Gender & Leadership: An Exploration

Submitter and Co-author information

Jeannette Vanier, Faculty of Science

Standing

Undergraduate

Type of Proposal

Oral Research Presentation

Challenges Theme

Open Challenge

Faculty Sponsor

Dr. Tim Brunet

Proposal

Gender & Leadership: An Exploration was created to critically examine the barriers present to women pursuing paths in leadership and to explain how the underrepresent[ation] in elite leadership roles (Northouse, 2019) stems from a society physically, institutionally, and professionally built for men. With the goal of ultimately exploring the strategies women can implement to navigate The Leadership Labyrinth (Northouse, 2019) and maximize their ability to lead and achieve success, I integrate a variety of ways that female leaders can increase their effectiveness while staying true to themselves. I explore the market labour supply (Ortiz-Ospina & Tzvetkova, 2017) with a focus on the lack of female participation in the labour market in areas of the world where care work is more commonly expected to be performed by women. Through this example, I highlight and explain the value of unpaid care and target 5.4 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A variety of real-life and media examples are employed on my poster to help situate these topics with viewers and reflection questions and resources are included to aid in further knowledge development. My critical yet positive approach to explain gender as a leadership framework highlights that it is imperative that we strive for progress through gender equality in leadership. Through this project, I learned different ways of conceptualizing leadership, cultural differences regarding women in leadership, the true systemic issues, and gendered experiences that the SDGs have pinpointed and how myself and others can apply this knowledge to everyday life through both recognition and action.

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Gender & Leadership: An Exploration

Gender & Leadership: An Exploration was created to critically examine the barriers present to women pursuing paths in leadership and to explain how the underrepresent[ation] in elite leadership roles (Northouse, 2019) stems from a society physically, institutionally, and professionally built for men. With the goal of ultimately exploring the strategies women can implement to navigate The Leadership Labyrinth (Northouse, 2019) and maximize their ability to lead and achieve success, I integrate a variety of ways that female leaders can increase their effectiveness while staying true to themselves. I explore the market labour supply (Ortiz-Ospina & Tzvetkova, 2017) with a focus on the lack of female participation in the labour market in areas of the world where care work is more commonly expected to be performed by women. Through this example, I highlight and explain the value of unpaid care and target 5.4 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A variety of real-life and media examples are employed on my poster to help situate these topics with viewers and reflection questions and resources are included to aid in further knowledge development. My critical yet positive approach to explain gender as a leadership framework highlights that it is imperative that we strive for progress through gender equality in leadership. Through this project, I learned different ways of conceptualizing leadership, cultural differences regarding women in leadership, the true systemic issues, and gendered experiences that the SDGs have pinpointed and how myself and others can apply this knowledge to everyday life through both recognition and action.