report to the ramify manager as their boss.Chief executive Officer /Managing DirectorDirectors and General Managers (oversee head Human Resource, Finance, Credit, IT depts.)Branch Manager ( over see branch activities, policy, performance and employees)Supervisors ( over see and supervise junior staff and report to branch managers)Junior employees-(Clerks, Tellers, Officers that report to and are accountable to both the supervisor and branch managers)c. The study will sample junior employees and their immediate supervisors that report to branch managers through stratified probability sampling