Woman Empowerment

Normally, we all expect to be judged by our skills, talents, insights, our work style and merits at the work place. But does that actually happen? A variety of recent research by business, psychology, and sociology scholars offers a window into women’s collective experiences in the workplace, confirming some intuitive notions such as men get the better assignments. Journalists and authors of trade books increasingly assert a female advantage in leadership, whereby women are more likely than men to lead in a style that is effective under contemporary conditions.

Managerial work is undergoing such enormous and rapid change that many managers are reinventing their profession as they go. With little precedent to guide them, they are watching hierarchy fade away and the clear distinctions of title, task, department, even corporation, blur. Faced with extraordinary levels of complexity and interdependency, they watch traditional sources of power erode and the old motivational tools lose their magic.

Social scientists have often emphasized the prejudicial disadvantages that women face because of the construal of leadership in masculine terms. To the extent that modern characterizations of effective leadership have become more consonant with the female gender role, this female disadvantage may be eroding.

The gradual erosion of female disadvantage would be consonant with the emphasis of many popular mass-market management books on traditionally feminine communal behavior, involving creating a sense of community, empowering subordinates, and communicating and listening effectively.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

We first turn to the question of whether women and men differ in leadership style, an issue that many researchers have addressed, primarily with organizational studies. Job candidates' leadership styles are surely among the attributes given special scrutiny in interviews of candidates for managerial positions, and managers fired from their positions are often...