Women and the Leadership Paradigm: Bridging the Gender Gap.

Abstract

The under representation of qualified women in leadership positions has created a gender gap that exists not only in education but in many areas of the workplace. Society has determined that only males make good leaders; therefore it continues to deny easy access for women seeking leadership roles because they do not fit the norm. Women who seek leadership positions face barriers and many times give up because they become overwhelmed in dealing with obvious barriers. uba Chliwniak (1997) defined leaders as individuals who provide vision and meaning for an institution and embodies the ideals toward which the organization strives. Traditional scholars like Birnbaum and Mintzberg (1992) viewed leaders as alike and genderless. If Chliwniak’s definition is an accurate and true description of leaders, then why are women having a difficult time gaining employment as administrators in the educational arena? Do men make better administrators than women simply because they are male? Research does not support that assumption. In fact, schools administered by women on the average were superior in performance to those managed by men. The quality of pupil learning and the professional performance of teachers appear to be higher, on the average, in schools with female administrators (Porat, 1991). Ryder (1994) described female principals as very effective and Hensel (1991) described them as capable and as productive as men in the academic arena. Some continue to hold to the belief that women are less capable, less competitive, or less productive than men. Females and Leadership Good school administration is more attuned to feminine than masculine modes of leadership behavior. Female attributes of nurturing, being sensitive, empathetic, intuitive, compromising, caring, cooperative, and accommodative are increasingly associated with effective administration. While these characteristics are innate and valuable, women possessing the qualities of a good leader still face higher attrition and slower career mobility particularly in higher education (Porat, 1991). Data on equality of opportunity in educational L administration reveals that gender, more than age, experience, background, or competence determines the role an individual will be assigned in education (Whitaker & Lane, 1990). African American women who hold leadership positions in the educational system face dual burdens of sexism and racism and confront special challenges in promotion and tenure. Race more than gender is the major obstacle to career advancement (Allen, Jacobson, & Lomotey, 1995; Singh, Robinson, & Williams-Green, 1995). Management seeks to fill its ranks, particularly at the highest level of management, with those persons that best fit the existing norm (Wesson, 1998). Case in point, the typical president of an American institution of higher education is Caucasian, male, and 54 years of age (Phelps & Taber, 1997). Since gender is a hindrance to women leaders, some believe compelled to lead in the manner that is considered the norm; that is, the way that men lead. Utilizing men’s method of leadership is the easiest way for a woman to be hired for administrative positions or any position of leadership, especially since this approach to leadership has repeatedly been established as acceptable to the public and successful in attracting promotion and recognition (Porat, 1991). In one school district, a Caucasian male administrator discouraged women and members of underrepresented groups from pursuing careers in administration because of the belief that women and/or minorities lacked the requisite leadership characteristics (Allen et al., 1995). They did not fit the existing norm of being Caucasian and male. Females in positions that are male-dominated indicated there was a need to be better qualified than the males with whom they competed. African American women believe they had to be twice as good and better than others with the same aspirations. Those women who had a desire to become administrators have found their institutions and districts do not select or recruit them for training programs in the administration field, making it harder to break into the system (Allen et al., 1995; Lindsay, 1999). There has been a rise in the hiring of women and minorities as superintendents and in administrative positions. Proportionately more women tend to occupy superintendencies in the smallest and least cosmopolitan districts, with the fewest central office administrators, declining student enrollments, more reported stress on the job, less satisfaction, and the greatest vulnerability lethal to school board conflict. Caucasian women were being hired in very small districts where their duties varied and with very little pay. African American women are being hired in troubled urban districts with inadequate financial resources or districts with a large concentration of minority students who are economically disadvantaged and have low achievement test scores (Tallerico & Burstyn, 1996; Wesson, 1998). Caucasian women and African American women found no problems obtaining principalships at the elementary school level (Pollard, 1997). Gender Gap and Gender-Based Models One reason so few women are hired for educational administrative positions is due to the gender gap. The gender gap may represent an impediment to potential institutional improvements (Chliwniak, 1997). Even though effective leadership is more behaviorally derived than gender based, gender remains an obstacle to women seeking and obtaining leadership positions (Getskow, 1996). There are three models that have been used to explain the under representation of women in educational leadership positions (see Table 1). The first is the meritocracy model or the individual perspective model (Estler, 1975; Schmuck, 1980). Both are psychological orientations (Tallerico & Burstyn, 1996). The model looks to women for cause: personal traits, characteristics, abilities, or qualities. Individual attitudes such as self-image and confidence, motivation, and aspirations also fall into this domain. The belief associated with this model is that women are not assertive enough, don’t

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