Exploring Female Leadership: Issues, Models, and Lessons from COVID-19

This presentation examines the challenges and issues faced by female leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlights key problems such as increased workload, difficulties in work-life balance, lack of support, and the risk of job loss. The presentation also discusses factors affecting female leadership, including lack of guidance, perception gaps, stereotype threats, nepotism, self-confidence, and political power. Leadership models like the Glass Cliff theory and Authentic Leadership are analyzed in the context of female leadership during the crisis. The presentation concludes with recommendations for addressing these challenges and improving the position of female leaders. Desklib offers similar solved assignments and past papers for students.

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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night and even on weekends due to never ending work pressures. This has led in
deterioration of health of women and even they were exposed to different diseases.
 Presence of young children – Because of the presence of young children at home,
female leaders didn’t get the rhythm to work and still they have managed to surpass
this situation better than man (Bakari, Hunjra and Niazi, 2017). While working at
home, they have to manage both work and take care of their children. However, for
women paying attention when kids are around becomes very difficult.
 No-work demands environment at home – Generally, its natural in each and every
household that when females are at home, they should only work for their children
and perform household chores. Official work is not accepted by many households and
this was the major challenge that the female leaders frighted during the crisis period.
Factors affecting the female leadership
 Lack of guidance – The representation of the women is below average and is being
found in lot of STEM industries. The major cause of this is mainly lack of support of
guidance. Women does not get right direction and help from the supervisors,
colleagues and management due to which they remain under represented.
 Perception gap – In most of the industries and organization there is a perception gap
whereby most of the men are not aware about the inequality in the workplace. This is
serious problem specifically in the information, technology, sports and science. More
support is being needed for the females to fill this gap (Burleson and et.al., 2018).
 Stereotype threat – There is a perceived social identity for women which constrains
the behaviour. In the workplace and organizations where women are numerically
underrepresented, they experience more amount of pressure in order to prove
themselves through working very hard and disproving the negative stereotypes.
 Nepotism – In most of the organizations particularly in manufacturing, technology and
other STEM industries, male leaders are the preferred choice in comparison with the
female leaders and this is mainly due to the professional favouritism.
 Self-confidence – There are many factors which impacts the female leadership,
however one of the most crucial out of all is self-confidence. Most of the women
working in the industries feels that they lack certain abilities and skills than man and
does not trust on their capacity to perform better. This mainly holds the female leaders
back from attaining success (Carli and Eagly, 2016).
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 Political power – Power is being referred as the situation of controlling in any
situation. Political power also acts as a hindrance factor towards female leadership.
The exercise of political power is connected with the requirements, interest level
which are fulfilled with and executed in social groups. It is being utilized for
describing the main interest of the citizen participation and social groups in state
responsibilities and also in the operations of any business organization (Hancock,
Darvin and Walker, 2018).
Models and theories used
Glass Cliff leadership theory
Glass cliff is a situation in which organization mostly appoints women when
the performance of the organization is very poor. The glass cliff examines impact on
organization when female is given the role of leadership. When organization is facing any
risk or failure it will be beneficial to appoint female leader as they are more precarious than
men (Yıldız and Vural, 2019). This phenomenon can minimize the gender discrimination in
the organization and enable women to become successful in their career. It occurs in many
fields such as finance, politics, technological, etc.
 The motive of this phenomenon is to promote women into problematic situation
which will result into improvement in the performance of women as well as the
organization.
 There are many reasons of appointing women to the leadership position.
 One of the reasons is that company get someone to put all the blame for the failure
to pull company out of the struggling phase.
 If women fails then company can easily blame them and can replace them with
men.
 If women succeed then also company can take the credit of the success by saying
that they have taken correct decision to appoint women (Bakari, Hunjra and Niazi,
2017).
 When women are appointed at a senior position, they get change to develop their
career.
 The company appoint them on the senior position when they are facing failure and
women are given change to handle the crisis when there change for failure is very
high.
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At the time of covid crisis company was looking for different leadership style. As
company was in the position to take risk, they tend to appoint women as they are emphatic
leaders. The glass cliff phenomenon has both negative and positive side (Bechtoldt, Bannier
and Rock, 2019).
 The positive side of this phenomenon is that it gives opportunity to women to
prove themselves and develop their career.
 The negative side is that generally women are appointed during failure so that
they can be blamed if they are not able to bring company out of the crisis.
 The success rate of women leadership is good and it is the proof that women can
be an efficient leader.
Authentic leadership
Authentic leadership is a leadership style in which leaders are genuine and
transparent. Authentic leader is the one who can influence others and build trust and develop
strong relationship. This type of leader display themselves to others who they actually are and
this enables others to trust them easily. There are many characteristics of authentic
leadership.
Self-awareness
 A good leader is the one who has self-awareness about the strengths, weaknesses and
values.
 It is not possible for an individual to represent themselves as an authentic leader if
they are unaware about their own capabilities (Hopkins and O’Neil, 2015).
 It is very important as it enables to become a role model for others.
Rational transparency
 An authentic leader must be transparent to others which would help them to build
trust in others.
 One need to be transparent and honest with their employees and give them actual
feedback.
Relationship building
 Authentic leader is the one who is able to build a strong relationship with the
employees.
 This can be possible by sharing things with others and by effective
communication (Purwanto and et.al., 2021).
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 Employees react to the leaders whom they think are caring and give value to their
ideas and views.
 This led to employee satisfaction and employees become more loyal to the
company.
During covid 19 an authentic leadership style has played a vital role in the company
to enable them to recover the losses. Employees are the essential pillar in the success of the
organization. It was the responsibility of the leader to make employees feel secure in the
organization. This feeling of security enables employees to put all their efforts in bringing
company back to its position.
 Authentic leader is able to build a strong relationship with the employees by
creating a safe working environment and by sharing all the information about the
company and the external environment.
 Women leader can become a very good authentic leader as they are honest and
share all the information with the employees (Ganesh and Paramasivam Ganesh,
2014).
 The communication skills in women can enable them to build a strong relationship
with its employees which would result into retention of employees.
Transactional leadership
Transactional leadership is also known as managerial leadership in which the leader
relies on rewards and punishments to improve the productivity of the employees. The leaders
give rewards and incentives to the employees whose performance is good and punishment to
the employees who have not performed according to the set standards (Kalsoom, Khan and
Zubair, 2018). This association amid the leaders along with the sub-ordinate is generally
dependent on the theories that makes assumption that individuals are not motivated by
themselves for performing their activities, instead they require structure, supervision along
with direction to attain the desired goals and for completing the allotted task. Other than this,
the theory also assumes that the employees will give their best efforts in the allotted
assignments and project as the transactional leaders desires them to do in exchange for the
offering of the leaders something that the employees require like, increased pay and bonus.
The theory also postulates that workers will perform their tasks as the transactional
leader wants them to do in exchange for the leader's offering something that the workers
want, such as pay.
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 Transactional leadership style is based on the theory that individual can't perform
if they are not given rewards or punishments.
 It is the best way to motive employees to improve their productivity.
 This leadership style enables employees to know their areas for improvement so
that they can work on those areas to reach the set standards.
During the covid pandemic transactional leadership style enable the leader to motivate
their employees by giving rewards and punishment according to their performance. This has
helped the organization to increase its productivity and to provide customers with quality
products according to their preferences and tastes. This has ultimately resulted into customer
satisfaction and increase in productivity.
The female leadership lessons from Covid-19 crisis
 During this phase company needed an efficient leader who can motivate their
employees so that they can put all their efforts to pull the company out of the
crisis.
 The company had a demand for skilled and innovative employees who can share
innovative ideas to build a good strategy to compete in the market and to recover
the losses.
 The losses can be recovered by increase the sales and customer base.
 A strong customer base was to be built using innovative ideas by providing
products and services as per the customer preference and by switching into online
business platform (Chao and Ha, 2020).
Recommendations about what can be learned from the female leadership during the
coronavirus crisis
There are different lessons which can be learnt from the female leadership during the
coronavirus crises and some of the important among them is being highlighted in the
subsequent section:
 Leading with empathy and honesty – Considering the covid-19 situation, it has been
found out that female leaders have outperformed in comparison with their male
counterparts and have handled this crisis effectively. they have shown empathy and
honesty towards their job and managed working from home despite of having
different challenges and difficulties. Further, it was also explored that women tends to
be more risk averse. Along with this, the participative leadership style and clear
communication have also played an important role in managing this situation.
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 Valuing the people – Agile and foresight mindset have been crucial in managing the
ride out the Covid-19 storm (Ryan and et.al., 2016). Female leaders which were
compelled to work from home were juggling with their children childcare and zoom
calls, working late night despite of different mental and physical issues, they have all
steeped up. thus, the lesson which can be learned from female leadership is one
should value people and must trust them.
 Remaining agile – Agility is being considered as one of the most essential qualities in
the management guide. Agility is all about taking people out of their functional silos
and placing them in self-managed as well as client emphasized multi-disciplinary
teams. Female as the leader have shown highly adaptable behaviour towards the
multiple as well as revolving demands of the coronavirus crises.
 High engagement level – Other than the above, it has also been realized that women
were seen as quite effective leader in comparison with the men and this was majorly
because of the high level of engagement of the direct reports of the female leaders
were quite more as compared to the direct reports of the male leaders. This is majorly
due to the fact that the female leaders communicate openly and clearly, motivates and
inspire their sub-ordinates and powerfully work on collaboratively working
(Samuelson and et.al., 2019).
Moving further, it is also highly suggested to undertake certain steps that helps in
equal participation of females at the leadership positions in almost all the organizations and
across all the industries. In this regard, it is important to take into account crisis and change
management for the purpose of highlighting the ways in which women are under-represented
and for igniting the change. Further, it is also crucial to look after the females who are
already working at the firms by training as well as support. Additionally, for those who are
resistant to change, coping cycle should be used.
CONCLUSION
From the above analysis it has been clearly determined that there are different barriers
which have been faced by female leaders in different industries and organizations. However,
all these barriers can be overcome by better representation of females across the business
corporations. The support for women is quite necessary particularly from the STEM
industries. In addition to this, it is equally important that feminine traits should be embraced
and highlighted. Other than this, for better representation of women in the leadership
positions and advancement of career at the workplace, equality for both the gender is very
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essential. Equal accountabilities both for the home and work should help in curbing these
differentiations and perception gap amid male and female.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Al-Ghanim, K., 2019. Perceptions of Women’s Roles between Traditionalism and Modernity
in Qatar. Journal of Arabian Studies. 9(1). pp.52-74.
Amon, M., 2017. Looking through the Glass Ceiling: A Qualitative Study of STEM
Women’s Career Narratives. Frontiers in Psychology. 8(236).
Bakari, H., Hunjra, A. and Niazi, G., 2017. How Does Authentic Leadership Influence
Planned Organizational Change? The Role of Employees’ Perceptions: Integration of
Theory of Planned Behavior and Lewin's Three Step Model. Journal of Change
Management. 17(2). pp.155-187.
Bechtoldt, M. N., Bannier, C. E. and Rock, B., 2019. The glass cliff myth?–Evidence from
Germany and the UK. The Leadership Quarterly. 30(3). pp.273-297.
Burleson, S., Tyler, W., Major, D. and Reynoldson, K., 2018. Women in STEM Workplaces
and Computer-Mediated Communication. International Journal of Virtual
Communities and Social Networking. 10(3). pp.1-22.
Busse, R., 2018. Rethinking femininity in organisations: Experimental insights into team
composition. Journal of Management & Organization. pp.1-14.
Carli, L. and Eagly, A., 2016. Women face a labyrinth: an examination of metaphors for
women leaders. Gender in Management: An International Journal. 31(8). pp.514-
527.
Chao, C. and Ha, L., 2020. Asian Women Leadership. 1sted. New York: Routledge.
Dowling, G., 2017. The glass ceiling: fact or a misguided metaphor? Annals in Social
Responsibility. 3(1). pp.23-41.
Ganesh, S. and Paramasivam Ganesh, M., 2014. Effects of masculinity-femininity on quality
of work life. Gender in Management: An International Journal. 29(4). pp.229-253.
Hallinger, P., 2016. Bringing context out of the shadows of leadership. Educational
Management Administration & Leadership. 46(1). pp.5-24.
Hancock, M., Darvin, L. and Walker, N., 2018. Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Sport
Management Students’ Perceptions of the Leadership Labyrinth. Sport Management
Education Journal. 12(2). pp.100-109.
Hopkins, M. and O’Neil, D., 2015. Authentic leadership: application to women leaders.
Frontiers in Psychology. 6.
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