Three Women Leaders

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Recommended: Is transactional or transformational leadership preferred

Despite more success stories of women who break the glass ceiling, women leaders are still grossly underrepresented in every segment of business, industry, and politics. Even with the odds against them, some women are able to succeed. Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, and Nancy Pelosi have all succeeded in the heavily male dominated political arena. This paper discusses traits they have in common which have helped them achieve their success.
Unshakable Self-Confidence
Living life in the public eye is demanding of anyone. However, women are subjected to personal criticisms with much greater frequency than men. For example, a story in the April 2012 issue of Elle magazine reported that Clinton’s aides are distressed by her habit of pulling her hair back with a scrunchie (Moore, 2012). Clinton responded in an interview with CNN saying, “If I want to wear my hair back, I’m pulling my hair back. You know at some point it just isn’t something that’s worth a lot of time and attention” (Moore, 2012).
I ran a google search for “criticism of female politicians.” It returned page after page of stories, many of them focusing on appearance and others using terms like “bitchy” and “nagging.” I next ran a google search for “criticism of male politicians.” It returned the same articles about FEMALE politicians. Apparently, men aren’t regularly subjected to the same scrutiny of their fashion choices as women.
All of this point to the fact that women in politics need to have unshakable self- confidence, as do Clinton, Rice, and Pelosi. Many women believe their intelligence, abilities, character, and achievements are far more important than their appearance. However, no one wants to be publicly labeled the ugly, bitchy woman. The pe...

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...horitative is the best decision and is very effective. But when trying to win over the hearts and minds of followers, transformational leadership is far more appropriate and will lead to greater achievements.

Works Cited

Marcus, R. (2007). Pelosi embraces female leadership style. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/jan/11/pelosi_embraces_female_leadership
_style/
Moore, M. (2012). Focus on Hillary Clinton’s appearance sparks criticism. USA Today. Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-05-09/hillary-rodham-clinton/54860282/1
Northouse, P. (2013). Leadership: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Peterson, E. (2012). Rice shares her principles of leadership. Daily Herald. Retrieved from https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20120809/business/708099779/

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