Women's Leadership

Introduction 3
the impact of gender on women leaders’ experiences. We also want
to explore how a critical analysis of women leaders’ accounts then
impacts upon our conceptions of leadership. In sum, we are interested
in exploring what the implications of a focus on the relational
through a gender lens are in making sense of how women become
and identify themselves as leaders? How does this influence how
women leaders learn? And how does this then inform how we might
develop leadership for women?
A persistent lack of equality for women in the workplace
A second major reason for our focus on women and leadership is that
women leaders are still far from achieving equality in the workplace.
The annual Sex and Power Report (The Equality and Human Rights
Commission, 2008) paints a stark picture of women in positions of
power and influence in the UK. They liken women’s progress to that
of a snail’s pace, with women accounting for 11 per cent of FTSE 100
directorships and 19.3 per cent of positions in Parliament. In many
cases, particularly in public service organisations such as the police,
judiciary, health service and local government, they note a decline
in the number of women holding top jobs. For working mothers and
for women of ethnic minority the picture is even bleaker. The report
observes a move from ‘aspiration to frustration’ as women from ethnic
minorities have lesser representation in senior roles, and working
mothers find the organisations’ inflexibility preventing them from
achieving positions of power after having children. A report on the
gender pay gap, that is the inequality of pay levels between men and
women, by the TUC (2008) also notes that in the UK women’s work
is paid less than men’s with a full-time pay gap of 17.2 per cent and
a part-time pay gap of 35.6 per cent. Women’s lack of equality in the
workplace is not unique to the UK. In the USA, The New York Times
(2006) reports a continuing gender pay gap with a slowing of progress
towards equal pay since the 1980s. In particular it notes the pay gap is
widest among highly paid workers and that high earning jobs in areas
such as finance and technology are still mostly held by men. More
globally, a report of privately held international businesses in 32 countries
(Grant Thornton, 2009) writes that internationally 38 per cent of
businesses do not have any women in senior management roles, and
that this figure remains unchanged since 2004. While some countries
show a rise in the number of women in senior roles, for example