Ways Women Stunt Their Careers Unintentionally
This article talks about ways that women compare to men in their self-confidence in the work place. It is no surprise that women tend to have lower self-esteem, but showing a connection between that and the work place never occurred to me. The study narrowed it down to 4 main problems that women find themselves in, in the workplace. These 4 categories are being overly modest, not asking, blending in, and remaining silent. These categories include things like not asking for promotions, not showing their accomplishments, not speaking up in the board room and overall not standing out.
All of these things made me think of the small debate we had in class over authentic leadership. A lot of the characteristics talked about in the article regarded being modest. If you are authentically a modest person, and don't like being in the spotlight for your accomplishments it could be seen as a great personality trait. However, in the work place its not a good thing, because you don't get recognized for your work and it can go unnoticed by not only your boss, but by your coworkers as well. This could be a very definite reason a lot of women can't seem to break the glass ceiling. Could this also be a downfall in authentic leadership or no, because if they are modest they will never truly be leaders?
This article also made me ponder complexity theory. Considering there is never a true leader with this theory do you think it could just be a lot of modest leaders that never come out of the woodwork and take credit? I mean someone has to be behind those movements, or is it really a self organizing system?
Overall, do you guys think that a modest women could be a leader or must it take confidence? This clearly goes back to the trait theory in chapter 2. Does it take certain traits to be a leader or can a modest leader that has fantastic accomplishments rise to power and break the glass ceiling?
-Danielle Sparacino
I believe that being a modest person makes you a better leader. This is because you don't feel like you need to promote your own accomplishments. In order for you to become a leader you must still have confidence in your own abilities and especially in the abilities of your employees. This is very important to become a modest authentic leader. Thus, a modest leader must have a close relationship with their employees. You don't have to praise yourself so much as a leader, but you must celebrate and provide your staff with encouragement and recognition for their accomplishments. If you are a modest person and trying to work yourself up to the top in a company then it would be very difficult if you were not outgoing and spoke up in meetings. In order to rise to the top you must believe that you are smart and your insights can help a company grow.
ReplyDelete-Mitchell Terry
I understand where you are coming from Mitchell, but can being modest and exuding confident go hand in hand? I am not sure that you can have both personality types perceived at once. If you can, I completely agree that they would be a great leader!
ReplyDelete-Danielle Sparacino
To answer your first question I do not think that modest leaders are the downfall of authentic leadership. Authentic leadership does not say anything about boasting over your accomplishments. Also, I would like to state that modesty and confidence are not opposites, rather they can compliment each other well. Someone can be very confident in their abilities but they may not let the world know. I believe a modest leader could be a very good authentic leader and fit nicely into the description provided in our book. An authentic leader is a leader who strives for the common good, is open to learning, does not claim to "know it all, ETC.
ReplyDeleteTo address your second question, what you are suggesting is highly possible. I also think that they are probably modest, but also authentic leaders. They are striving for the common good, they are resilient of the press, and they transparent with their followers.
Lastly, I believe that a modest women can definitely rise to a high position of power. I attribute this to my above statements about modest authentic leaders. If a women truly is authentic and has made high achievements her resume will speak for itself she does not have to.
Anna Swacker
I think that modesty is a very great trait to have. Unfortunately, modesty in people is always lacking one of the characteristics that tend to make people listen to you when you start talking and that is confidence. Yes a modest person can be confident but a confident person is someone who can command a room because they generally speak with conviction and/or draw from past experiences to make them credible. A modest person will generally tend to downplay their past actions and that is if they take credit for those actions at all.
ReplyDeleteSo while a modest person in a leadership position would be beneficial because of their ability to focus more on what is the benefit for them and more what is benefiting everyone. This is not something you're likely to see in an organization since when it comes time for promotion, the people who stick out the most are always going to be the ones who come to mind. So naturally managers are more likely to promote people who have in some way stood out.
As much as I would like to see someone modest placed in charge of an organization, I just don't feel that it is very likely to happen simply because of the lack of attention that are likely to receive no matter how sincere or authentic they may actually be in person.
-Geoffrey Ali