Women Managers

After three decades of attention and concern directed toward women's parity in the workplace, there is still only a handful of success stories for women moving into upper management. While society is moving in the right direction, the movement is slow. Women have made strides, especially in the professional and educational arenas, and in entrepreneurial and small business ventures, but they lag woefully behind in the corporate word. To make matters worse, there is little dispute about the value women bring to the workplace. Society may be inching along in the right direction, but as we approach the millennium, what do we have to show for the decades of work in this area?

For example, if you look at the Working Mother list of 100 Best Companies, only seven have achieved parity (meaning the percentage of women in the company is reflected among the upper echelons). Equally alarming, women comprise almost 50 percent of today's workforce, and statisticians project this number will increase to 62 percent wit

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mbiguity, sharing power and information, and ability to resolve conflict. In Rosener's terminology the difference in management style is the difference between an alpha leadership style (masculine) and a beta leadership style (feminine). Alpha-style leadership is generally based on analytical, rational, quantitative thinking, relying on hierarchical relationships and tending to look for engineered solutions. Beta-style leadership, on the other hand, is perceived as more feminine, using intuitive, qualitative thinking and relying on support relationships. Both styles are seen as appropriate in the practice of leadership under various circumstances (pp. 10-13). The strength of the Alpha style is its focus on the short range necessary for dealing with immediate problems. Its characteristics include dealing with problems after they had developed, and the perception of change as chaotic and disruptive. The Beta style is described as emphasizing a concern for growth, learning and quality of life, with a long-range perspective that permits planning and an examination of different value choices. The Alpha style is seen as effective in the implementation of tasks and specific objects, determination of lower-level goals and decisions, an
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Approximate Word count = 1537
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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