Newest Title

Changing Rules: Women's Influence Towards a New and Diverse Voice of the 21st Century


Sub-quote

“Traditionally, men have set up the rules of the game, and women have not been allowed to play. [Only] now… women are permitted in the game.”

- Linda Kreger Silverman

Keywords and Title Thoughts

• Emminent Women


• Emergence


• Subjection


• Glass Ceiling


• Management


• Productive Personality


• Leaders of Tomorrow


• Overcoming Obstacles


• Cinderella


• Barriers


• Patriarch Myth


• Gender Roles/ Equality


• Power Structures


• Gentleman's World/War/Club

"Gentleman's World: Emergence of Women's Leadership in the 21st Century"

Continued Notes: Leadership, Credibility, Managment vs. Leadership

Insightful Paragraphs I’d like to see used:

In the powerful passage Leaders by Bennis and Nannus’ paint a picture that leadership is a sought after concept by individuals in society today. Leadership is attacked by the young and that the old are wistful for it. Parents have lost it and the police-force seeks it. Experts claim to have it, while scholars want it. Bennis and Nanus continue to say that if bureaucrats pretend they have it, politicians wish they did; in consensus the majority agree that there is less of it in today’s society than there use to be and in many ways it seems to be a lost concept.

The abundance of present- day challenges along with the fast rate of change, there sometimes exist a void of notions and great people to implement them. Obvious challenges could account for the apparent void in leadership, and even more so, this emptiness has yielded the need for the promise of new leaders, and hopefully with so, we can anticipate new visions and power for “leadership is the pivotal force behind successful organizations and that to create vital and viable organizations, leadership is necessary” (as cited in Bennis et al., 3). Perhaps with this obvious void; it is more than ever, a time for women to fill this role.”

Notes on Leadership and Credibility.

Most scholars whom have researched and written about the ideas in which leadership stand for often pick a few key points to highlight and define the term. They usually choose principles to what they think a great leader encompass, or what essentials one needs to attain the status of a distinguished leader. Many establish that leaders, through their actions, must be challenging, inspiring, enabling, modeling, and encouraging. Even we individuals, who may not have a scholarly opinion about these details, can most likely come to agreement on what we want from our leaders. We want these qualities. But how is it that a leader gains the recognition that these are the qualities in which the common person hopes their figurehead obtains? It is through their credibility which is known to be the foundations of leadership.

Kouzes and Posner (1987), states the following:

If someone is to lead us, that person must be able to stand before us and

confidentially express an attractive image of the future, and we must be

able to believe that he or she has the ability to take us there. (p. 25)

To show your credibility as a good leader, with enthusiasm it is a goal to win others to your ideas by the joy you yourself have in them. (Walters, 1993, day 23) Without credibility, one as a leader will find it difficult to govern.

Credibility is said to be “one of the hardest to earn, and it is the most fragile of human qualities” (Kouzes et al., 1987, p. 24). This quality of credibility is summed up in three different forms: expertise, trustworthiness, and goodwill. Studied in a Leadership 101 seminar hosted on Appalachian State’s campus, credibility is a primary enhancement of leadership. The leader as an individual shows credibility by having knowledge in a subject, following through with what they say and intend, and their goodwill through engagement and service. Credibility is earned each minute by minute, hour by hour, and even by months and years; it can be lost in a very short order if not attended to. We are able to trust leaders when their deeds and words match. Kouzes et al. (1987) states, “No one will want to go the leader’s way if they doubt that the person’s trustworthiness, expertise, or dynamism” (p. 24).

Leadership and Management

The number one problem in today’s organizations, and especially ones that have failure rates, is “they tend to overmanaged and underled” (Bennis et al., 1985, p. 21). Some may be great in the aptitude to handle daily routines, yet many of these people who focus solely on the day to day task never quite get around to asking the question if the routine should be even implemented in the first place. There is a profound difference between management and leadership and both are essential to understand.

Bennis and Nanus (1985) give examples of the two:

‘To manage’ means ‘to bring about, to accomplish, to have charge of or

responsibility for, to conduct.’ ‘Leading’ is ‘influencing, guiding in direction,

course, action, opinion.’ The distinction is crucial. Managers are people

who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing. (p. 21)

The variation between the two ideas can be summarized as activities of vision versus judgment and differentiation in the process in which they entail.

Power is the currency of leaders. The misuse of power, distinguishes the differences between management and leadership. Historically overtime, leaders have sometimes controlled rather than organized. It is also said in Encouraging the Heart, “the popular assumption about managers… that they have a high need to express control” (Kouzes and Posner, 1999, p. 9). Even though placed into a hierarchy position as a manager, they misuse the power they are given, because in essence there are many cases when managers were given little learned information about empowerment. Thus they feel powerless. Whoever they are, managers or subordinates, they tend to cling onto whatever shreds of power they feel they do have.

Defined in Leading Change (1996) by Kotter, “Management is a set processes that can keep a complicated system of people and technology running smoothly...Leadership is a set of processes that creates organizations in the first place or adapts them to … changing circumstances” (p. 25).

These two process show getting others to do and getting others to want to do. Leaders get other people to want to do while, managers with this powerlessness attitude, tend to adopt a petty and dictatorial management style. They negatively use their position at times to make people do what they want; they get other people to do. (Kouzes and Posner, 1987, pp. 27 & 163) The position of a manager is essential in business formats however, through the definition of management alone it is coherent that people would rather exchange with a leader who inspires and influences positively.

A message published in the Wall Street Journal:

People don’t want to be managed. They want to be led. Whoever heard of

a world manager? World leader, yes. Educational leader. Religious leader.

Scout leader. Community leader. Labor leader. Business leader. They

lead. They don’t manage. The carrot always wins over the stick. Ask your

horse. You can lead your horse to water, but you can’t manage him to

drink. If you want to manage somebody, manage yourself. Do that well

and you’ll be ready to stop managing. And starting leading. (Figured in

Bennis and Nanus, 1985, p. 22)

The is the perfect paradigm to show how forcing a dictatorial and managerial system on people administers repression rather than expression, and holds followers in arrest rather than in evolution needed.

A Start to Something

Not quite 1500, but a close start.

Part I

A new spirit exists among women today; more than ever, females are exploring non- traditional domains. May it be known that women might just be at the peak of an emergence from a period of subjection. Women today hold a new kind of collective and cooperative devotion for the search of knowledge, and a social revolution has hence inspired scholarship in areas previously not explored among women’s culture. Their focus in fields of anthropology, history, legal studies, etc., has resulted in a number of innovative and important works. It is no exaggeration to say that these fields will never look the same again. According to Shambaugh (2008), more than a third of Fortune 500 companies are managed by women, half of graduates today at the master level are women, and interestingly enough, 9 million more women voted in the last presidential election as apposed to men. Facts should undoubtedly make an argument that the progressive woman ought and could have the prominent ability to be the next leader of today and tomorrow.

In spite of the increasing scholarship among women, comparatively they are rare in top levels and positions; it seems as if only gifted females are drawn to these nontraditional fields. Supporting text, Arnold, Noble, and Subotnik (1996) states, “society looks to exceptional individuals to lead its institutions, transform aesthetic expression, solve significant problems, and produce ideas that change profoundly our conceptions and material lives,” (p. 2) and until recently the vast amount of these individuals have been men. It is from a male perspective in which the knowledge of talent development has been taken. Society has shaped females to believe there are factors which inhibit women’s talents of exceptional ability, and that there isn’t a need for them among a real world accomplished by men. Obstacles have been consistently placed in her path by a society which routinely seems to devalue the female gender. Without doubt, women throughout history and across nations have paid unnecessary prices being victimized to a social order not conducive for the benefit of their human development (Randour, 1987).

The concept of woman’s “inferiority” to man has been ingrained in global society for centuries. Even some of the earliest doctrines proclaimed women to be subordinate to men. In chapter 11 of the book of Corinthians in the New Testament, it says, “For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.” Mohammad wrote in the Koran, “Men are superior to women in account of the qualities in which God has given them pre- eminence.” Depicted in early Greek mythology traditions, during the time of Plato, legends read that Pandora, the first woman, brought evil and misfortune to the world, and Aristotle is quoted in Sophocles’ Ajax- “ a modest silence is a woman’s crown” (Okin, 1979). Depictions insinuate the idea of subjection to the male sex.

Conversely, authors of the 19^th century, Bachofen & Morgan suggested in evolutionary theories that perhaps there were societies in which women were publicly recognized as equal to or more powerful than men, and that in earlier stages of human progress social statuses were organized upon the principle of matriarchy. This argument roots from mythical female goddesses, queens, and women rulers of tales and remembered through remains of archeology finds from burial sites, statues, etc. The idea of matriarchy excited recent feminists. However, most academic anthropologists dismiss the view to hold any merit, and believe that these archeological finds of the ancients do not reflect the civilization’s history but are expressions of the culture’s dreams and fantasies. Anthropologists also tend to agree that while there may have been societies in which women achieved social recognition, none had a culture where women received power and authority surpassing men (Rosaldo & Lamphere, 1974). Inferiority of women within these original cultures and traditions habitually carried over into others through the years, and has rightly played into the significance of determining assumed roles between genders.

Male dominance over the females stretches across practically all domains, and it is a wonder in that “any woman managed to get beyond her lot in life” (Arnold et al., 1996, p. 23). Historically, women have lacked independence, property, employment in male leading fields, and access to education. Relatively speaking, females received a devalued status and being treated as deviant was a standard feature of life. As a female, one was attributed with negative stereotype portrayals. There is no question today that the women’s liberation movement sparked an interest in understanding and analyzing women’s lives while breaking barriers and footholds in order for the female sex to make advancement in society. Modifications did not occur immediately, and even today there is still not a complete essence of equality between genders. However, it is thanks to the some of the first outspoken, gifted and eminent women whom paved the way for an entire social order revolution.

Part II

While the feminist movement and theory in itself, has many variants each focusing perceptions on particular phenomena, it has often been conceptualized to political liberalism in terms of equality. The aim was to defend and entitle women to social equality in relation to men. Efforts sought to encourage gender socialization by seeking to change customs and laws, honor and give respect to women in society, as well as, emphasize negativity with male control, domination, and aid in the violence of women’s oppression (Unger & Crawford, 1996). Among all labors, holistically, the span of the Woman’s Movement aspired to affirm valid equality in relation to men and women’s lives - to make them equally valued under the law; the goal was to view “equality as acceptance” and eliminate linear thinking of the prevailing male norm as the legitimate one and women as deviant (Taveris, 1992).

Many believe the Women’s Movement has run its full course; it has even been deemed in certain declarations that efforts have been unsuccessful in achieving aims. However, in some ways these assertions should not be taken seriously. “History stands as overwhelming… evidence to the patriarchal myth… yet it is unlikely that we shall bequeath such a … legacy to our successors” (Spender, 1982, p. 195), for the modern feminist movement brought reform to women and empowerment capable of changing social arrangements.

In time, the feminist movement produced various historical advancements, along with efforts of gender equality, and established women as a “positive” figure. Until this point,

Arnold et. al. (1996) illustrates: Eminence is a man’s game, rooted in hierarchical power structures, driven by competition- sort of a gentleman’s war, with the victor gaining a permanent place in history. Traditionally, men have set up rules of the game, and women have not been allowed to play. [Only] now… women are permitted in the game. (p. 41).

Applying the work of Naranjo and Ornestien (1972) to the reformation, the attainment of liberation can be viewed through the eyes of a female where “an age of self- satisfaction is over, and we have entered an age of seeking” (p. 3), to mean that a time of cooperation of an inaccurate portrayal and performance of an unknown character ended, and an era of sovereignty and self- actualization has begun. The first women to seek entrance to nontraditional fields demonstrated a sense of great disposition while presenting talents and succeeded in spite of opposition. We can argue that these forewomen are attributed as gifted, and emphasized in current definition of eminence (Arnold, 1996). Even among all benefits stemming form the feminist movement, whether they are women’s rights or the entrance of distinguished females, perhaps the most remarkable element to the entire phenomena lies within the creativity of the movement in itself, as women establish the capability of adjust existing conditions within culture and make structural changes among an obstinate social order.

Working Bibliography

1) Arnold, Karen. D., Kathleen D. Noble, and Rena F. Subotnik. Remarkable Women. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 1996. Print.

2) Hsu, Jeremy. “Good Decision- Making Groups Need More Women” Microsoft/ National Broadcasting Company, Ltd. 2011. Web. 30 Sept. 2010 d/39443644/ns/technology_and_science…

3) Mark, Barbara. “Women Leaders: It’s Time for a New Conversation!” SF Bay Area Woman’s Journal. Ltd. 2011. Web. 30 May 2011 men-leaders- its-time-for-a-new-conversation/>

4) Naranjo, Claudio and Robert E. Ornstein. On the psychology of meditation [by] Claudio Naranjo and Robert E Ornstein. New York: Viking Press, 1972. Print.

5) Okin, Susan. M. Women in western political thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979. Print.

6) Randour, Mary Lou. Women’s Psyche, Women’s Spirit. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987. Print.

7) Rosaldo, Michelle. Z, and Louise Lamphere. Woman, Culture, and Society. (2^nd ed.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1974. Print.

8) Shambaugh, Rebecca. It’s Not a Glass Ceiling It’s a Sticky Floor. New York: McGraw- Hill, 2008. Print.

9) Spender, Dale. Women of Ideas. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1982. Print.

10) Taveris, Carol. The Mismeasure of Woman. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1992. Print.

11) Unger, Rhoda, and Mary Crawford. Women and Gender: A Feminist Psychology. (2^nd ed.). New York: McGraw- Hill, 1996. Print.

Ethical Research

I am somewhat familiar with the basis of the Belmont Report on Ethical Principles having done a small end of the semester project on ethics in my methods class. I actually even took a short tutorial lesson over the information for certification within the psychology course. I'm not exactly sure what kind of "outside of publications" type research I will be diving into within my project, however see the need to follow these standard principles if done. If subject interviews is a method I choose, it is critical to always have informed consent: purpose, who I am, arena, and disclosure of personal identify if needed. Each subject shall received the same justice of fairness. Perhaps the most important aspect of any research project is giving credit where credit is needed. In order to do so, a proper bibliography shall be stated. This brings me to my next blog...

Abstract

Some of the most in-demand traits for good leadership today are the collaborative leadership style, creativity and innovation, intuition, coordinating ideas, and building relationships. Recent studies suggest that women are inclined to posses high skills and possibilities of these such traits based on the common personality of a woman. Groups that include a higher proportion of women may better perform in part because women tend to demonstrate better social sensitivity and those groups which support this notion of diverse leadership can truly drive bottom- line performance. With women possessing such qualities it is important for women of today to overcome societal ideas of staying in their comfort zone and learn to stretch beyond to lead. Perhaps in doing so, this ought to be the decade of the women leader.