Key Issues Faced by Female Leadership During Covid-19 Crisis

NARRATED PRESENTATION

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................1
Female leadership...................................................................................................................1
Key issues faced by female leadership...................................................................................2
Factors affecting the female leadership..................................................................................3
Models and theories used.......................................................................................................4
The female leadership lessons from Covid-19 crisis..............................................................7
Recommendations about what can be learned from the female leadership during the
coronavirus crisis....................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
The coronavirus pandemic has posed different challenges and issues on leaders of
varied companies. However, in the context of the female leaders it is very precarious. Women
have played a critical role in responding to the issues being created by the covid19 pandemic.
Based on this, the main aim of the current presentation is to focus on the key issues being
faced by the female leadership in the current covid19 pandemic and evaluating the factors
that has affected the same. In addition to this, the presentation will also focus on the key
theories and models being used as a mind map for the current choice of study. Further, a
relevant recommendation for resolving the key issues being faced by the female leadership
and making improvement in their position will be offered in the final section.
Female leadership
Because of the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis, there has been enormous test of
female leadership. Across the globe, head of state have been compelled to spring to action in
a bid for tackling the situation of pandemic. Across this stormy period, one thing which is
clear that some of the nations have fared markedly better as compared to others in
overpowering the coronavirus and these nations have tend to have female leaders. In addition
to this, female leadership simply signifies that the women are leading and offering direction
to the workers in the organization. it has been proved by different studies that women leaders
generally adopt an empathetic style for influencing others and for building trust (Busse,
2018). This in turn helps the female leaders in producing productive as well as efficient teams
and groups. Furthermore, there are varied features that defines the female leadership that is
people orientation, tendency to cooperate, more prone towards modifications and adaptations,
ability to perform tasks in all the direction and inclusivity or horizontal leadership.
However, when discussing in relation with the women leaders, there is a
phenomenon defined as a “Glass Cliff”. It is obviously related with the glass ceiling which
explains the invisible barrier to development that is being faced by females mostly when they
are up for promotions to the top level in any business corporations (Dowling, 2017). The
glass cliff generally explains the notion that when firm is in a trouble, a female leader is being
out in place to save it (Amon, 2017). When women are finally given an opportunity to prove
themselves in the top positions, they are being shouldered something which is already broken
and where the chances of failure are quite high.
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Key issues faced by female leadership
During the coronavirus pandemic, women leadership faced several issues as due to
restrictions and travel bans, each and every one was supposed to do their job on work from
home settings and for female leaders, this was quite challenging. The workload of the female
leaders has been increased. Furthermore, for the single parent, generally it is women, have to
suffer a lot from this pandemic. In addition to this, the managerial positions of the women
were at higher risk because of the lack of support from the management. They can be
replaced at any time by a male employee (Storey and et.al., 2016). Other than this, female
leaders have also faced the issues related to manging work-life balance, inability to establish
the work rhythm, non-work demands that exists in the home environment, presence of the
young children and many more. All these issues have impacted the overall work of the female
leaders during the crisis. Explanation of all these issues is being done in the below section:
 Workload for female leaders – Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the workload of
the female leaders has been increased a lot. It’s a general tendency that when certain
trouble situation is being created than female leaders are shouldered with more
responsibility as there are minimum chances of having success (Al-Ghanim, 2019).
 Challenges for single parents – Further, in the situation of covid19, the single parents
which are generally women have suffered a lot as they have to manage both
household chores, children and work projects. This is due to the fact that the child
care along with the school system does not meet the requirements of the working
women and because of this, they have faced different challenges in managing work
chores, their children and workloads.
 Lack of support – Most of the time female leaders does not get required support from
their top management, colleagues and managers and due to which they do not get
promotions and achieve higher goals in their career.
 High risk of job loss – Even during the covid19 crisis, the risk of job loss was quite
higher for women and this is mainly because of the gender differentiation that exists
in the society. It is a known fact that women are not treated equally as man. From
being held to a higher standard as compared to the male corresponding colleagues, to
coming across with insistent gender stereotypes, women leaders are systemically
placed on a rough and bumpy playing areas always (Hallinger, 2016).
 Work life balance – It was quite difficult and challenging for the female leaders to
guide their teams and manage the family and children as they were compelled to work
from home. During the coronavirus crises, female leaders were forced to work late
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