Abstract
Women leaders are scarce in evangelical mission organizations. Part of the reason may be gender-role stereotypes, which function very strongly in much of evangelicalism. This article presents the stories of two women who worked at executive-level leadership positions in evangelical mission organizations. Using narrative analysis and a critical feminist lens, I examine their stories to understand how these women describe their leadership and how they portray their use of power. The strength of gender-role stereotypes and evangelical gender roles appeared to define and limit the power they were able to use. As long as they stayed within prescribed norms, they experienced some success. Deviations from the gender-role stereotypes led to sanctions from their organizations. Conclusions and implications are that the stereotypes may limit women’s leadership and that both women and organizations need to become aware of how these unspoken assumptions may be functioning. Recommendations for women leaders and for organizations seeking to incorporate women into leadership are offered.
The world of evangelical mission organizations is visibly male-dominated. The leadership is typically almost exclusively male, despite repeated calls for greater diversity (Fensham et al., 2013; Starcher, 2012). Organizations may embrace a worldview which tends to favor men in positions of leadership. Organizational structures may make it difficult for women to gain leadership training or experience, and unwritten expectations may assign the bulk of family responsibility to women while assigning ministry to men.
Still, some organizations do place a woman in a leadership role, perhaps without fully considering the implications (Starcher, 2012). This study presents the stories of two such women. Each of them was selected to lead at an upper level in their respective organizations. They recount their journeys to leadership and the obstacles they encountered along the way. Using a feminist lens, I consider what their stories reveal about challenges women encounter when leading. Although this study deals with women in evangelical mission organizations, the implications may well resonate with women and organizations from the broader Christian tradition.
Literature review
Four decades of research on women’s leadership consistently shows that gender-role stereotypes impact women’s behavior socially and as leaders (Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001; Eagly and Karau, 2002). Despite strong evidence that such stereotypes do not accurately reflect realities about men and women, they are deeply engrained in our culture and many people believe them to be true (Hyde, 2005; Zell, Krizan, and Teeter, 2015). Gender-role stereotypes assign “agentic” behaviors to men and “communal” behaviors to women (Eagly and Karau, 2002). Agentic behaviors are primarily task-oriented and are thought to align with men’s “natural” characteristics (Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001; Eagly and Karau, 2002). Assertiveness, dominance, competence, and authoritativeness are among agentic characteristics (Carli and Eagly, 2011). Communal behaviors are primarily relational and are thought to align with women’s “natural” nurturing characteristics (Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001; Eagly and Karau, 2002). Communal behaviors include those that are “warm, supportive, kind, and helpful” (Carli and Eagly, 2011: 108). Agentic behavior is more highly valued in a leader than is communal behavior (Johanson, 2008). This connection is so strong that (Brenner, Tomkiewicz, and Schein, 1989: 668) referred to it as the “think manager—think male” effect.
These stereotypes also function as injunctive norms, defining how women ought to behave (Eagly and Karau, 2002). Women leaders, who often use agentic behaviors to fulfill their responsibilities (Carli and Eagly, 2001; Eagly, 2007; Yoder, 2001) encounter disapproval even when they are organizationally successful since they contradict the behaviors expected of good women (Eagly and Karau, 2002). If they use communal behaviors, then they do not meet the requirements for leadership and may also encounter disapproval (Eagly and Karau, 2002). This creates a double-bind, since the woman cannot win no matter what she does (Eagly, 2007; Koenig et al., 2011). For women in evangelicalism, gender roles are particularly influential.
Evangelicalism is typically defined as a specific set of theological beliefs; thus, someone who holds to the literal truth and authority of the Bible, the virgin birth of Jesus, salvation only through faith in Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, a transformed life, and sharing this message with others would typically be considered an evangelical (Armstrong, 2007). However, Ingersoll (1997) points out that defining evangelicalism in terms of theological beliefs rather than life practices has the effect of focusing on men’s concerns and ignoring “the tradition as it is experienced by believers” (47).
A strong aspect of the evangelical tradition as experienced by believers is gender essentialism, the idea that men and women are fundamentally different based on biology. Evangelical religion has held tightly to essentialist views for over a century (Bendroth, 1993). Biology is used to define separate roles for men and women, which are then tied to religious requirements (Gallagher and Smith, 1999). Fundamentally, men are assigned to the public realm of work, and women are assigned to the private realm of home. A closer look at the evangelical gender roles shows that they correspond very closely to the social gender-role stereotypes described above. See Table 1.
Comparison of social gender-role stereotypes with evangelical gender roles.
Feminist scholarship has deconstructed the notion of gender essentialism to show that gender is in reality constructed, not biologically determined (Andersen and Hysock, 2009; Stead and Elliott, 2009). Women are socialized to be nurturing, caring, and supportive, while men are socialized to lead (Tisdell, 1993). However, feminism has had little impact on evangelical religion, which rejected it outright and instead codified the “separate spheres” into religious doctrine (Ingersoll, 2003, 1997; Ross, 2006). For evangelical women today, the pressure to conform is quite strong. Women are expected to be both supportive of and submissive to men (Sowinska, 2007; Shaw, 2008). Support means taking the primary responsibility for care of the home and family and primarily supporting men’s work, be it husband or male superior (Frame and Shehan, 2005; Pavalko and Elder, 1993). Submission means being deferential to males, and supporting male authority (Gallagher, 2004). These expectations are clearest in the home but also apply in church and work settings. When work is a religious organization, the expectations can be extremely powerful.
Problem and significance
Many studies have been conducted in the last 40 years demonstrating the strength of gender-role expectations on women in the workplace, and the effects on women’s advancement to leadership. This study sought to explore the effects of evangelical gender-role stereotypes by hearing the stories of two women leaders in evangelical mission organizations. These women were appointed to leadership roles that required them to use capacities aligned more closely with the gender-role expectations for men. Yet according to the evangelical worldview, they were required to fulfill the gender-role expectations for women. Their stories grant insight into the strength of gender-role stereotypes in these two mission organizations, and the impact of those role expectations on these two women. They also hold promise for discovering ways to challenge gender essentialist thinking in other organizations.
Purpose and design
The two women presented in this study, Donna and Caroline, both have experience as executive-level leaders in their respective organizations. Caroline is president of a non-profit international mission college dedicated to training local educators. Donna worked for several years on the executive team of an organization that does church planting, education, camping, and inner-city youth work on two continents. The research questions guiding the study were, (a) how do these women describe their leadership, and (b) how do they portray their use of power?
I used a semi-structured interview protocol to converse with the women. Both interviews were recorded and later transcribed. I coded and analyzed each interview using constant comparative analysis (Charmaz, 2006; Butler-Kisber, 2010) developing themes and comparing them to the literature. Constant comparative analysis was suitable in this study since so little is known about women leaders in evangelical mission agencies and the method allows knowledge to emerge (Butler-Kisber, 2010); it also fits with my feminist ethic of taking the women seriously as they recount their experiences (Charmaz, 2006). Because of my own history as a woman missionary, after the study was concluded, I enlisted three outside readers who were not connected to mission work to review and comment on the findings. This strategy of peer debriefing served to check my analysis and presentation of the findings, helping assure the study’s trustworthiness (Freeman et al., 2007).
As a narrative analysis piece, this article presents two women’s stories, primarily in their own words, in order to “foreground their voices and perspectives” (Butler-Kisber, 2010: 71). The method I use here to present their stories is “ghostwriting,” using their own words from the interview transcripts to re-present their stories (Butler-Kisber, 2010) combined with layering to insert my researcher’s analysis voice (Johnson-Bailey, 2001). In ghostwriting, I stuck as closely as possible to the words of my participants, so the reader can understand their dilemmas. By using the layered text, I aimed to construct what Van Maanen (2011: 128) calls a “critical tale,” that is, one that has “a concern for representing social structure as seen through the eyes of disadvantaged groups.” The main liberty I took with the text presented here relates to order. Occasionally one of them added information later in the interview that—when told as a story—made more sense earlier on. This ordering serves to bring coherence to the stories. Reading their stories in their own words with a few critical comments interspersed allows me to make visible what has been hidden, and to tell the stories of two women who lead in worlds where women may not be considered leaders.
Caroline’s story
This is my journey to president. Years ago we were pastoring in a rural community. I had a master’s degree and I was homeschooling my kids, so I wasn’t doing anything in a corporate or educational environment. I’d been writing some curriculum and volunteering at a distance for the college. At some point I began to get dissatisfied with what we were doing. We thought of moving near the college so we could continue in some kind of ministry. And the college was glad to get someone with a master’s degree, but basically all I did for the first year or so was proofread.
* * * * *
As a pastor’s wife, role expectations for Caroline would be to frame her life as supporting her husband’s career but not to pursue anything of her own; male pastors reflect what is known as a “two-person career” (Frame and Shehan, 2005; Murphy-Geiss, 2011). Pavalko and Elder (1993) found that fully 100 % of the clergy wives they interviewed said they contribute directly to their husband’s careers, and the majority viewed themselves as partners with him in his job. Thus women’s work is clearly subsumed under men’s work (Bierema, 2009).
* * * * *
So after I’d been here a year or two there were some organizational difficulties, and I was asked to be in the leadership. And right on the heels of that first question there was an accusation against the president, so this was a very traumatic time. And the council just kept meeting. When it was all over, I had demonstrated quite a bit of loyalty to the president. Some of the people who had instigated trying to oust him gradually began to leave. So when they left I began taking some of their roles.
We came to the place where he wanted to replace himself as the president of the college. He was elderly. But he liked to experiment; he really liked the idea of a husband and a wife on leadership teams. So he wanted to do that experiment with my husband and me, and he asked us to be co-presidents. My husband had a professional doctorate but wasn’t interested in academic work, and at that point I hadn’t started doctoral studies. But for two reasons I never said that I would be willing to do that. For one, obviously I was the one who would do the work but we would be called co-presidents. I felt like it would be hard on our marriage, with me in the lead but with an equal title. And the other reason is because I just didn’t think it was a good fit for my husband, and a professional doctorate is not the right degree to be leading an academic institution. So we sort of just left the nomination on the table and the president continued on for a while. And then at some point he let me know that he had a nominee on the table. So I thought, OK, I need to officially withdraw our nomination. I thought, privately, if he wanted to he could say, “OK, I just nominate you.” Well, he didn’t do that.
* * * * *
She does not say yes to the proposed return to the “two-person career.” She frames the decision as being preferable because it is better for her husband. This works well with how women are constructed under evangelicalism, expected to support and promote their husbands first of all (Aune, 2008); she can use that reason for her own purposes. She also did not just say “no” outright. Since she really did want the job herself she hoped the leader would recognize her ability and give it to her. To this point all of her movement into leadership has been portrayed as passive: she accepts jobs but does not ask for them.
* * * * *
But what he did do? He started talking with me about “Would this person work? Would that person work?” and he said to me, “Well, Caroline, I’m just trying to find a president you can work with.” By this time I think I had the role of vice president. And then at some other point he said, “I think of you as acting president.” Now this is the difficult part, what happened next. I said to him, “Tomorrow I have a meeting with the academic team. Will you come to that meeting with me and we will tell the team that I am acting as if I am president?” That was very hard for me. But I have a very strong commitment to the president and his purposes. I don’t think there is anyone else who would keep that vision at this point.
* * * * *
The president starts by looking for someone she can work with, implying he planned another job-sharing role. When he acknowledges her as “acting president” she accepts that and, for the first time in her story, asks for something: his public support of her leadership.
* * * * *
OK, so here’s what he did. We talked to the academic team together and I said, “I’m going to be acting as though I’m president.” The very next day another couple came to talk to him about the leadership role, and they said, “Why aren’t you considering us?” For years they had aspired and almost assumed that they would take over when the president was no longer around. So he offered the role to them. The board would do whatever he said. So the husband did become the president. His wife and I were working together, because she said, “The former president wants me to help Caroline,” but I was thinking, “I don’t need you to tell me what to do.” So finally I stuck up for myself and said, “I just can’t work with the two of you. I’ll just have to be out of the picture.” Well that didn’t fly! She’s brilliant, and he’s charismatic, but everyone knew there’s no one but me carrying the load of what was getting done. So the husband became the president, I stayed the vice president, and we struggled along together I think for three years. Never could we get it clear, are they reporting to me as vice president, or to you as president?
* * * * *
So Caroline wound up back in a support role, this time supporting a couple in the president’s role. According to her, everyone knew she was the one doing the work, yet there was a male figurehead in place. The one time in her whole story where she asked for something—public recognition for the job she was doing—it was withdrawn, and the job was given to another couple. She has stepped outside her prescribed role and is penalized (Eagly and Karau, 2002).
* * * * *
The new president began listening more and more closely to his business advisors, and they got grandiose notions of what we might be able to become, and they started saying, “Let’s have another structure; we’ll call it College-B. Caroline, you can stay with College-A.” And I finally said, “I’m just going to have to tell the board what you’re doing. You need approval to go in a completely new direction like this.” The tension kept getting worse. I kept reaching out to the former president who was still on the board as Chancellor, and I would point out that this is not a healthy dynamic. There’s someone who in theory should be in charge, and someone else is doing the work. After a while he finally just told the president, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to reassign you elsewhere.”
So then for a year and a half I was still vice president. The board refused to do anything with a presidential search. I made suggestions and flow charts, but they wouldn’t make a decision. The first president had never trusted anyone else to decide things, and if someone tried they got slapped down. Anyway, this went on for a year and a half. Then he died, and there was no president. And they still refused to even make me interim CEO. They said, “Well, you can just report to the board chair.” I think it’s still a dynamic of loyalty to the second president, plus an old-boy network. The second president is still having a lot of influence on the board from his new position. He is still a trustee to this day, which is yet another poor dynamic.
Finally a consultant told them they just had to do it, to appoint me, because they weren’t doing the college any favors by leaving it without a president for so long. He might even have said, “You can always change it later,” which would be true. They could do that. It was just a year ago this month when the board had a meeting where I was finally appointed president, but to the last minute it was a question whether they would be willing to have that vote. But it’s not like they had anybody else in mind. Still, this gives me lots of confidence, right? So that’s how I got to this role, and I continue to have struggles.
* * * * *
Despite years of what she portrays as competent leadership, Caroline struggles to the end to gain recognition for her work (Heilman and Kram, 1983). In this authoritarian world men make the final decisions: first the original president, then the second president, and finally an outside consultant pressuring the board.
Donna’s story
I started volunteering with the mission about 15 or 16 years ago, just helping others with their projects. There was so much work that it became a full-time job. So we decided to become career missionaries. We went to orientation, and I was actually appointed straight into a leadership role. But then while we were in the process of getting ready to go overseas and work there, the organizational leadership changed, so my role basically no longer existed. I was reappointed without my knowledge to a different department. I declined that, so when we moved overseas I actually had no role.
You know, I didn’t realize right away that my role had disappeared. It wasn’t until we’d had no communication for several months that someone at the headquarters finally realized we had fallen through the cracks and they scrambled to place me in a different area without my permission. So from the beginning I thought being appointed to leadership was what was going to happen. It was what I anticipated. I was looking forward to that; I was qualified for the role that I was going to have. I had been leading at a college before this. I’d been responsible for three departments, about 26 employees total, serving 2,000 students. I had also directed various faith-based volunteer programs for teaching English for about 20 years. So I struggled with the fact that I was reassigned without any feedback and the fact that it was just not even something that matched me. It was several steps below someone in leadership, so I was offended by that and I didn’t even want to be in that department, so that was why I made myself clear by not accepting that appointment.
* * * * *
Like Caroline, Donna began volunteering with an organization, and then decided to work for them full-time. Unlike Caroline, Donna actually began her career expecting to be in a leadership position. When offered a lower-status assignment, she refused it. This organization sounds authoritarian, assuming that she would accept an unsuitable, alternative placement.
* * * * *
So after a year or so, I was asked to be part of a leadership team over a few departments. And from that team I made a proposal to start the department that I was supposed to lead originally. So I did, and led that department, and became part of the leadership team. So I had two hats. Next I was leading a few departments by myself instead of as part of a team, and then I was asked to be part of the executive leadership team of the organization. All of that took place within about seven years. They needed a woman, because it doesn’t look good when an organization’s executive leadership team has no women. So they look for women who can fill those slots. When I joined the executive team I was the second woman, and then for a while I was the only one. And they felt like they knew me and could work with me. I don’t know that I had any qualifications, just relationships.
* * * * *
Donna seems to have come to doubt her leadership qualifications for the executive team, attributing her appointment, in part, to tokenism, and thinking they chose her based on relationships rather than ability. It is entirely possible that she was chosen because they thought they “could work with her,” meaning that she would not challenge the male leaders (Ingersoll, 2003).
* * * * *
I really tried to be an advocate for the departments I led, so I had to do a lot of lobbying, which meant that I had to invest a lot of time in relationships. I feel that women—it doesn’t seem that men have to do this as much—do a lot of negotiating outside the normal meetings. I found I succeeded as a leader by actually having these outside conversations, knowing that if I mentioned something in a meeting it wouldn’t have the same credibility it might if a man mentioned it, or a certain man. So I would have conversations with those individuals and influence them enough to where either they supported me when I brought something up, or they actually brought it up themselves. And I had to accept the fact that that was just the way one worked. It was actually probably one of my most successful strategies.
* * * * *
A common frustration for women is that if they suggest an idea in a meeting, it is ignored. Men talk more and are heard better since they are perceived as more powerful (Brescoll, 2012). Donna learned this, and says she learned to work around it. The less powerful employ this strategy to get the more powerful on their side (Johnson-Bailey and Cervero, 1998).
* * * * *
Sometimes the men would stop and ask themselves if they were acknowledging my perspective as a woman. Personally I think they were pretty unable to see even with that level of awareness. They encouraged themselves by thinking that they were aware and sensitive. But I don’t think that they were aware or sensitive, and I don’t think they had the capacity to understand more than what I was challenging them on. They would say, “You know we really are listening to you,” like they were trying to convince themselves. I just let them believe what they wanted to believe, because they clearly didn’t have any self-awareness in this area.
* * * * *
Donna portrays herself showing a great deal of self-awareness, and a shrewd understanding of her environment. This is another indicator of power. The less powerful have to be constantly aware of what the powerful group is doing but the powerful can pick and choose when and if they pay attention to the less powerful (McIntosh, 2007). So simply by choosing to pay attention or not, the men reveal their privileged position.
* * * * *
As an advocate I feel like I was clearly not successful and in the end just marginalized and stereotyped, so that they always thought they could expect the same kind of response from me. A lot of my advocacy was trying to be supportive of the departments I led, so I tried to build bridges between them and the headquarters. I invested time and made some risky decisions that didn’t turn out to benefit those I was trying to help. And I couldn’t share with them all that I was doing on their behalf, and so I also became part of the “they”—the ones who were not supportive and helping in areas that needed to be changed. And I’ve been told other leaders perceive me as confrontational and disagreeable, and some staff members perceive me as weak and unable to stand up for the right thing.
* * * * *
Donna describes being caught in a classic double-bind here (Eagly, 2007). The departments under her believe she is ineffective as a leader, and the leaders around her dislike her push-back and label her “disagreeable” because she challenges their policies. What she believed were good leadership practices are viewed as negative both from above and below, because she is breaking gender norms which require her to be “nice” (Eagly and Karau, 2002), and she takes sole responsibility for this.
* * * * *
There were leadership changes, and someone else had been brought in to lead my region. I actually flew back to the States to meet with this new leader, and I was told I would be leading as a team with him, but that wasn’t true. It was just talk, not reality. They gave the leadership role to him while telling me I was part of a team. But the reality was that I was not part of the new team. I was excluded from anything having to do with leadership in that whole region. So it was easier for me to step away and not subject myself to that any more.
All along I had planned that when we moved back to the US I would leave my leadership role. So I left it probably a little bit prior to when I would have, because I saw that I was becoming less and less effective. And I started focusing more on a leadership role than I had outside the organization. I’m trying to think whether it was two or three years I was at the executive level—it seems like an eternity!
* * * * *
Donna’s story ends as it began: her independent leadership role has vanished, and a shared role is the only option (Bierema, 2009; Frame and Shehan, 2005). Donna has already found herself other work outside her own organization and by the time it is clear that her leadership job is gone, she already is leading in a different setting.
Discussion
Caroline’s and Donna’s narratives paint a distressing portrait of their leadership journeys in their respective organizations. Power swirls about and around, coming almost within reach, only to recede and leave them disempowered once again.
The masculinist tale
One possible reading of Caroline’s tale is what Bloom (2002) calls a “masculinist” story, or typical heroic narrative, where she is the protagonist who overcomes obstacles on her journey to triumph. In this version the patriarchal power flowing in her organization emanates from the literal patriarch: the first president who, according to her, never let anyone make a decision without his approval. To the degree that he invests it in her, she appears able to take up and use power. In this version, she is the loyal supporter who stays by him through difficult times and believes unswervingly in his vision. Her reward is that he gradually moves her up the organizational ladder by appointing her to a series of positions that culminate in the position of vice president. She deviates only once from the approved line, and is punished but not disqualified. Overcoming a series of obstacles along the way she eventually arrives at the pinnacle of the organization, becoming its president. Of course Caroline does not tell her story quite like this; along the way she inserts hints showing that things are not always as they seem.
The feminist tale
An alternative reading of her narrative through a feminist lens would agree that male power is central to her story and add that it is used to keep Caroline firmly in her place. Initially Caroline’s husband is the center: he is working as a pastor and she considers herself to be part of the package, but she is dissatisfied with that life. Once they move to the college, male power shifts to the president. He determines which roles she takes. He wants to place her in another job-sharing role with her husband. She is not interested, but thinking she has gained his support asks him to confirm her position as acting president to the college staff. He does so, and then he immediately rescinds the decision. In one move he both punishes her for having asked directly for recognition and title for the work she has been doing, and places her back in a position of subsuming her work under that of a man, who gets the credit for it. In this version Caroline becomes not the faithful heroine who is rewarded in the end, but the seemingly competent woman whose presidential work the men refuse to recognize. They resist her use of power at every stage.
For Donna, there is no masculinist tale, only a feminist one. When she takes up her power by offering what she believes is competent leadership to her teams, they are unappreciative. When she takes on power, by representing her people and trying to make sure they get the support they need to do their jobs from upper leadership, it backfires. She is labeled “weak” by her staff, “disagreeable” by her peer leaders and superiors, and marginalized to the point that she cannot do her job. While she is on the executive leadership team, notionally equal to the other team members, she describes herself acting in ways that less powerful people use to influence the more powerful. Her own voice does not appear to carry weight in meetings; she needs a man to represent her position to the male team. The men disregard women almost to the point of bigotry; their actions in occasionally stopping to consider the “woman’s perspective” indicate that they can choose whether or not to notice women. They live in the world of the privileged, where the less privileged are visible only when wanted, and fade into the background again as soon as they are no longer needed.
The critical tale
Both stories can be read as cautionary tales, warning women of potential leadership pitfalls. Both women, in their leadership journeys, learned that what they saw as competent leadership is not necessarily rewarded (Heilman and Kram, 1983), that breaking gender-role stereotypes is penalized (Eagly and Karau, 2002), and that women’s work is expected primarily to support men’s work (Bierema, 2009). In the evangelical organizations where they work, the gender scripts seem particularly strong, likely because they have become a non-negotiable aspect of the faith (Ingersoll, 2003). Power lies at the heart of the gender-role constructs. As long as the women behaved in communal ways, being supportive of male authority, they appeared able to function within the scope assigned to them. When they became agentic, being decisive, directive, task-oriented, and taking initiative, they encountered difficulties. In the evangelical gender-role constructs, as well as the social ones, agentic behavior by women breaks the norms. The injunctive strength of the norms allows for sanctions on women who break the roles. The addition of a religious foundation to these requirements seems to strengthen them and bring additional pressure for conformity. The end results for the women were situations or events created by the men and designed to limit the women’s power. The women described blatant strategies of demotion, placing them back in support roles, as well as more subtle strategies of ignoring, marginalizing, stereotyping, and labeling.
Conclusion and implications
The overall effect of their stories shows that a position of leadership that seems powerful may, in fact, when occupied by a woman, not be particularly powerful at all. The women’s stories illustrate the apparent strength of gender-role stereotypes in their own mission organizations. They also make evident some of the challenges that may arise when women seek to navigate as leaders in similar organizations.
One clear limitation of this study is that it only included two women. More interviews would shed further light on women’s leadership experiences in evangelical mission organizations. Further studies could invite more explicit commentary regarding the religious or theological issues women like them encounter. Never-theless, this exploratory study suggests “take-away” lessons for both men and women in evangelical mission organizations, and perhaps mission organizations across the ecclesial spectrum.
Lessons for women
Women entering into leadership may find their actions scrutinized according to social and religious role stereotypes. Being aware of these stereotypes and consciously negotiating them may help women function in a highly contested and circumscribed space. Specific steps women may want to take are:
Examine their own understanding of what it means to be a woman in leadership. Some women shy away from thinking about the topic from a desire not to be influenced by it. However, if as women we are not conscious of our beliefs, we are less aware of what motivates us and of how we are perceived.
Develop a support network. This could be other women inside or outside of the organization. It could also be male peers with whom you can establish collegial working relationships.
Look for a “champion.” Actively seek out male colleagues who will support you, offer constructive feedback, and open doors for you if possible.
Lessons for organizations
Organizations need to become cognizant of any underlying beliefs and values they might hold regarding women, and be willing to address these openly rather than penalizing women leaders for not conforming to a stereotype. Specific steps male organizational leaders can take are:
Examine your own purposes for bringing women into leadership. Creating gender-diverse leadership without managing that diversity may well backfire (Starcher, 2012). Know why you are choosing a woman and what you expect her to offer. Make those expectations explicit from the start.
Listen and learn. Listen to your women leaders. Learn about the challenges women face when they try to lead. Read about gender-role stereotypes. Learn to recognize and challenge the double-bind.
Support the woman once she is in place (Dzubinski, 2011). These stories were riddled with events where the organization failed to support the woman’s leadership, and lack of organizational support is a primary complaint of women in mission organization leadership (Dzubinski, 2011; Gascho, 2008).
These women’s stories offer implications both for women who lead and for organizations that wish to incorporate women into leadership. Many of the women’s challenges seemed due to tacit acceptance of unexamined gender-role stereotypes. As long as unspoken assumptions regarding women’s place and behavior prevail, neither women nor organizations will fully benefit from women’s leadership skills and contributions. Becoming aware of these stereotypes and working deliberately to defuse them may go a long way towards bringing women’s leadership gifts to full contribution in organizations that value gender diversity.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.