Leadership Prejudices of Men and Women in the Workplace

1607 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essays on gender inequality in workplace

This research paper will take a symbolic interactionist perspective to contrast the different leadership prejudices of men and women in the workplace. The age-old debate of inequality for women in executive position will now be examined through online periodicals that show gender stereotypes in the workforce, different strategies men and women use to break the glass ceiling of the workplace, a focus on the interactions and reactions of a male Chief Executive Officer (CEO) versus a female CEO, leadership prejudices among women and women, and various studies regarding leadership of men and women. Because of stereotyping, very little focus is on men within the workplace. However, research shows that male workers face stereotyping as well as women. Therefore, a concentration on this matter will be focused within this paper. The paper concludes that both men and women face stereotypes that hinder, to some extent, their balance of work and family lives. Contrary to some stereotypes, women are proven to have just as powerful executive leadership qualities as men (Hackbarth, 2012).
Toby is an employee of Sunshine & Daisies Inc. He works as an accountant for S&D’s management department. Toby’s wife, Rebecca, has a due date for their first child in a week. To help take care of the newborn while Rebecca recuperates, Toby requested paid-time off. However, his manager denied the request, scheduling Toby to work the following week. Sadly, many corporations do not think about offering paternity leave to father’s of newborns.
Toby’s case is an example of a gender prejudice within the workforce. Gender stereotypes amongst the workplace hinder workers from reaching their full leadership potential. Taking a symbolic interactionist perspective, we...

... middle of paper ...

...troduction. Canada: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

Hackbarth, N. (2012, November 24). Leadership Study Reveals the Difference between Men and Women. Retrieved from http://www.quantumworkplace.com/leadership-study-reveals-difference-men-women/.

Sandberg, S. (2013, August 11). Leadership roles in workplace: Are women not “ambitious enough”. Retrieved from http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-08-11/news/41295742_1_job-authority-men-sheryl-sandberg.

Tinsley, C., (2013, August 8). Female Leaders, 3 Strategies For Success In The Workplace. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2013/08/08/female-leaders-3-strategies-for-success-in-the-workplace/.

Williams, R. (2012, December 15). Why Women May Be Better Leaders Than Men. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201212/why-women-may-be-better-leaders-men.

Show More
Related

  • Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg

    1038 Words  | 3 Pages

    In “Lean In,” Sheryl Sandberg makes a case for being ambitious in any pursuit. Although she pushes for women to take on leadership positions, she acknowledges that that is not what all women want. The message to women is to do what they love and dream big, create a path through the obstacles, and achieve their full potential. Throughout the book, she acknowledges three differences women need to make within themselves. Firstly, women need to “sit at the table,” or increase their self-confidence when surrounded by men. Women also need to make their partner a real partner by getting their oftentimes male partners to do more at home: splitting home responsibilities between spouses helps to make homes and marriages happier. Lastly, women need to not hold themselves to unattainable standards by believing the myth of doing it all. No one can literally do it all: they just have to focus on what really matters. Sandberg has women ask themselves, “What w...

    Read More

  • Modern Day Females: The Mary Tyler Moore Show

    1870 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...that so much of the discourse is centered on women within fictional workplace sitcoms like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Murphy Brown, 30 Rock, and Parks and Recreation, I will examine how gender stratification in the fictional realm is a reflection of the real life gender stratification that continues today. I will examine case studies by reputable scholars that reflect gender preference of the people in positions of power at work as well as the reasons why. I will also review scholarly journals that discuss the expectations of gender roles, and how women are shamed or stigmatized for succeeding at tasks that are generally assumed to me masculine. This section will offer an explanation as to why successful, career oriented; females in positions of power are still preferred to stay within traditional gender roles, whether it is in real life or reflected on television.

    Read More

  • Sexism in The Work Place

    1273 Words  | 3 Pages

    Society stereotypes women in almost all social situations, including in the family, media, and the workplace. Women are often regarded as being in, “Second place” behind men. However, these stereotypes are not typically met by the modern day woman....

    Read More

  • Emergent Leadership Theory: The Gap Between Men And Women

    1728 Words  | 4 Pages

    The gap between men and women produce three important concepts that reason the difference. First is the discussion of the better leader- men or women? It has been studied that women approach their followers with an interactive style with the encouragement of sharing power and information with others, participation, and self-worthiness to others. On the other hand, men have a consistency to be more task-oriented in their leadership styles and emerge in short-term conditions. The simple claim that women are just different than men, can be argued with the idea that men have effective traits for leadership. Women are less likely to negotiate and as a leader, this leads to lack of communication. And as discussed, leadership’s main ingredient is communication. Without it, nothing gets across to followers, and nothing is reciprocated to leaders. As a leadership position becomes larger and larger, (such as a CEO’s leadership position) there are fewer and fewer women holding these positions. The biggest question is why? Generally, females and males share the leadership values, work equally as hard to accomplish their goals, and react accordingly. Society plays a huge role in the gender gap. Some jobs aren’t even offered to women because of their gender and women

    Read More

  • Gender Discrimination at Walmart

    2006 Words  | 5 Pages

    Powell, G., Butterfield, D., and Bartol, K. (2008). Leader evaluations: A new female advantage? Gender in Management: An International Journal, 23, 156-174.

    Read More

  • The Evolution of Leadership Over the Years

    2052 Words  | 5 Pages

    Malraux, A. (oct 16, 2012). 100 best quotes on leadership. Available: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2012/10/16/quotes-on-leadership/. Last accessed 27 April, 2014.

    Read More

  • Gender Differences And Leadership: The Gender Gap In Leadership

    1123 Words  | 3 Pages

    Powell and Graves’s study shows that “the gender gap in leadership is a global phenomenon whereby women are disproportionately concentrated in lower-level and lower-authority leader ship positions compared to men” (as cited in Northouse, 2016, p. 399). I couldn’t have agreed more with the statement; I have come across all of people from different aspects of lives. I have noticed that females’ interactions and how they are perceived and or accepted are quite different from males, whether at the workplace, school, in social gathering like religious services, around families and friends, etc. This includes the communication, uncertainty that arises in a professional environment that must do with our

    Read More

  • Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg

    754 Words  | 2 Pages

    Lean In: Women, Work and The Will To Lead, by Sheryl Sandberg, addresses how women can achieve professional achievement and overcome the lack of leadership progress that has been absent over the past few years. Sandberg uses personal experience, research and humor to examine the choices that working women make everyday. She argues that women can achieve professional goals while still being happy within their personal lives. She argues this by going into detail about what risks to take, how to pursue certain professional goals and how to overcome struggles such as balancing a family and a career. All through Lean In, Sandberg uses the fourth dimension of interpersonal effects through a Narrative to show her indicated stance on gender construction, she includes examples of marked forms as well as cultural gender expectations within communication.

    Read More

  • Perspective on Women Leadership: The Female Advantage, by Sally Helgensen

    859 Words  | 2 Pages

    The reading assignment for this unit included reading several articles and one book in particular, The Female Advantage, by Sally Helgesen as an introduction into varying leadership styles. Leadership, as a honed craft is practiced continually in different ways and varying circumstances, no two individuals will have the same leadership style. Certain distinctive traits brought into the forum and on display for followers to observe. Some traits can be visible, clothing or skin color as examples, others, however, are not as visible such as upbringing or family situation. Each of these factors could play a role in the leadership style of a leader. One trait that the author of the book uses to distinguish leaders is gender. As much as men and women must be treated the fairly and equally, it cannot be denied that outside of the biological aspect, men and women are slightly different. Each gender brings a unique approach to leadership situations.

    Read More

  • Charles Cooley's Theory Of The Looking Glass Self

    1256 Words  | 3 Pages

    A young girl growing up in 21st century America has a much better chance of achieving a high-paying, high-prestige, management level job than most all of her predecessors in the early, middle and late 20th century. Despite this, however, women who have such a position, depending on the field of course, are likely to find themselves as the token woman among men, which puts her in a tricky position (Conley 311). A woman that asserts herself in a way seen as “masculine” would likely be negatively received by her male counterparts, making her job harder than it would be without such pressures (Conley 311). Should the woman fail at coping with this and fail at some aspect of her job, it becomes ammunition for her aggrieved male coworkers who see this as justification that women cannot handle such positions (Conley 311).

    Read More

  • Women’s Inequalities in the Workplace

    1034 Words  | 3 Pages

    When you think of a CEO of a company or of world political leaders, do you think of a man or of a woman? Many, if not most of us, see these positions as being held by men. In this essay, I will explain why women are still not equal to men. In the first paragraph I will discuss inequalities that happen in the workplace. The second section will show the differences that occur within the athletic world. Thirdly, I will explain the differences in education and home life. Even though we are approaching the twenty-first century, women in our society are still not equal to men.

    Read More

  • Women’s Rights: A Path into the Society to Achieve Social Liberation

    1241 Words  | 3 Pages

    Warner, Judith. "Women’s Leadership What’s True, What’s False, and Why It Matters." American Progress. Center for American Progress, 7 Mar. 2014. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.

    Read More

  • Masculine and Authoritarian Leadership in the Film "The Devil Wears Prada"

    748 Words  | 2 Pages

    This is not about being nasty or nice – it is entirely about being achievement oriented by focusing on performance and organizational goals. Being achievement oriented, leaders have to recognize that they have to be mindful of and accountable for the choices they make because they are setting the model of what’s appropriate and inappropriate. Words matter, they are as much a form of expression for leaders as they are to poets, singers, and writers. According to Posner and Kouzes(p. 59) to be a leader, you got to awaken to the fact that you don’t have to copy someone else or follow a script and you don’t have to wear someone else’s style. Currently, there are an increasing number of women who are in leadership roles in the workplaces. It is a generally accepted as true that woman are supposed to use feminine ways of doing leadership. However, this is not always true. In some cases, women also use masculine ways of leadership. In this paper, Miranda Priestly illustrates how a female leader breaks traditional gender stereotypes and uses masculine leadership style.

    Read More

  • Characteristics Of Leadership In Hospitality Industry

    2882 Words  | 6 Pages

    However, researchers agree that gender differences in leadership styles do exist and that men often use a more task-oriented approach, while women, on average, rely on leadership styles heavily based on quality of interpersonal relationships (Eagly & Johnson, 1990; Gray, 1992; Eagly, 1987; Eagly & Karau, 2002). Female leaders have also been described as taking a more “take care” leadership approach compared to the males’ “take charge” approach (Martell & DeSmet, 2001; Yukl, 1994; Hater & Bass, 1998). Researchers have also found that women tend to emerge as more transformational leaders, while men are likely to use a transitional leadership approach (Bass & Avolio, 1994; Rosener, 1990). The article Women and Leadership (2015 January 14) supports the research that looks at who makes a better leader; the article states that 80% of the public thinks that both male and female can be excellent leaders in society, while 11% said men and 7% said women.

    Read More

  • The Impact Of Gender Inequality In Business

    1084 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gender inequality is present in all aspects of human society, from culture, politics, and economic stand point to personal relationships. Gender inequality can be viewed as a major problem especially within the business world (Corporation, 2016). In the past, men are seen as leaders in all aspects. For example, men could work without any criticisms, they could participate in political issues and were given higher education. Women on the other hand, were given no political participation, criticized for working outside the household as they were responsible for chores such as takes care of their children, cooking or cleaning and given limited education compared to men. Although there are claims rights equality of women in 21st century and much has been written about it in the field of business (Player, 2013), but there is still a gap between male and female. This essay aims to explore the impact of gender inequality in business and will analyze the details in terms of the men are given high pay and specific jobs over women.

    Read More

More about Leadership Prejudices of Men and Women in the Workplace

Open Document