FEMINISM

 The advocacy of women's rights on the

ground of the equality of the sexes.
 Feminism is a range of political movements,
ideologies, and social movements that share
a common goal to define, establish, and
achieve political, economic, personal, and
social gender equality.
FEMINIST LEADERSHIP

 Feminist leadership is a process by which women assert their rights by

continually evaluating relevant experiences, questioning their roles in
society, challenging power structures, and effectively catalyzing
positive social change.
Peggy Antrobus
FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES & LEADERSHIP

 A feminist case for leadership by Amanda Sinclair

 On 10 October 2012, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, addressed the
Australian Parliament.
 “Every day the Prime Minister stand in this parliament to defend the
speaker, would be another day of shame this parliament and government
which should already have already died of shame”
Tony Abbott(opposition leader)
Why can the prime minister’s speech?

1. First, it demands we look at the sustained, yet routinised and systemic way
in which women are demeaned, discriminated against and subordinated
because of their sex.
2. Second, feminism helps us understand why the special category of women
with power (leaders) will attract particularly vicious and brutal efforts to
drive women into silence or submission
3. feminism brings us theories and ways of comprehending the ‘underbelly’ of
leadership
What is Leadership

 The word "leadership" can bring to mind a

variety of images. For example:
 A political leader, pursuing a passionate,
personal cause.
 An explorer, cutting a path through the
jungle for the rest of his group to follow.
 An executive, developing her company's
strategy to beat the competition.
Leadership is not a position or a person but a
process of influence, often aimed at mobilising
people towards change.
  Leadership is an influence process
that enable managers to get their
people to do willingly what must be
Definitions of done, do well what ought to be
done.(Cribbin, J.J)
leadership  Leadership is defined as the process
of influencing the activities of an
organized group toward goal
achievement.(Rauch & Behling.)
 Leadership is discovering the
company's destiny and having the
courage to follow it.( JoeJaworski ).
 Leadership is interpersonal influence,
exercised in a situation, and directed,
through the communication process,
toward the attainment of a specified
goal or goals.( Tannenbaum,Weschler
& Massarik)
 Brief History

1840 1950 1990

Great Man Theory Behavioral Theory Leader – Follower Theory (
1990 onwards)

Trait theory Contingency Theory

1910–1948 1967
Interest in women’s leadership

 1970s and 1980s and alongside the rise of

second-wave feminism and a focus on
affirmative action in many Western
countries, feminist scholarship began to
document women’s experiences of
organizing and influencing the public
agenda, including in Australia.
 A psychological preoccupation became
common that meant women and men
led and managed differently.
  In late 1970s Researchers concluded
that there was little difference due to
sex in achievement motivation, risk-
taking, task persistence and other
significant managerial skills.
Interest in  Hence, even early research
women’s demonstrated that women are not
psychologically handicapped for
leadership leadership but rather face a barrage
of gendered assumptions and
stereotypes about their fitness for
leadership
Interest in women’s leadership

By the late 1980s and early 1990s, a new

interest specifically focused on women and
leadership was emerging.
That there was now a ‘second wave’ of
women leaders who no longer had to
mimic the ‘command and control’ male
model of organizational leadership.
Rosener’s argument & Alice Eagly
observes

 That women lead differently to men—elicited

controversy, with researchers noting the consequences
of identifying a ‘feminine or women’s style of leading.
 Women leaders are identified as having a ‘female
advantage showing up as consistently demonstrating
qualities of transformational leadership such as
individualized consideration inspirational motivation
and ‘intellectual stimulation.
 However, simultaneously disadvantaged by
stereotypes of leadership that resemble stereotypes of
men— that is, agentic, confident, aggressive and self-
determined.
 Feminism perspective has
undergone enormous
changed in the end of
twentieth century into twenty
first
Bringing a
Impact Of Social
feminist Theories
perspective Radical and • Post structuralism
to liberal feminism • Past modernism
leadership • Postcolonial
scholorship
Knowledge

Focus on Power

Themes of
Commitment, Interests and Feminism
Non Hierarchical Relatives
Work

Empowerment
Bringing A Feminist Perspective To
Leadership
 In 1970`s &1980 general scholars feminist scholars
deconstruct organizational and leadership life
 Learn the rope
 Australian scholar clare burton
Bringing A Feminist Perspective To
Leadership
 Map of cultural norms of hegomonic masculinity
 Obstacles of women aspiring leadership
Bringing A Feminist Perspective To
Leadership
 Feminist organizational scholars view about leadership
 Marta calas
 Linda smircich
 Leadership is about seduction
 `Se ducere` `lead` or `lead astary`
Bringing A Feminist Perspective To
Leadership
 Many women and critical scholars have helped us see that
leadership is not ‘great deeds by great men’ but A relational,
discursive and inter subjective phenomena between people
 Leadership is not simply the way someone does A job or activity, but
rather A series of ways of talking and understanding that is
prefigured by relations of power and knowledge
 Interest of women scholar
Bringing a feminist perspective to
leadership
 Feminists and postcolonial scholars have criticized
models of leadership support by the dominance of elites
and institutions such as the World Bank.
 A common thread is the focus on the discourses of
colonialism, development and postcolonialism.
 Mohanty (Feminism without Borders) argues that
decolonization that allows for the recovery of authentic
local values and culture is hindered by the surrounded
of Western
 Knowledge and systems
 Rules and values’
 She says that ‘privilege Support blindness
Bringing a feminist perspective to
leadership
 Feminist standpoint theory has advanced the idea that the
perspectives of the marginalized and disempowered are a source of
leadership.
 As Sandra Harding has also suggested, standpoint research seeks to
‘study up’, revealing the norms and practices of dominant institutions
whose impact may only be visible to those subordinated by them.
Feminist standpoint theorists make three principal claims:
 Knowledge is socially situated.
 Marginalized groups are socially situated in ways that make it more
possible for them to be aware of things and ask questions than it is for
the non-marginalized.
 Research, particularly that focused on power relations, should begin
with the lives of the marginalized.
Bringing a feminist perspective to
leadership

 Women scholars and leaders have also shown that leadership is often
done in resistance and refusal from the bottom or the margins of
society, rather than from formal positions at the top.
 In her work on Indigenous women’s leadership, Pat argues that the
women she has researched, including her grandmother (Martha) and
great-grandmother (Lillian), demonstrated great leadership in their
resistance, in their humor and in their pride and confidence as women.
 Though the historical records show Aboriginal women were treated as
chattels, incubators and prostitutes, these women continued to lead: to
stand up and push back, to fight for their families and assert their value
as women.
 Continue leadership to draw power

Not lose sight of important values

Open to diversity
Conclusion

Shifting measures of success

Be reflective and to show people about

your work