Women and Educational Leadership


Book Description

This groundbreaking book presents a new way of looking at leadership that is anchored in research on women leaders in education. The authors examine how successful women in education lead and offer suggestions and ideas for developing and honing these exemplary leadership practices. Women and Educational Leadership shows how the qualities that characterize women's approaches to leadership differ from traditional approaches?whether the traditional leader is a woman or a man. The authors reveal that women leaders are more collaborative by nature and demonstrate a commitment to social justice. They tend to bring an instructional focus to leadership, include spiritual dimensions in their work, and strive for balance between the personal and professional. This important book offers a new model of leadership that shifts away from the traditional heroic notion of leadership to the collective account of leadership that focuses on leadership for a specific purpose—like social justice. The authors include illustrative examples of leaders who have brought diverse groups to work toward common ground. They also show how leadership is a way to facilitate and support the work of organizational members. The ideas and suggestions presented throughout the book can help the next generation fulfill the promise of a new tradition of leadership. Women and Educational Leadership is part of the Jossey-Bass Leadership Library in Education series.




She Leads


Book Description

In this heartfelt and refreshingly honest guide, educators Dr. Rachael George and Majalise Tolan empower women leaders in education to embrace their dreams, break through barriers, rebound from setbacks, and lead with skill and authenticity. They're joined by dozens of diverse women in educational leadership roles, whose personal stories reveal the vulnerability, strength, and resilience of female leaders. With wisdom and implementable guidance that's applicable to early-career leaders and veterans alike, the book is designed to help you land your dream job, make sure your voice is heard, find (and offer) support, attain better balance, and learn the leadership style that suits your strengths.




Women and Leadership in Higher Education


Book Description

Women and Leadership in Higher Education is the first volume in a new series of books (Women and Leadership: Research, Theory, and Practice) that will be published in upcoming years to inform leadership scholars and practitioners. This book links theory, research, and practice of women’s leadership in various higher education contexts and offers suggestions for future leadership development strategies. This volume focuses on the field of higher education, particularly within the context of the United States—a sector that serves a majority of students at all degree levels who are women, yet lacks parity by women in senior leadership roles. The book’s fifteen chapters present both hard facts regarding the current demographic realities within higher education and fresh thinking about how progress can and must be made in order for U.S. higher education to benefit from the perspectives of women at the senior leadership table. The book’s opening section provides data and analysis in addressing “The State of Women and Leadership in Higher Education”; the second section offers descriptions of three effective models for women’s leadership development at the national and institutional levels; the third section draws from recent research to present “Women’s Experiences and Contributions in Higher Education Leadership.” The book concludes with five shorter chapters written by current and former college and university presidents who offer “Lessons from the Trenches” for the benefit of those who follow. In short, the thesis of the book is that our world is changing; higher education collectively, as well as institutions of all types, must change. Bringing more women into leadership is critical to the goal of moving our society and world forward in healthier ways.




Voices from Women Leaders on Success in Higher Education


Book Description

This book assists aspiring and current women leaders on how to advance into higher education leadership roles. Drawn from research and the lived experiences of women and non-binary people in higher education leadership, this book serves as a guide in understanding the gender disparity in higher education leadership and how women leaders forge pathways to promotion and success through systemic barriers, obstacles, and a lack of representation. A critical review of traditional leadership theory offers an opportunity to reimagine how effective leadership is framed and valued in higher education. Chapter authors and case studies explore the intersections of multiple identities and their impacts on leadership through lenses, including institutional type, functional areas, ability, gender identity, sexuality, race, and ethnicity. Focusing on a bridge from theory to practice that is designed to empower and inspire women leaders at all levels of the spectrum, this book is ideal reading for higher education scholars, students, and faculty aspiring to become leaders.




Women and Leadership in Higher Education During Global Crises


Book Description

Women leaders and the COVID-19 pandemic are currently trending in the news. Major news outlets are all offering their positive opinions on how world-wide women leaders have addressed the crisis and reassured their people. While this sort of press coverage is certainly uplifting, little to no research has been conducted to investigate the effectiveness of women’s leadership decisions and strategies in these difficult times. In concert with these global struggles resulting from the pandemic are the challenges faced by higher education. Many colleges and universities have all but shuttered their doors and are conducting instruction, student support, and day-to-day business almost completely online. Women academic leaders bear a great load during global crises, with the combination of maintaining work responsibilities and caring for families and personal households. It is shown that women leaders may feel overwhelmed but remain heroes in unprecedented times of crisis. Women and Leadership in Higher Education During Global Crises informs readers and expands their understanding about specific challenges, issues, strategies, and solutions that are associated with women leaders in higher education, the implications during the current pandemic and other natural disasters, and how these strategies can be used for future agility and success. The chapters will cover narratives, strategies, and initiatives that women leaders are using to lead their institutions, departments, sectors, and organizations. It ties together the unimaginable challenges, joys, struggles, and successes encountered by women in leadership in higher education and is ideal for higher education administrators, teachers, leaders, faculty, provosts, deans, program leaders, researchers, academicians, and students interested in both the challenges and successes women leaders in higher education face during global crises.




Challenges and Opportunities for Women in Higher Education Leadership


Book Description

Gender studies in the professional realm has long been a heavily researched field, with many feminist texts studying topics including the wage gap and family life. However, female administration in higher education remains largely understudied, particularly on the influence of personal, professional, and societal factors on women. There is a need for studies that seek to understand how gender intersects with the multiple dimensions of women leaders’ personhoods, such as family status, marital status, age, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, to inform women’s career path experiences and leadership aspirations. Challenges and Opportunities for Women in Higher Education Leadership is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on the specific challenges, issues, strategies, and solutions that are associated with diverse leadership in higher education. While highlighting topics such as educational administration, leader mentorship, and professional promotion, this publication explores evidence-based professional practice for women in higher education who are currently in or are seeking positions of leadership, as well as the methods of nurturing women in administrative positions. This book is ideally designed for educators, researchers, academicians, scholars, policymakers, educational administrators, graduate-level students, and pre-service teachers seeking current research on the state of educational leadership in regard to gender.




Women Leaders in Higher Education


Book Description

Leadership in universities is physically, intellectually and emotionally demanding work. It involves multiple and complex tasks and responsibilities such as staff management, strategic management, operational planning, financial and resources management, policy development, quality assurance processes, improving student outcomes, and engaging with community and the professions/industry. Leadership is not simply the act of being a leader, it is the act of leadership that projects ‘success’ and ‘desirable’ attributes. Leadership has the capacity to be deeply seductive yet it is not an immediately attractive option for women, particularly for those who carry the burden of family and domestic responsibilities, for whom finding a space for leading is no easy task. Yet despite the almost pessimistic research evidence, women are in senior leadership positions in higher education, however precarious their numbers. There can be little doubt that universities benefit from diversity in their student and staff population This book addresses the central questions; Who are the women who survive and occupy elite leadership roles in universities? How might their leadership be shaped by and a consequence of institutional climate? What strategies do they learn and adopt and how do they lead and manage their female colleagues? What about those women who do not ‘fit’ the gender script? The chapters overview the changing policy landscape in higher education; provide a critical commentary on the interplay between gender, leadership, higher education, and organisational diversity, and draw on education and critical management literatures in order to offer a broader understanding of gender and elite leadership; This book will be essential reading for anyone involved or interested in higher education policy and management, academic leadership, organisational diversity and gender studies.




Women and School Leadership


Book Description

This international collection of work by leading feminist scholars in educational administration from five Western liberal democratic countries presents "state-of-the-art" research on women in school leadership positions. The contributors focus on the need for critical reflections, which reveal hidden aspects of leadership phenomena, and advocate diverse forms of positive action to improve the condition for women in school settings. As such, this collection challenges the reader to consider the partiality of all perspectives on leadership, as well as future directions for research and practice. It also brings together views of schools and school systems at the macro level, with discussions and case studies focused on the micro levels of school life.




Women in Academic Leadership


Book Description

Colleges and universities benefit from diversity in their leadership roles and profess to value diversity--of thought, of experience, of person. Yet why do women remain under-represented in top academic leadership positions and in key positions along the academic career ladder?Why don’t they advance at a rate proportional to that of their male peers? How do internal and external environmental contexts still influence who enters academic leadership and who survives and thrives in those roles? Women in Academic Leadership complements its companion volumes in the Women in Academe series, provoking readers to think critically about the gendered nature of academic leadership across the spectrum of institutional types. It argues that leadership, the academy, and the nexus of academic leadership, remain gendered structures steeped in male-oriented norms and mores. Blending research and reflection, it explores the barriers and dilemmas that these structures present and the professional strategies and the personal choices women make in order to successfully surmount them. The authors pose questions about how women leaders negotiate between their public and private selves. They consider how women develop a vital sense of self-efficacy along with the essential skills and knowledge they need in order to lead effectively; how they cultivate opportunity; and how they gain legitimacy and maintain authenticity in a male-gendered arena. For those who seek to create an institutional environment conducive to equity and opportunity, this book offers insight into the pervasive barriers facing women of all colors and evidence of the need for a more complex, multi-dimensional view of leadership. For women in academe who seek to reach their professional potential and maintain authenticity, it offers encouragement and a myriad of strategies for their growth and development.




Intersectional Identities and Educational Leadership of Black Women in the USA


Book Description

This volume examines the educational leadership of Black women in the U.S. as informed by their raced and gendered positionalities, experiences, perspectives, and most importantly, the intersection of these doubly marginalized identities in school and community contexts. While there are bodies of research literature on women in educational leadership, as well as the leadership development, philosophies, and approaches of Black or African American educational leaders, this issue interrogates the ways in which the Black woman’s socially constructed intersectional identity informs her leadership values, approach, and impact. As an act of self-invention, the volume simultaneously showcases the research and voices of Black women scholars – perspectives traditionally silenced in the leadership discourse generally, and educational leadership discourse specifically. Whether the empirical or conceptual focus is a Black female school principal, African American female superintendent, Black feminist of the early twentieth century, or Black woman education researcher, the framing and analysis of each article interrogates how the unique location of the Black woman, at the intersection of race and gender, shapes and influences their lived personal and/or professional experiences as educational leaders. This collection will be of interest to education leadership researchers, faculty, and students, practicing school and district administrators, and readers interested in education leadership studies, leadership theory, Black feminist thought, intersectionality, and African American leadership. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.