Question 1

Boatman, Wellins and Neal (2011) noted in a global leadership forecast carried out in 2009 that it

appeared that fewer women were showing up in mid-level position, signifying that they are

falling off the management ladder. They further asserted that in terms of first-level leaders, 59

percent are men and 41 percent are women. Moreso, what starts as a relatively normal gap,

unfortunately, increases at mid-and senior positions. This gap is troubling because evidence

continues to prove that women, especially at senior level, help organizations perform better.

“Women leadership has not been well received in Africa institutions”. To what extent do you

agree with this assertion. [25]

Introduction

De Beauvoir’s book, The Second Sex (2009) traces the women’s position in society as “the

other” gender, different from being male. According to De Beauvoir, from childhood the society

socializes girl children differently from boy children and this has an impact on their future roles.

De Beauvoir distinguishes the girl’s upbringing with that of a boy, the boy is told that he is a

little man at the age of three. Little girls envy certain aspects linked to the boys’ qualities and are

given dolls as an alter ego and as compensation. The society imposes or socializes girls to

femininity in a certain way. The teachers and the society instruct the girl how to be feminine.

Therefore, from the woman’s development years, the society imposes the expected values upon

the girl child. Soon the girl child realises that men, not women, are the leaders and the dominant

beings in the world. De Beauvoir asserts that women need to drudge for their liberation from the

various kinds of oppression and their historical insignificance. Furthermore, she has shown that
successful women leaders in history have demonstrated that it is not women’s inferiority that has

determined their historical insignificance but their historical insignificance that has doomed them

to inferiority. The man is always perceived superior by society irrespective of circumstances. De

Beauvoir shows how male dominance has obscured the woman’s strength. She looks at the

fallacy of male presence in all aspects of society. Le Doeuff (1980: 285) writes:

De Beauvoir asserts that it is culture of male dominance that determines femininity hence her

quotation, “One is not born a woman, one becomes a woman.” The discussion above shows how

De Beauvoir delineates a society that creates women barriers. Valerio (2009) expounds that

certain metaphors have been coined to describe the women barriers as they strive to be leaders.

She cites Eagly and Carli’s work where they enumerate three barriers that obstruct women’s

advancement; the concrete wall, the glass ceiling and the labyrinth. In this question we shall

concentrate on the widely used glass ceiling. Valerio (2009:15) explains:

The concrete wall existed in an era when there were separate and distinct gender roles; men were

bread winners and women were homemakers…the concrete wall began to fall in the 1970s and

by the mid-1980s women were employed in middle management jobs but faced an invisible

barrier that excluded them from the upper levels of management. Women are described as

bumping into the “glass ceiling”; the unnoticeable obstacle that nevertheless restricts them access

to higher-level jobs and pay; an underlying attitude that contributed to the existence of the glass

ceiling is the notion that it is too risky to employ women to higher position, because they would

quit their jobs to raise a family. As a result of these challenges, women had to find themselves

travelling through a maze to reach the top of the organizations. The “labyrinth” developed to

present hindrances and numerous barriers. The glass ceiling refers to the unseen yet unbreakable

barriers that keep women from rising to upper positions within the organization. All these
represent invisible barriers; women can see the topmost positions but would not reach them. The

contention here is that women struggle to move up the organization and assume the powerful or

influential positions. The glass ceiling is an experience of women in all countries around the

world including Africa. There have been a number of related concepts that are similar to the

glass ceiling concept which explains that even in female-dominated fields such as nursing, there

is a swift promotion of men over women especially into management. This fulfils the gender

stereotypes that men should be superior to females. While, others might argue that more women

are occupying management positions, this is still only a “drop in the ocean”. The glass ceiling

affects women in African Institutions in a number of ways.

Women Are Falling Off the Management Ladder—and Sooner Than Before

While the quality and the quantity of African women in the workforce increases, not many of

them are making it into top jobs—a sign that organizations might be overlooking some of their

best talent. According to the McKinsey & Company Survey Report (2009), over Seventy percent

of respondents believed there is a direct connection between a company’s gender diversity and

its financial success. Yet African companies have not so far successfully bridged the gap

between men and women in the top levels of management. This is not surprising, since the

survey shows that diversity isn’t a high priority at most companies and that there’s great

variability in the number of gender-diversity policies that companies have pursued.

The Women Matter Africa report ( August 2016) highlights that Africa has taken big strides forward

in terms of women's representation in the private and public sectors, achieving and in some cases

exceeding global averages. Yet gender equality remains very far off from being achieved. The

report presents the case for gender diversity in leadership across Africa to understand why
women remain under-represented in leadership at an organizational level using information

gathered across African Countries.

Getting serious about gender diversity

Research suggests women continue to face three big obstacles in taking on senior leadership

roles in African organizations: And it examines the barriers that prevent greater gender diversity

as well as the actions organizations can take to remove them

Gender issues are not taken seriously enough.

In Africa, only one in three CEOs has gender diversity on his or her agenda. Despite the strong

business case for gender diversity in leadership, only 31 percent of the African companies we

(the study) surveyed saw it as a top strategic priority for the CEO, while 25 percent stated it was

of no importance. Today’s African women leaders have succeeded, it seems, largely through a

combination of opportunity and drive rather than a coordinated corporate effort to promote

gender diversity. Yet unless gender diversity is at the top of the CEO’s agenda, progress toward

it is likely to be slow.

The barriers women face in the workplace are poorly understood.

Organizations do not share women leaders’ view of the impediments to their success.

Organizations and women leaders in Africa have different views on the main barriers to more

women taking on more senior positions. Organizational representatives see the “double burden”

syndrome, whereby working women also have to take primary responsibility for domestic duties,

as the biggest barrier to their success. Women see this as an issue too, but say the most important

barrier is attitudes in the workplace that result in women being treated differently from men to

which organizations give considerably less recognition. A range of unconscious biases occur –

sometimes held by women as well as men – that are obstacles to women’s advancement. The
performance evaluation bias, for example, describes how men tend to be evaluated more on their

future potential, and women more on what they have achieved to date. Women also tend to be

given less credit for their success than men, and to be criticized more for any failure. The

resulting lack of confidence means women are less likely to put themselves up for promotion.

There is also a maternal bias: motherhood triggers assumptions that women are less committed to

their careers. As a result, they tend to be held to higher standards and offered fewer leadership

opportunities.

Programs to redress the gender balance do not tackle the right issues.

Lack of understanding of the reasons for African women’s under-representation means efforts to

tackle it can miss their target. Though many companies have gender diversity initiatives in place,

only a few of these companies record any level of success in developing more women leaders.

Sometimes, however, the problem lies in poorly designed initiatives that do not adequately

improve the experience of the women that they are targeting, poorly implemented initiatives,

lack of sponsorship at the very top of the organization or buy-in from middle management. And

sometimes the initiatives chosen fail to tackle the underlying problems.

REFERENCES

McKinsey Quarterly, Moving women to the top: McKinsey Global Survey results:
https://www.mckinsey.it/idee/moving-women-to-the-top-mckinsey-global-survey-results

The Global Leadership Forecast 2011 is part of the continuing series of trend research
conducted by Development Dimensions International (DDI)’s Center for Applied Behavioral
Research (CABER).

Women Matter Africa Report: August 2016 Lohini Moodley Tania Holt Acha Leke Georges
Desvaux
https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Featured%20Insights/Women%20matter/

‘The Second Sex’ By Simone De Beauvoir, 1949

companies and public entities to tap into the entire talent pool rather than deprive themselves of

half of it.” – Conglomerate executive and private sector representative, Morocco

Emphasis on the emotional and visionary connection with followers is key in the

transformational context. Followers’ acceptance of transformational leadership was found in the

followers’ openness to positive emotions, and therefore if initiated, the results will amplify the

followers’ task performance. However, if followers are not susceptible to positive

emotions, it will have a negative correlation to task performance and leader-member

exchange strategies should ensue (Liang & Chi, 2013).

Females are deemed to portray more transformational leadership styles than males, however

males dominated in showing more power motivation, which in effect leads to followers’

perception of competence in leadership roles (Hernandez Bark et al., 2016). This contradicts the

situation for female leaders in politics that were seen as having lower competence for

perceived power seeking motivations (Okimoto & Brescoll, 2010), therefore again revealing the

double standards females need to endure

Introduction

Why Women Matter

DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast 2011 (Boatman & Wellins, 2011) found that the quality of
leadership talent in an organization is directly linked to its performance against competitors.
Knowing the impact that higher-quality leaders can have, how do organizations with a greater
proportion of female leaders compare to those with less gender diversity? Adding fuel to this
timeless fire, we (the study) discovered that leaders from organizations with a majority of
women had over 50 percent more leaders rating their leadership quality as high compared to
organizations in any other group (see Figure 2). Remember that men and women did not rate
their organizations’ leadership quality differently.
Looking more directly at an organization’s bottom line, organizations with a higher percentage
of women in leadership positions more frequently reported their financial performance as better
than the competition (see Figure 3). In fact, the relationship between female leaders and financial
performance was the strongest out of all criteria in this study. Other criteria, like engagement and
retention, had weaker but still significant links to having more women in leadership positions.

Giving Women A Chance

The Global Leadership Forecast 2009 identified a lack of development opportunities as a major
barrier to women advancing in leadership roles, and the results of the 2011 study continue to
support this finding. The quality of development was significantly related to the percentage of
women in leadership roles. This suggests that not only can a lack of development opportunities
act as a barrier, but effective development might be what provides the necessary boost women
need to climb the management ladder. Organizations with higher-quality development programs
had more female leaders than organizations with low quality leadership development programs at
all management levels, suggesting that high-quality development can support women every step
along the way.

Although we (the study) found that the quality of development plays a significant role in
predicting the percentage of women in leadership positions, it is not the only factor.
Organizations with more effective talent management systems (e.g.,selection, performance
management, succession) had a significantly higher percentage of women in leadership
positions, with the greatest difference being at the executive level, where organizations with
more effective talent management systems have 50 percent more female executives than
organizations with less effective talent management systems

The Global Leadership Forecast 2011 also found that organizations that have adopted more
innovative management practices (based on factors created by Gary Hamel’s Management
Innovation Lab, such as open decision making and flexible organizational structure; see the
global report for more information) more frequently outperformed their competition. Likewise,
we (the study) found that organizations with more effective talent management cultures also had
a higher percentage of women at all levels but, most particularly, at the executive level.
Organizations with a more effective management culture had 40 percent more female leaders
than organizations with a less effective culture (see Figure 6). More specifically, organizations
that have shared and meaningful values, organizational goals that were not solely focused on
bottom-line growth, and that give power and influence to those who value innovation instead of
the status quo were more likely to have more women leaders in their ranks.

What’s Good for Women Is Good for Business

The message is clear: Women mean business. Organizations with more women in leadership
roles outperform their competition. In today’s constantly changing and competitive landscape,
having high-quality leadership talent has never been more critical. Leaders need to appreciate
and leverage the opportunities that a diverse talent pool offers and challenge existing paradigms
about what leadership potential and talent look like. In other words, leaders need to truly act
as talent advocates—for all talent alike. And the ways to optimize your female talent potential is
simple. Recruit women: get them in the door. Develop women: cultivate the female talent you
have on board and help them realize their full potential. Support women: create a culture that is
merit-based and watch women rise to the top. Do this and your organization will not only stand a
better chance at retaining the next generation’s top talent, but also will reap the benefits of a
more diverse group of high-caliber leaders to drive your business.

A greater proportion of women at senior levels in business and government cannot be the only
goal. The type of roles they undertake is important too if they are to have as much influence as
men. In the private sector, most women managers hold staff roles rather than the line roles that
offer more exposure to decision-making forums, core operations, and promotion to CEO
positions. Staff roles focus on support functions such as HR and legal; line roles focus on core
operations such as strategy, finance, and risk. Africa is no different. Fifty-six percent of female
senior managers hold staff roles in the companies surveyed, and there is a substantial pay gap
between men and women holding senior positions in private sector companies-arguably another
indicator of women’s lack of influence. In South Africa, for example, women board members
earn 17 percent less than their male counterparts

14. Defined as a combination of three factors: level of input the leader has into key
organizational decisions, share of the organization’s financial resources overseen by the leader,
and the size and stature of the workforce that reports to the leader
15. Staff roles focus on support functions such as HR and legal; line roles focus on core
operations such as strategy, finance, and risk
16. McKinsey & Company in partnership with Lean In, 2015, Women in the Workforce 17.
McKinsey & Company, 2012, Unlocking the Full Potential of Women at Work 18. PWC, 2015,
Non-executive Directors: Practices and Remuneration Trends
Question 2

‘Kotter (1988) argues that “leadership” is the process of moving a group in some direction
through mostly non-coercive means’. Comment [25]

Leadership is defined as the use of non-coercive influence to shape the organizational goals,
motivate behavior toward the achievement of those goals and help define group or organization
culture

In this lesson, you will learn what coercive power is and some key concepts relating to it. You will
also have an opportunity to reinforce your knowledge with a short quiz that follows the lesson.

Definition of Coercive Power

Coercive power is the ability of a manager to force an employee to follow an order by
threatening the employee with punishment if the employee does not comply with the order.

The most important concept to understand about coercive power is that it uses the application of
force. It seeks to force or compel behavior rather than to influence behavior through persuasion.
Examples of coercive power include threats of write-ups, demotions, pay cuts, layoffs, and
terminations if employees don't follow orders. In order to be effective, the manager must be able
to follow through on the threat. If failure to comply doesn't result in punishment, threat of
punishment becomes meaningless and even counterproductive because employees may cease to
respect the legitimacy of the manager's authority.

Coercive Power in Leadership: Definition & Examples

https://study.com/academy/lesson/coercive-power-in-leadership-definition-examples-
quiz.html

REFERENCES

University Community Partnership for Social Action Research: