Women in Leadership

While there has been an abundance of sociological research into the social relations of leadership, there is a poverty of research into the subjective individual experiences of women in the progression for leadership. It is for this reason that this research aims to provide an account of six women who self-identify as women leaders, and who hold successful positions of leadership within both public and private sectors. This research begins by exploring the contested academic debates surrounding the meaning of leadership in general, drawing attention to the gender-blind nature of many contributions, before turning to a critical examination of the limited research on women in leadership. A subjectivist, phenomenological standpoint provides an intricate account of participants' real world narratives of their lived experiences of progressing to positions of leadership as women. The findings indicate that being a woman has many implications for leadership success; participants reveal that there are barriers which women, specifically, have to overcome in order to gain positions of leadership, however participants argue that many of these barrier are self-imposed. This not only has a significant impact on women themselves, such as personal well-bring, confidence and motivation, but also on their career progression and opportunities for leadership.ba_psysocunpub1373_ethesesunpu