Gender and political leadership: Turkish experience

Leadership ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 615-638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuba Inal

Women’s political leadership has been ignored both in actual political scene of world’s democracies and by the studies of political leadership. The common perception in both areas has long been that gender difference makes women unfit leaders. More recent studies of gender and leadership as well as various women politicians, on the other hand, emphasized women’s fitness for leadership due to their gendered characteristics. This paper argues that using gender as a determining factor for good or bad political leadership endangers future leadership opportunities for women. An exploration of the experience of Turkey in the 1990s with a woman political leader, Tansu Çiller, and her leadership style in relation to her gender, demonstrates that while gender stereotypes make women’s political leadership to be perceived as ineffective, any argument that is made in its favor in gendered terms faces the risk of being refuted by actual experience hence delegitimizing women’s leadership altogether. Using Crosby and Bryson’s leadership model as an analytical framework to dissect Çiller’s political and ethical leadership and her use of gender in the Turkish context, we can see that gender itself does not make a leader more democratic or ethical and arguing so works against potential women leaders.

Author(s):  
Mona L. Laya ◽  
Jason N. Marque

Abstract - This descriptive study aimed to identify the leadership skills of Rodrigo R. Duterte to gain insights as to why he has become the undisputed political leader of Davao City. Making use of snowball and opportunistic sampling techniques, the investigation has established through qualitative analysis of triangulated data that Duterte’s leadership focuses on the maintenance of peace and order. As a leader, Mr. Duterte uses a combination of different leadership skills characterized by firmness in decisions, taking responsibility for all actions made and the ability to accomplish the desired outcomes. He is a transactional leader with charisma to the masses. He actively monitors the work performed by subordinates and executes corrective actions if deviations from expected standards occur. He is an entrepreneurial leader, a risk taker, and a negotiator. His autocracy fits the level of maturity of the Dabawenyos. He is voted primarily for his leadership skills in maintaining peace and order while the various programs he has implemented are considered as additional accomplishments to his brand of leadership. Keywords - leadership style, political leadership, undisputed political leader


Author(s):  
Tania Domett

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the number of women with leadership positions in national governments increased considerably. In 2006 alone, a woman became the head of government in Chile, South Korea, Liberia, and Jamaica. However, the question of how women differ from men in terms of leadership style and policy preferences has emerged as a subject of intense debate. Scholars have produced a substantial amount of work that addresses gender differences in political leadership, and particularly leadership in global politics. Many studies focus on women’s access to the upper echelons of political power, what women representatives bring to politics that is different, and how far and in what ways women politicians and legislators have different policy preferences to those of their male counterparts. More specifically, these studies explore whether women’s political representation helps advance women’s group interests. Within political science, there has been limited research regarding the systematic elements of leadership in politics, and especially the role that gender identity plays in the exercise of global political leadership. Future research should address these gaps, along with other questions such as what women leaders actually do with that power once they get there; whether women’s leadership indeed makes a difference for peace or for women’s group interests; and the political outcomes of women’s leadership.


Author(s):  
Aparna Kulkarni ◽  
Mahima Mishra

In most organisations, women are underrepresented in top positions. Many aspects of Women’s Leadership are studied in the literature for underrepresentation of women leaders. This study aims to analyse and consolidate the insights about those aspects of Women’s Leadership, which gives them a stable and secure position in the organisation, beyond the unseen walls of gender discrimination. These aspects are barriers, enablers, strengths and weaknesses of Women’s Leadership. The research method used for the study is a systematic literature review method. Peer-reviewed, scholarly journal articles and book references between 1990 and 2021 identified from the Scopus and Web of Sciences databases are considered for the study. The result showed much uniformity in the ‘Women’s Leadership’ phenomenon, globally. This research found that Women’s Leadership studies are mostly conducted in areas such as social sciences, business and management, medicine, education, etc. It also found that most women-leadership-related studies are conducted in developed countries where the percentage of women leaders is comparatively higher than in other industries. Still, women leaders in both developed and developing countries face similar barriers during their careers. The gender gap and the glass ceiling they have to break are some of the issues experienced by women in any organisation. Organisational bias, lack of assertiveness and poor networking also pose barriers to Women’s Leadership. Yet, there are some enablers for Women’s Leadership, such as mentoring, good training programmes and workplace culture. However, maintaining a work–life balance, working under pressure and excluding informal communication are considered as limitations for Women’s Leadership. Strengths, such as high emotional intelligence, empathy, democratic leadership style, sincerity and ability to make decisions under critical circumstances benefit the organisation. This study will help to get an integrated and consolidated theoretical review of different aspects of Women’s Leadership in the organisation. Moreover, the study can help to implement various organisational policies to increase the percentage of women in leadership roles.


Author(s):  
Valentina G. Ushakova ◽  

The article presents materials from a socio-gender empirical study of the attitude of YouTube users to the candidates for the post of President of the Russian Federation who participated in the 2018 elections. The elections are indicative of the gender imbalance. Of the 8 candidates – only 1 is a woman. YouTube, on request in the search bar “presidential debate 2018”, gave out four posts with millions of views. The videos were concerned with the most emotional moments of the elections. It was revealed that gender stereotypes affect the perception of the image of a political leader by Russians. The conducted sociogender study showed that the Internet has a huge information potential for gender sociology


2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn Gencianeo Chin

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate how organizational structure (i.e. centralized hierarchical vs decentralized egalitarian decision-making) can color leadership evaluations of equivalently positioned men and women independent of their actual leadership style. This study addresses three questions: Are men’s leadership abilities, in terms of competence, dominance and interpersonal skills, evaluated more positively than women when they lead a hierarchical company? Are men and women’s leadership abilities evaluated similarly when they lead an egalitarian company? Do organizational outcomes change these effects? Design/methodology/approach – The research performs an eight-condition online vignette experiment on American community college students. Findings – The findings suggest that organizational structure and outcomes influence how male versus female leaders are perceived. When leading a hierarchical company, male leaders not only gain more in perceived leadership ability when their company succeeds but are also less likely to lose legitimacy when their company fails. When leading successful egalitarian organizations, men and women’s leadership skills are thought to gain similar legitimacy, but when an egalitarian organization fails, perceptions of female leaders’ competence, status dominance and interpersonal skills drop more than those of men. Research limitations/implications – This study’s generalizablity is limited given the sample of participants and the context of the industry utilized in the vignette. Practical implications – This study suggests that women’s promotion into leadership can be impeded by the decision-making structure of the organizations they lead independent of their individual choice in management style. Women leaders face not only disadvantaged evaluations of their leadership abilities in hierarchical organizations but are also not unilaterally advantaged in egalitarian organizations. Originality/value – This paper highlights the need to theoretically examine how organizational structures fundamentally embed gender stereotypes.


2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary C. Johannesen-Schmidt ◽  
Claartje J. Vinkenburg ◽  
Alice H. Eagly

Author(s):  
N. A. Mozumder

AbstractThis article presents findings from a qualitative study (via in-depth interviews with 121 local political leaders from 65 local authorities in the UK) that aims to understand how ethical leadership practices can restore public trust in political leaders. The study finds that being a moral person, an ethical political leader sets good examples of behaviour, sets the tone at the top and challenges those who do not behave ethically, as well as encourages, supports and rewards those who perform and conduct themselves well. As a result, the level of public trust in political leaders is likely to increase gradually.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Preeti Patel ◽  
Kristen Meagher ◽  
Nassim El Achi ◽  
Abdulkarim Ekzayez ◽  
Richard Sullivan ◽  
...  

Abstract Background It is estimated that over 40% of the half a million humanitarian workers who provide frontline care during emergencies, wars and disasters, are women. Women are at the forefront of improving health for conflict-affected populations through service delivery, education and capacity strengthening, advocacy and research. Women are also disproportionately affected by conflict and humanitarian emergencies. The growing evidence base demonstrating excess female morbidity and mortality reflects the necessity of evaluating the role of women in leadership driving health research, policy and programmatic interventions in conflict-related humanitarian contexts. Despite global commitments to improving gender equality, the issue of women leaders in conflict and humanitarian health has been given little or no attention. The aim of this paper focuses on three domains: importance, barriers and opportunities for women leaders in conflict and humanitarian health. Following thematic analysis of the material collected, we discuss the following themes: barriers of women’s leadership domain at societal level, and organisational level, which is subcategorized into culture and strategy. Building on the available opportunities and initiatives and on inspirational experiences of the limited number of women leaders in this field, recommendations for empowering and supporting women’s leadership in conflict health are presented. Methods A desk-based literature review of academic and grey sources was conducted followed by thematic analysis. Results There is very limited evidence on women leaders in conflict and humanitarian health. Some data shows that women have leadership skills that help to support more inclusive solutions which are incredibly important in this sector. However, deeply imbedded discrimination against women at the organisational, cultural, social, financial and political levels is exacerbated in conflict which makes it more challenging for women to progress in such settings. Conclusion Advocating for women leaders in conflict and health in the humanitarian sector, governmental bodies, academia and the global health community is crucial to increasing effective interventions that adequately address the complexity and diversity of humanitarian crises.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-26
Author(s):  
Shadiya Mohamad Saleh Baqutayan ◽  
Fauziah Raji

This qualitative study is purposive in sampling and explored a small number of women leaders in the education industry who are policymakers of Malay Muslim origin of their experiences in leadership positions. Policymaking here involved policies at the micro-level, which related more to their institutions and organizations. The researcher examined the women's leadership styles and the factors that influenced how they lead explicitly. Likewise, the researcher focused on how gender, culture, and religion may relate to women's experiences. Basic interpretive and descriptive qualitative research methods were employed. Data were collected through in-depth individual interviews. Participants interviewed included nine women leaders in the public and private sector who were either teachers/lecturers or administrators in the education industry. These women held positions within the top echelon of their organization or institution. The finding of this research indicated that gender, religion, and culture play an important role in women's leadership experiences, therefore, themes emerged around influences on the women's approaches to leadership, with particular emphasis on the role of the larger environment in impacting women's leadership behaviors. To further focus on the impact of culture and religion on women's leadership styles, the researcher conducted a focused discussion group on the second group of Malay Muslim women leaders. This group of women leaders compromised mainly of women leaders who are department and section heads but still involved in policymaking decisions albeit within their department or sections. This study can provide insight into the landscape of women‘s leadership roles and how to support these leaders.


2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 84-103
Author(s):  
Milda Ališauskienė

This article discusses features of women’s religious leadership, social innovations, and transmission of existing gender relations patterns within diverse new religions in post-communist society in Lithuania. The article is based on participant observation in Pagan and Hindu-origin religious groups and interviews with women leaders of these groups. The narratives of women leading Pagan and Hindu religious groups in Lithuania reflected their agency, features of their leadership, and the basis for the construction of their religious authority. Research data showed that the women interviewed took leadership of their respective religious groups after gaining professional experience in their careers. Their agency was not permeated by feminist ideas, but instead the importance of men in their life choices was emphasized throughout their narratives. The three case studies indicate that female religious leadership in these new religions follows the tendency toward a return to patriarchal values in post-communist society in Lithuania, rather than moving towards an ideal of gender equality.


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