Introduction
There are fundamental gender differences in organizational management styles, values, leadership strategies and policy preferences, which constitute barriers to women’s ascendancy to the highest levels of leadership. These differences not only condition women’s leadership/managerial styles, but also shape the effectiveness of any such styles, which in turn reflect on their participation in public administration. This paper distils the existent conceptual, theoretical and empirical models on public administration, gender disparities, and underlying factors that prevent women’s upward mobility as well as the subsequent effect on organizational outcomes. Ultimately, however, management and leadership styles in any context continue to critical aspects in understanding individuals and their effectiveness in different high-level roles. Regardless of their specific responsibilities, good public leaders are women with the skills and temperament to motivate, organize and direct the actions of others inside and outside government to the “creation and achievement of objectives that warrant the use of public authority”. This paper includes a perfect illustration of this assertion through an uplifting case study of Mary Anderson by McGuire (2011), which shows a female leader’s incredible leadership/management skills, sheer determination and hard work, to overcome incredible socioeconomic and organizational difficulties in public administration.
Reid, Miller, & Kerr (2004) investigated the existence of organizational and structural barriers, preventing women’s upward mobility despite the fact that women professionals are increasingly highly-skilled. The researchers in this study sought to establish the distribution of men and women in state-level professional and administrative positions by agency type between 1987 and 1997, drawing on data from the US Equal Opportunity Commission. The results show that despite the diversity of structural and institutional factors across 49 states, women are poorly represented in high-level professional and administrative positions in regulatory and distributive agencies, which strongly points to the existence of glass ceilings. Women’s access to prestigious positions is limited. While redistributive agencies mostly attract people that are least concerned about hierarchies, the fact that they are have failed to ensure women’s upward mobility in spite of external pressures to achieve this, shows clear evidence of institutionalized resistance to the same.
While women were relatively better represented in professional and administrative cadres in redistributive agencies, albeit not in high-ranking positions, they are still not well represented in high-paying positions because of the impenetrability of the existent ceilings. The study found evidence that even in agencies where glass ceilings had been eroded, women were still poorly represented in high-paying positions. The findings point to the fact that openness to women in leadership positions is in part dependent on culture, “influences of the elite power” and the nature of competition for best-paying positions in public bureaucracies. In addition, Reid, Miller, & Kerr (2004) argues that bureaucracies must be more proactive in enacting and implementing policies that encourage increased gender representation. Further, while outrightly discriminative practices are less visible in the agencies studied, public organizations still have cultural, institutional and structural barriers that discourage women’s upward mobility. It is necessary to work towards eradicating institutional biases, elite influences and cultures that encourage attitudes and behaviours that are impediments to the upward mobility of not only women, but also ethnic minorities in public agencies.
Connell (2006) provides a comprehensive overview of the glass ceiling theory and its relevance in understanding gender disparities in the leadership of public agencies. The author applies this theory in a nearly similar study to Reid, Miller, & Kerr (2004), this time in 10 public workplaces based in New South Wales, Australia. Similarly, this study sought to uncover barriers to women’s upward mobility at work, despite the range of measures geared ta ensuring a level the playing field. The study identifies processes and other factors that stubbornly undermine gender equality in public workplaces. Connell (2006) asserts that while discriminatory practices are irrational, they nonetheless persist across the agencies studied. The article reveals that gender disparities stem from a range of factors that serve to sustain gender divisions, coupled by processes that undermine the division of labour. Established patriarchal cultural systems also serve to undermine women’s authority as leaders, not least because these cultures underly the very meanings of organizational power.
Connell argues that the connection between masculinity and organizational power has survived decades of successive efforts to undermine them. This so much so that efforts to modernize organizations e.g. by implementing affirmative gender actions stir up feelings of resentment, betrayal and injustice, which in turn help foment resistance against gender equality. This is worsened by the tendency to play down gender difference in the modern workplaces because many organizations simply ignore any differences. Further, the insistence by some, on equal treatment as a way of achieving gender equality as against affirmative action has also served to undermine the gender equality agenda. Connell (2006) establishes that gender inequalities are inherent in the processes routine practices and culture, which is why in order to overcome the inequalities, it is necessary to pull the issue off the shelf and embed them in the organizational culture. In addition, the researcher calls for support from the senior executives, socialization of gender equity and creation of informal constituency for gender equity within the respective organizations. These recommendations could prove really helpful in a bid to overcome the entrenched challenges against women empowerment.
Jacobson, Palus, & Bowling (2010) moves away from the embedded gender inequalities and the underlying causal factors, and instead, seeks to examine whether there could be legitimate differences between male and female professionals that prevent women from breaking the glass ceilings. In a bid to understand if, there are any connections between gender, management and organizational performance, with a focus on whether women’s managerial styles are materially different from those of men. The study assessed internal management and external networking patterns with political principals and peers. This reinforces the assertion that gender is an intermediary and explanatory variable in public management, due to the wide gender-based differences that affect leadership traits and behaviour, which may have implications on performance outcomes. Past studies point to “gender differences in organizational values, management styles, policy preferences, and leadership strategies”, which affect motivations, flexibility, participation, hierarchy and approaches to management and leadership. The article also echoes both Reid, Miller, & Kerr (2004) and Connell (2006), in trying to explain any such gender differences in terms of role played by cultural and organizational factors in shaping these factors.
Other than addressing multiple theoretical difficulties raised by several previous studies on both performance and management, Jacobson, Palus, & Bowling (2010) also established evidence that female managers spent relatively less time on networking relationships and internal management compared to their male counterparts. There is a negative association between networking and internal management. More time is expended on maintenance, and internal matters reduce the amount of attention devoted to transformational and transitional changes. The gender differences are interesting, and so is their implications on the performance of organizations. Jacobson, Palus, & Bowling (2010) offer a helpful insight into what works for women and male managers. The study established that networking with clientele groups and citizens has a positive contribution on organizational outcomes for male managers, but peer networking is more beneficial for women.
Grissom & Nicholson-Crotty (2012) narrows down some of the findings in Jacobson, Palus, & Bowling (2010) by probing the possible differential influences of gender on job satisfaction and employee turnover. Researchers tested whether the manager’s gender had an influence on employee turnover and job satisfaction, as well as whether the gender congruence between employees and managers was a relevant construct. The study drew on data from “a nationally-representative sample of public school teachers and principals and employing a fixed effects design that implicitly compared male and female employees in the same school”. This paper includes a literature pointing to the possibility that female managers were likely to have relatively lower turnovers and greater employee satisfaction, not least because females tend to foster democratic and cooperative styles. Turnovers are also likely to be lower if male managers adopted feminine styles.
The results show that female teachers are best satisfied compared to males and have low turnovers. This result fits well with previous literature pointing to the difficulties in retaining male teachers and the fact that women are increasingly unlikely to leave public service. Further, Grissom & Nicholson-Crotty (2012) establishes that teachers generally prefer masculinity in leadership and thus a preference for male leaders, despite the fact that this preference is not equally shared across genders. Female teachers are satisfied and less likely to leave their current employment regardless of the gender of their principals, but turnover in male teachers was higher in schools led by women. It is, therefore, possible according to Grissom & Nicholson-Crotty (2012) that women managers may benefit from employing differentiated strategies in the management of male employees, or that male employs are simply accepting of women as leaders.
Meier, O'Toole, & Goerdel (2006) also investigated whether women and men have different management styles or whether similar styles produce different results because of the managers’ genders. The study investigated the integration of management strategies and gendered in organizational performance. They used “Mark Moores distinction among managing upward toward political principals, downward toward organizational agents, and outward toward the networked environment”. With a sample that was drawn from across hundreds of different public agencies, the researchers established that top male and female managers in public agencies produced different outcomes according to their respective genders as well as the specific managerial functions. Interesting findings include the existence of an expectation gap between female and male managers, which was heightened in occupations dominated by the opposite sex.
Interaction with the environment and the influence of any such interaction on the organization’s performance is also highlighted. Men and women’s networking is both different and yields very different outcomes, in part because women are least likely to have previously existing networks prior to their managerial positions, and thus are forced to create more formal networks within their own organizations. The results from this study show that women managers are capable of converting negative effects of managing upwards into positive organizational outcomes. Further, Meier, O'Toole, & Goerdel (2006) argues that resources and constraints are inadequate in accounting for the differentials in performance. Rather, managerial strategies interacted uniquely to influence performance in widely differential ways.
Grissom & Nicholson-Crotty (2012) Jacobson, Palus, & Bowling (2010) and Connell (2006) point to the wider systemic, structural and cultural factors etc affecting the extent and effectiveness of female managers in public administration. However, it is critical that the gender debate does not overlook the individual brilliance and pragmatism or lack thereof, of individual leaders (whether female or male). McGuire (2011) makes such an attempt by presenting a case study of a mould-breaking female leader, who overcame massive gender barriers to succeed in an even more difficult environment. Mary Anderson was a progressive labor leader and long-serving director of the US Department of Public Administration in a largely male-dominated era in public and corporate leadership. The article details Anderson’s contribution to social justice and reform, including lobbying for the introduction of a women division within the US Department of Labour. Other achievements include entrenchment of objective expertise among public administrators, revision of original wage differentials between women and men, passage of landmark legislations and extremely dexterous directorship of the Women’s Bureau. McGuire (2011) succeeds in highlighting the Anderson’s immense achievement especially by painting the historical context within which she lived, and the fact that she lay the groundwork for the unprecedented influx of women into public administration to as many as 89,000, as perhaps best illustrated in Reid, Miller, & Kerr (2004)’s findings about women representation in public administration.
Conclusion
Discriminatory practices public workplaces have become less visible, but barriers (cultural, institutional, elitist influences and institutional/structural biases etc.) still exist in the way of women climbing the ladder in public administration (Grissom & Nicholson-Crotty, 2012; Jacobson, Palus, & Bowling, 2010; and Connell, 2006; Reid, Miller, & Kerr, 2004). These factors not only hinder women’s upward mobility, but even more significantly, the affect the effectiveness of female leadership. Grissom & Nicholson-Crotty (2012) and Meier, O'Toole, & Goerdel (2006) specifically establish that managerial strategies were influenced by the gender of the managers and other environmental factors, whose interaction yield differential outcomes. Women leaders are more predisposed to failure than their male counterparts, with male employees being uncomfortable under female leaders.
While it is clear that male and female leadership has contextually-differentiated outcomes, there is little to show that women leadership in public administration is ineffective. Even more importantly, Mary Anderson and other similar examples point to the possibility that public administration has missed opportunities to tap into the unique opportunities that female leadership offers (Jacobson, Palus, & Bowling, 2010l McGuire, 2011). The system could benefit by leveraging the unique contributions that male and female leadership present. The important of this reality is emphasized by the fact that public administration is rapidly transforming with increasing women representation and more women come on board, which renders findings by that if males are in the minority of an organization’s leadership, gender congruence becomes critical.
The findings in this review open up further questions that need to be investigated. Firstly, it is important that as organizations grow more diverse, it is interesting to probe the performance and other issues that would result from increased participation of women in across all functional areas. It is helpful to establish the differential leadership styles (e.g. less emphasis on consistent management and internal stability) can be useful in bolstering specific performance outcomes. In addition, while the articles included in this paper point to the inherent difficulties that have sustained glass ceilings for women in public administration, as well as the fact that these ceilings have survived constant efforts to combat them, perhaps it would be helpful to explore the reasons for the continued survival of these barriers and how they can be overcome.
Connell (2006) touches on this in recommending the establishment constituencies for gender equity, arguing that engaging men in measures like antiharassment, labor process restructuring and flexible work arrangements could yield fruit in ensuring increased equity. In fact, this recommendation may be effective in preventing the sense of resentment, betrayal and injustice that characterize affirmative measures, effectively facilitative a smooth and faster transition. However, the scale of the problems appears to greater in more entrenched that previously thought, and thus more innovative measures would be instrumental. Similarly, most of the papers included in this review ignore more refreshing cases success by women in public administration such as that of Mary Anderson, who have thrived within the system, in an even more hostile environment than is the case today. It is helpful to establish the reasons for success of failure, for other women to be able to thrive in this field.
References
Connell, R. (2006). Glass Ceilings or Gendered Institutions? Mapping the Gender Regimes of Public Sector Worksites. Public Administration Review, Vol. 66, No. 6, 837-849.
Grissom, J. A., & Nicholson-Crotty, J. (2012). Does My Boss’s Gender Matter? Explaining Job Satisfaction and Employee Turnover in the Public Sector. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 22, 649–673.
Jacobson, W. S., Palus, C. K., & Bowling, C. (2010). A Woman's Touch? Gendered Management and Performance in State Administration. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 20 (2), 477-504.
McGuire, J. T. (2011). Gender and the Personal Shaping of Public Administration in the United States: Mary Anderson and the Women’s BUreau 1920-1930. Public Administration Review, Vol. 72, Iss. 2, 265–271.
Meier, K. J., O'Toole, L. J., & Goerdel, H. T. (2006). Management Activity and Program Performance: Gender as Management Capital. Public Administration Review, Vol. 66, No. 1, 24-36.
Reid, M., Miller, W., & Kerr, B. (2004). Sex-Based Ceilings in US State-Level Bureaucracies 1987-1997. Administration and Social Vol 36 (4), 377-405.
