Name : Rajesh Kumar E-mail : rkr.india@gmail.

com

Women in leadership: do gender issues still play a role?

This article examines the similarities and differences in male and female leaders.

Additionally, this paper also studies the tendency for women or men to emerge as

leaders and the ways and styles in which men and women lead.

When I imagine the future of leaders we deserve, among so many great leaders and

visionaries, one face I picture is Indra Nooyi, chairman and CEO of PepsiCo.

Indian born American businesswoman, Indra Nooyi, president and chief executive

officer of PepsiCo is the 3rd most powerful woman in the world today. Her story lays

emphasis on true values of life. Although she faced many hurdles while reaching the

highest peak in international level, she walks with pride holding the dignity and honour

of her most loved country, India.

In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell wrote about the hero, in the case of Indra

Nooy it was the heroin that made it happen.

Who make better leader, need ? Men or Women.

Whether you're male or female, taking on a new leadership position can be challenging.

But are the leadership challenges any different for women than for men? And does it

matter?

In a sold-out appearance at Asia Society headquarters, Indra Nooyi spoke about the

challenges and successes she has experienced in her career at the highest levels of

international business.

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 Name : Rajesh Kumar E-mail : rkr.india@gmail.com

Cross-cultural, female, visionary, and values-driven, Nooyi embodies characteristics that

will be increasingly sought in leaders for a globalizing world. In an interdependent

world of border-crossing and boundary-spanning, leaders must position their

organizations not only in the marketplace but also in a social nexus in which sectors

overlap and societal problems belong to everyone.

So, if men and women face essentially the same challenges, as these personal

experiences suggest, are there really any gender issues that still come into play? Often it

depends on the company culture. Some cultures may make it more difficult for women,

but if a company genuinely values and is committed to diversity, there may be no

difference.

In the last 15 years, women have made record advances in the business world --as

entrepreneurs and as corporate leaders.

Comparison in Leadership

Women do have an advantage when it comes to a certain leadership style (i.e.

transformational leadership). Transformational leadership means empowering their

followers to think creatively and act responsibly in both autonomous and cooperative

settings. There is some evidence that women are more skilled in several aspects of

transformational leadership than men, but research examining gender differences in

transformational styles of leadership is scarce, and gender is rarely mentioned in the

transformational leadership literature.

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 Name : Rajesh Kumar E-mail : rkr.india@gmail.com

According to Bass, transformational leadership refers to the leader taking follower

beyond immediate self-interests and elevating their levels of maturity and ideals as well

as their concerns for achievement, self-actualization, and the well-being of others.

Being in a senior position of a leading public shareholding company, I had the

opportunity to offer employment to the many in managerial positions. We decided to go

with the proposition of 70 : 30 (Male : Female Managers). On evaluation at the end of

the year, the result was surprising. 65% of the total business procurement was done by

these 30% of Female Managers. More transformational leadership behavior was shown

by the female leaders, which gave them this result.

Why So Few Women Leaders?

Several studies have shown that people perceive successful managers to have the

characteristics typically associated with men, though the actual qualities successful

managers possess are a combination of masculine (e.g., forcefulness, self-confidence,

task orientation, initiative) and feminine (e.g., concern for people, feelings, and

relationships) traits. An obvious consequence of this is that a man is more likely to be

selected for a leadership position than is a woman of equal qualification. Thus, a woman

who aspires to leadership positions must overcome both her childhood socialization,

which discouraged development of some essential qualities, and a popular perception of

the maleness of leadership—both of which tangibly reduce the chance she will be

judged qualified.

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 Name : Rajesh Kumar E-mail : rkr.india@gmail.com

Conclusion

It was found that, after gathering and collecting data from different resources, men and

women were equally effective. Nevertheless, men tended to be rated as slightly more

effective than women on measures of their ability to lead. Female leaders, on the other

hand, tended to obtain higher satisfaction ratings compared to male leaders.

Regardless of how women are perceived as leaders, the evidences collected by many

researchers strongly suggest that women and men are equally effective as leaders across

many different types of situations. Despite the perceived similarity in the way men and

women lead and for the fact that women tend to be equally effective as men as leaders,

women still face significant difficulties in going up to top levels of management in

business organizations.

Organizations can strive to avoid isolating women as tokens in male-dominated

departments, where their gender becomes the defacto explanation for any perceived

misstep. Established leaders can endorse and legitimate women who seek or attain

leadership roles. As individuals, we can examine our own criticisms of women leaders

for telltale signs that we are expecting the impossible—imposing the double-bind of

contradictory expectations.