Female Executives Sustaining their Position

Category: Management

Since the 70s of the past century, females have made a significant contribution to the development and growth of the U.S. and world economy. In fact, the women taking higher positions cover more than quarter of all executives. Nevertheless, the genuine potential of female executives has not been discovered yet because there is still much to be done in the sphere of gender equality. Therefore, it is critically important to encourage women to participate in the improvement of GDP growth rates and enrichment of the employee culture. Highly qualified women should have wider opportunities for developing their leadership skills (Barsh, 2011). Due to the fact that the business world has not explored all the advantages of involving women in leadership activities, women should develop new strategies for sustaining their executive positions by increasing labor participation, introducing specialized training programs, and enhancing women's leadership skills.

Women taking executive positions should be more concerned with the social schemes and bonuses. For instance, it is possible to change the policies regarding part-time jobs, scheduling, parental leaves, and travel-reducing mechanism. Taking an active part in labor issues is an efficient method for sustaining and advancing women's senior positions. As a proof, it has been discovered that women have greater capacity for decision making, collaboration, and developing favorable climate in the workplace (Chesterman, Rose-Smith, and Peters, 2004). What is more important is that women are regarded as more effective leaders in terms of greater emotional support they provide to employees. At the same time, women tend to discourage competitive behavior among employees. Such an assumption can be withdrawn because women's greater emotional involvement can provide workers with stronger incentives to work better.

While participating in labor relations, female leaders should be more concerned with developing such qualities as integrity, objectivity, and honesty. They should also focus on organizational welfare of their colleagues. To support the idea, the current statistics demonstrate a 3 % increase in women taking higher business positions (Grant Thornton, 2013). Such a situation is explained by their aspiration to overcome professional and stereotypical barriers and introduce changes to a cultural landscape in the workplace. So far, male seniors have dominated the business world, shaping cultural, political, and business matters. However, introducing women to managerial positions should be followed by changes in other spheres of business management. In order to adjust to a male-dominated environment, women should both compromise on the existing norms that contribute to a company's competitive advantage and encourage the emergence of new trends in organizational learning and development.

The emphasis placed on cultural context is significant because it defines employees' attitude to their responsibilities. In order to be successful, women should reconsider the existing paradigms and introduce new behavioral patterns to improve the employed setting and make it easier to manage and control. According to Klenke (2011), "...women's emergence as leaders is due to the interaction of perceived personality characteristics, leadership styles, and accumulated experiences with the demands of a turbulent business environment" (p. 6-7). In this respect, female leaders should be effective collaborators, consensus builders, and conciliators. What is more important is that they should be transformational leaders to motivate employees and make them more flexible in solving problems and overcoming challenges. Successful leadership experience can also be enhanced through development of efficient contextual background.

During career promotions, it is important for women to seek feedback from the managerial staff to obtain recommendations on how to improve their performance. Taking this approach can help female executives to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses objectively. Immediate reaction to the external feedback can contribute to women's constant and sustainable development while taking a senior position. Learning more about other employees' opinion can help women develop self-knowledge (Valerio, 2011). Specifically, they should focus on the thinking process that will allow female leaders to understand personal goals and activities. It also helps to develop a strict vision, self-awareness, and values. Finally, women should not struggle for promotion alone; rather, they can unite in specialized communities or groups where they can discuss their problems and share experience about their senior responsibilities.

Interesting perspectives should be discussed in relation to women holding senior positions in military services. The point is that this sphere is a male-dominated environment because of the fixed stereotypes (Walker, 2008). In this situation, the major themes that women should touch on are development of motivation and identification of strengths and weaknesses. Women should also be ready to accept challenges and develop efficient defense mechanisms to cope with stress. Most of these strategies can also be successful when entering other business environments. In this respect, it is impossible for female executives to ignore the fact that business world has long been dominated by male leaders. Looking back at previous practices can allow women to work out their own strategies for promoting and encouraging the formation of a new organizational culture.

In conclusion, it should be stressed that women should integrate active labor participation and develop appropriate strategies that can allow them to receive feedback on their actions. Additionally, motivation and readiness to changes are two main conditions for overcoming challenges and improving performance. Women should realize that a male-dominated environment can be altered as soon as they introduce a new cultural context. Specifically, female leaders must develop a new, unique vision and objective to make employees follow new rules and principles while accomplishing daily tasks. Finally, female executives must find their own mentors that can help them struggle in an unequal environment and prove their readiness to carry out business successfully.

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