Ethics of Care: Exploring Leadership, Gender, and Ethical Frameworks

This essay delves into the ethics of care in leadership, examining the perspectives of women in the workplace. It critiques the traditional patriarchal views that often misjudge women's leadership styles, highlighting the importance of collaborative approaches. The essay references Gilligan's theories on moral reasoning, contrasting them with Kohlberg's male-centric views, and discusses the different stages of women's moral development. Furthermore, it explores how the author's personal experiences reflect these concepts, illustrating how female characteristics contribute to successful task completion. The essay emphasizes the need to evaluate leadership effectiveness based on outcomes rather than gender-specific methodologies.

Running head: ETHICS OF CARE
ETHICS OF CARE
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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ETHICS OF CARE
In the present generation, where women have participated in every quest of man by
providing equal shoulders, many critics still sit back and question on the leadership skills of
women. The world has still been a patriarchal place where a man’s work, when done by women,
raises same questions of their efficiency even when the women have done it in a better way. It all
lies in the perspectives of people who grow up instilling this discrimination in mind. As per
Gilligan’s work, it is true that a woman perceives and performs a work with a different set of
views and beliefs than that of the man but that does not necessarily pull her into criticism in
criticizing her ways of works (Skoe, 2014). The leadership skills of women are more
collaborative unlike that of the men which are more individualistic. Rather than looking at the
working procedures of the two gender, people should more be interested in the achievement of
the bigger goals that is whether the women leadership has successfully helped to accomplish the
work or not. The interview of Sheryl Sandberg with her ex-boss of Google namely Eric Schmidt
shows how she has supported Gilligan’s principles. Gilligan’s, who was the follower of
Kohlberg, turned against his theory of moral reasoning because it considered the male’s point of
view of moral reasoning. She got against it, producing three stages of women’ s moral reasoning
called pre-conventional stage, conventional stage and post conventional stage. These
explanations disclosed that women are equally capable of performing a man’s task although their
way of executing the tasks, ways of thinking and ways of handling problems and challenges are
different (Broughton, 2016). I have also been severely misjudged by my male collage at my
workplace as they think my working styles to be more sophisticated, non violent, timid and full
of self sacrifices. However, I always excite them by exhibiting how my female characteristics
also help me to accomplish the tasks as successfully as their male ways of working things out.

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References:
Broughton, J. M. (2016). A Critique of Gender Dualism in Gilligan's Theory of Moral
Development. An Ethic of Care: Feminist and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 112.
Skoe, E. E. (2014). Measuring care-based moral development: The Ethic of Care
Interview. Behavioral Development Bulletin, 19(3), 95.