Gender Models in Leadership
Over the past year, Fritz and I developed and taught a one-credit hour course for our Leadership Certificate Program called Gender Models in Contemporary Healthcare Leadership. Fritz came up with the idea, then recruited me to team teach the course to give it a gender balance. Our main premise was to to use an evidence-based approach by having students conduct a scholarly review of the literature. We used a distance-learning format with Blackboard and conference calls/Skype. This worked remarkably well, and allowed us to build some synchronous discussions and presentations into the course. We had students from several different US states as well as India and Japan, and an almost equal split in genders.
The text we chose from the course was Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders by Eagly and Carli. Since we had four student teams, we focused on the four main questions listed below. Ultra-simplified answers are provided, but the whole story is much more complex and compelling.
1. Nature versus nurture: Are leaders born or made? Both. About 1/3 of leadership trait may be inheritable; about 2/3 is from experience and environment.
2. Do men and women lead differently? There are subtle differences, but successful leaders of both genders share common traits.
3. What is the impact of family responsibilities on gender and leadership? Men, especially those under 29, are contributing significantly more to domestic responsibilities, but women still do almost twice as much at home.
4. Are gender leadership differences based on discrimination or choice? Women leaders still earn 20% less than men; younger women (even those with children) are equal to men in their desire for jobs with more responsibility. Women are earning the majority of bachelors and masters degrees; by 2016, women will earn 54% of terminal professional degrees.
Student feedback was very positive, although one participant took umbrage at a perceived “feminist” tone to the course. We plan to continue the course with an attempt to delve more deeply into key issues, perhaps culminating with a regional conference.
We just presented these findings to a group of doctoral students/young careerists at the AUPHA conference in Chicago. This group was diverse in gender, race, age, and culture–they look very much like the future of healthcare. We had a very lively conversation about the labrynthes both men and women will face in the future. The good news is that future trends look positive for improving gender equality in leadership; the bad news is that we have a long way to go. Progress is imperative, however, if we want to tap into largest pool of potential leadership talent to face the challenges of the future.
