Women in Management

It is important to bring women’s perspectives into organizations and to show these as possibly different from, but just as valid as, the ‘normal’ male perspective. In order to do this, a woman needs to believe in her own self-worth, and to know that many of the problems she faces are shared by other women managers. They are often gender issues rather than the result of personal inadequacy. A good grasp of the issues of assertiveness will help women to re-evaluate some of the problems they face and find ways of dealing with them effectively.

These courses focus on the core skills required for women to be effective managers. These are:

Assertiveness

The ability to communicate clearly and effectively without being intimidated and without intimidating others is an essential element of being a good manager and in taking decisions, showing leadership, handling a team, and conducting negotiations.

For women managers, assertiveness is especially important because many of the practices and signals given in organizations threaten women’s feelings of self-confidence and well-being. This can make it difficult for women to sustain a positive self-image. Women often feel they have to do better than their male colleagues, and may feel unsupported if they way they prefer to do things doesn’t follow the conventional male approach. Women managers have highlighted the following situations as particularly challenging:

* Handling a ‘difficult’ team member, particularly if that person is male, older than the woman manager, and especially if he has been passed over in the promotion    process;
* Handling meetings, especially when the others involved are predominantly male;
* Refusing to take on additional work or to change deadlines to avoid an overload;
* Being able to set priorities for herself and her team, especially if these differ from what has been expected by a previous (and probably male) manager.

It is important to bring women’s perspectives into organizations and to show these as possibly different from, but just as valid as, the ‘normal’ male perspective. In order to do this, a woman needs to believe in her own self-worth, and to know that many of the problems she faces are shared by other women managers. They are often gender issues rather than the result of personal inadequacy. A good grasp of the issues of assertiveness will help women to re-evaluate some of the problems they face and find ways of dealing with them effectively.

Time Management

‘Remember that the time we have is not a rehearsal, it is all that there is, so we’d better make the most of it!

Time management skills are essential for all managers and this may be difficult for women because few women are taught to set priorities for themselves. Many women have been encouraged from an early age to put the needs of others first. This means that they may well find themselves doing what other people want, rather than what they need, or want, to do as managers.

Managing time involves being aware of the choices available, and actively making decisions about what is or isn’t important. Women managers have to make realistic assessments about what is possible, and set limits both at home and at work.

Managing time is directly related to managing stress and developing assertiveness. If you don’t learn to manage and protect your time assertively, you are likely to suffer high levels of stress.

Stress Management

Women may be in the position of having to coordinate the needs of work with those of home. They may also have to cope with feeling uncomfortable, or even unwelcome, in the work environment.

Such pressures can cause stress. It’s vital for women to learn how to manage and control the levels of stress they suffer as part of their everyday life. Learning to manage time and behave assertively is crucial to effective stress management.

Other issues that women managers need to learn to address:

Organisational Politics

Acting politically is a sensitive issue for many women managers. They may feel excluded by the organizational politics in the workplace and see these as operating against them. There are often conflicting and stereotypical images associated with women in the workplace. However, if a woman is to maintain good relations and avoid disapproval form others, she needs to be proactive in her organization and to overcome conflict strategically. Organisations inherently tend to limit the scope of independent action. This does not mean that she has to indulge in game-playing; she can develop strategies that have integrity.

Working with Teams

Women often work well with teams in organizations. Research suggests that their perspective values internal relations, whereas men are more focused on external relations. However, women managers are often sensitive to the morale of team members, including that of the lower status members of staff, and this can lead them to take their problems and concerns on board to the extend of overload.

It’s important for women to learn how groups work and how they perform within groups. Team working represents the organizational model of the future, so the team management function is likely to become increasingly vital to the operation of cost-and performance-centres, and to decentralization of authority and service-delivery.

Negotiating Skills

The traditional stereotype of negotiation is that of driving a hard bargain aggressively, using deception or holding stubbornly to a fixed position. However, it is possible to use another approach: an assertive model of negotiation can be effective in achieving desired outcomes. It does not represent a ‘soft’ option, but rather a principled approach which seeks a ‘win-win’ outcome without resorting to adversarial methods of attack and defence.

Managing Meetings

Meetings are also of growing importance as teamwork becomes more central to the operation. Meetings provide an opportunity for the team to communicate, and the effectiveness of this communication will largely determine the outcome and value of meetings.

Women often understand the relationships within their teams and can be more attuned to the communication process, with greater ‘emotional intelligence’. However, as managers, women may need to learn how to control, shape and structure meetings, to ensure that the team sticks to the task and does not get stuck in the process.

Sexuality and Gender Issues in the Workplace

It is essential for women to manage the boundaries of sexuality and gender identity in the workplace. Women often develop highly sophisticated strategies for managing their sexuality to protect themselves from sexism and intrusions into their privacy. However, despite their best efforts, sometimes women suffer from sexual harassment, which has more to do with male values and assumptions that underpin the organizational culture that women work in, than in sexual attraction.

It is also an expression of male aggression in the workplace and it can act as a means of maintaining job segregation. This means that highly paid and prestigious jobs often remain the exclusive preserve of men and women who manage to infiltrate these areas are often subjected to harassment as a means of either forcing them out, or into conforming to the male stereotypes, in order to survive.

It is therefore essential for women to develop possible strategies for coping, either as the recipient of, or as the manager of a woman experiencing, sexual harassment in the workplace.

It is also useful for women to explore the most effective ways of coping with their fertility, childrearing, menopause, and other natural functions that can lead to unfair discrimination or act as barriers to career development.

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