Struggles, setbacks, and family tragedy, have not lacked in my life; yet I hold tightly onto my dreams, and seek for a means to feel a sense of accomplishment. My journey had led me in search for a book which I can identify with and acquire new knowledge to help me persevere in the goals that I have set for myself. I wanted a book that would help me grow without overlooking to my past experiences, but would help me utilize my failures and tragedies as a stepping-stone to self-development, maturity and my experience in my life now. My narrow search led me to a book that immediately captured my attention with its title, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg. It illustrated me in a nutshell. As a wife and mother of two wonderful boys, going back to college full-time after so many years, and working full-time, I experienced so many challenges. One challenge in particular questions is how other women with a family, a career, and who are in a position of leadership are able to juggle and balance it all? It is necessary to become aware of the challenges, struggles, and the internal and external barriers that women face daily in this so called “man’s world” to be able to understand how to cope with the expectations imposed by society and, never the less, those of my own. It is my expectation to recognize, and remind myself, that when I reach within and give it my all, I can achieve greatness. Like Ray Davis said, “Your greatness is revealed not by the lights that shine upon you, but by the light that shines within you”. We hold the keys that can open a world of opportunities, but there is a four-letter word holds us back—fear. If we learn to Lean In without FEAR it can bring out the best in us! The book Lean I... ... middle of paper ... ...st someone to join their group, she often chooses another man. Is it competition she fears? Is it jealousy? Is it only seen what’s in it for her, and not seen what can be in it for someone else. I don’t have the answer. I only know that the attitude must change. Until we have an equal number of men and women in leadership position things will not change. Women will continue to earn the majority of college degrees and stay right where they are – (somewhere in the middle) unless you are ready to effect change”(203). It is imperative, that if we want to see change of women leadership roles, it must begin within ourselves. We must take a step forward and not be afraid. We must gain self-confidence, raise expectations, and aspire to be women that can lead. Let’s no longer sit on the sidelines, but distinguish ourselves by taking a step forward and leaning in!
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...
In relation to leadership and women, historically women who wanted to seek leadership roles were often seen projecting the traditional masculine model of leadership. This model means to be rational, unemotional and analytic. It also, means in order to succeed traditionally women needed to look and act like a man to be taken seriously in leadership positions. Women in the past often dressed up in suits and ties and anything feminine was seen as an internal “weakness”. To be a leader in power meant to exude confidence in masculinity and shy away from anything remotely girly. As opposed, to the feminine model which casts power as focused on connection and harmony instead of power over something, someone. This power can be skilled through collective gain or physical attractiveness (Kruse 22).
The feminist movement raises political campaigns for the rectification of rights that should be permitted to women in the public, workplace and most importantly in one’s home. Women’s movement turn out to be a significant role as time advanced, diminutive ideas were anticipated at first, minor alterations occur but not much was being done for the privileges of a woman therefore making the women’s movement more hostile. It can be proposed that women are far too emotional to have equal rights as men due to the hormones that occur while a woman is pregnant or on her menstrual cycle, although the women’s movement has been more beneficial than crucial. Women have helped enhance the economy drastically, improve the family time in homes, as well as
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
Barbara White, author of Women’s Career Development, gives an opportunity for successful women to give advice to other women wanting to pursue a career in the workforce. First, they explained that women need to be single-minded today. They must make their own choices and know what they want. If a woman hopes to achieve her goal of an ‘American Dream’ and live up to it, then she should be persistent and keep working at achieving her objectives. The best advice given in White’s book is that a woman should not underestimate herself (227-229). A woman today can be whatever she pleases. It takes work, dedication and persistence to achieve goals in general, not just in the career aspect of life. As seen through Joan Crawford and Dawn Steel’s stories, a ‘business woman’ has a bright future now and for years to come. Women’s roles have drastically changed throughout the past century along with the actual number of women now working. It is phenomenal to see such an increase in women’s participation, and hopefully this course will continue even higher into the twenty-first century.
402). Our gender differences and leadership styles can work in our favor and against us; I think it is contradicting, in the way we send mixed messages, while a lot of people, especially in the modernized Western world do accept a female to control the household and does it well, yet; at the workplace females are perceived as being too emotionally consumed to get a task completed. By nature, and nurture, each gender in most cases acts differently; this could be because of our biological hormones and way each gender is raised, apparently, it is not so nowadays. The problem is should we keep letting it slide by being bias or is there something that can be done to encourage and promote gender equality and respect for one another that goes beyond the responsibilities society requires of each
Sandberg, Sheryl. Lean in: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. New York: Alfred A.Knopf,
6 Santovec, M. L. (2012, 08). Covey's 7 habits can guide working mothers. Women in Higher
What defines a good leader? Should determinates of an effective leader be based on one’s sex; or rather their overall ability to effectively attain group goals? For years’ research has been conducted to better understand the factors associated with individuals emerging as leaders in a group. The study, “Effects of Sex and Gender Role on Leader Emergence,” focuses on two of these factors; sex and gender role, to see if the held notion that men more often emerge as leaders than women in a group setting holds true (1335). First however, both sex and gender role must be defined to better understand their believed effects when it comes to leader emergence. In this case, “sex refers to the biological and anatomical differences between females and
In the book, Sally Helgesen cites the “Feminine Principles” brought forth by Anita Roddick, who is the founder of The Body Shop as basic principles that could help to distinguish, or rather help to further define men and women leaders. The principles include, caring, making intuitive decisions, not getting hung up on hierarchy, having a sense of work being part of your life, putting labor where your love is, being responsible to the world and knowing that the bottom line should not be the only driving factor. These are the principles that encompass the “feminine principles” within the context of the text. While these principles are broad, they are not exclusive to women, however, women in general exhibit these qualities in more pounced ways than men.
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.
Women’s education has been seen as a way for all the focus on all the attention and opportunity on the students that attend the college. It is seen as a way to eliminate the need to compete with their male peers, with no one to compete with these colleges argue that women have the ability to hold all of the leadership positions on campus which provide them with a valuable experience to apply their future cultures and post-graduate lives. The environment provides women with stronger role models they aren't typically p...
Today, women are entering the leadership sphere, which is mainly occupied by men. Many women leaders believe that people perform best when they feel good about themselves and their work. An effective leader creates results, reaches goals and deadlines, and quickly recognizes vision and objectives with high level of quality and productivity. To accomplish these, a leader should have special qualities like able to motivate others, specific and technical skill set, clear sense of purpose, mission, clear goals, focus and commitment. Over the years, women have proven themselves to be successful leaders as men. For instance, Oprah Winfrey, one of the most successful and famous African-American women in history to have made a huge impact and difference
Women make up over 50 percent of the college graduates in the United States, yet only 14 percent of executive officer positions within companies are filled by women. Within the Fortune 500 CEOs, only 21 of them are women. The United States prides itself on equality and justice, but the majority of the population is not adequately represented in leadership roles. It is time for the entire country to reevaluate its internal gender biases. Women are taking strides to overcome the centuries-old tradition of men being the breadwinners and women taking care of the family and having low-demanding jobs. Biases do not just come from men, as it is proven that women are just as biased against themselves. Society puts more pressure on men to be successful while not expecting as much from women. Men typically attribute their successes to themselves, while women underestimate themselves and attribute their successes to luck or hard work. This lack of self-confidence can be traced back to years of women constantly doubting themselves (Sandberg). Women need to follow Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg’s advice written in her book “Lean In”: “But feeling confident—or pretending that you feel confident—is necessary to reach for opportunities. It’s cliché, but opportunities are rarely offered; they’re seized” (Sandberg 34). Willing women have to overcome societal traditions and sit at the table. To do this they have to either get into leadership positions to then break down barriers or break down barriers to get into those coveted leadership positions. These barriers are deeply-rooted into almost every culture worldwide. Sexism and discrimination are constant issues for women in the workplace and not enough is being done to address the...
Women leaders have the crucial soft skills of empathy, innovation, facilitation, and active listening (Masaoka, 2006). They also have first-hand life experiences that bring technical skills and experiences from the street level to the workplace (Masoka, 2006). Women often build stronger relationships with clients and outside contacts than their male counterparts. This relationship building skill, provides a key aspect which helps to move businesses forward (Giber et al., 2009). Fortune 500 companies with a high percentage of women significantly outperformed those with fewer women. Companies with the highest representation of women showed higher returns on equity than those with fewer women employees (Giber et al., 2009). Thus, future organizations may have a higher percentage of female leaders than we have experienced in the past. Future leaders must ensure that there is equality among the workforce and that women are accurately represented among the