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Women's Understanding of Leadership in Community-Profit Oganisations
by Patricia Marlette Black BA, MEd.
from Womens Leadership in Community-Profit
Organisations,
Doctoral Thesis , Queensland University of Technology,
1999, pp. 146-176.
Republished on our website with the necessary
permissions
7.1 Introduction
Chapter 6 presented the research findings describing the participants and their
organisations. This chapter presents the patterns of results about womens
understanding of leadership in community-profit organisations - patterns
which emerge from immersion in the texts, coding and categorising the texts and
from memo writing. To probe the participants understandings of leadership
the researcher asked them to respond to questions about their images of
leadership, about the components of good leadership, about how they understand
their leadership role, about the relationship between designated leaders and
non-positional leaders, about their understanding of power and about
womens leadership in general. Through such questions the researcher was
attempting to explore the understandings of leadership based upon the lived
experience of that social reality from the point of view of the participants.
This chapter provides the data on their understanding of leadership and the
following chapter looks at the experience or practice of leadership of the
participants.
7.2 Images of Leadership
The
participants were asked Can you think of an image or symbol that
describes leadership in your organisation? because symbol, metaphor, and
the use of images are keys to ways of thinking and ways of seeing that pervade
our understanding of social realities such as leadership. Two or three of the
57 participants had difficulty with thinking metaphorically, but almost all of
the sample were able to describe the leadership of their organisation through
use of a symbol. Analysis of the participants responses to the question
gathered together in the node Images of Leadership in NUDIST led to
five categories proposed by the researcher: connection images, life images,
personal images, institution images and a category called other.
Connection Images
Over
half of the sample use what this researcher calls connection
images. These are images that connote equality, mutuality, linking, joining,
sharing, coming together, working together. Connection images of leadership
described by the participants are consistent with their perception of
themselves as relational, inclusive, good communicators and committed to
networking (see Figure 6.2). Many of the participants, both designated leaders
and non-positional leaders, use circles as the image of leadership in their
organisations as the following extracts from some of the interviews illustrate:
Circles, because we sit in circles and thats how decisions get made. And
the power is the circle; whether were in small groups or in the
management committee, we go around the circle and people talk about their ideas
and people are included. You could also look at it as this whole process is
circular and you never get anywhere, but I think if you look at the services on
the ground thats not true. Yes, sitting in circles. (Ella)
My
image of our leadership is circular, its decentralised, its
sharing. There is no one who sits in the middle. We all make up the circle,
however; no one sits outside the circle. We all hold hands and work together.
Sometimes, its a slow process, and sometimes in particular instances I
might feel Lets get a move on here. But its really
important that that kind of process happens. I think the fluid nature of power
sharing in our group ties in well with our small number too; though for us,
even if numbers were larger we would still endeavour to maintain this equality.
(Ita)
Well, the first thing that came to my mind was a circle because the group that
Im involved in always begins with a sharing circle and ends with a
sharing circle and that to me seems to symbolise what were trying to do.
There is no hierarchical thing that we are trying to do; it is a circle and we
try to sit in a circle as much as possible. At some of the meetings there is an
object that is passed around and you cant speak until you are holding it.
So the circle is a very strong feeling. (Una)
Other
connection images that emerge in the responses are those of tables and meals.
Eves image is of a table in the house where the leadership group of her
organisation, which has over 1000 members, gathers:
Oh,
the table at Ericas house, because everything seems to happen around that
table! Thats where discussions are held, thats where the newsletter
gets folded, thats where things get done. Its not a round table,
but its a large table so lots of people can fit around it. And its
set in a domestic location. My mum came up to help us with a project and she
got to visit Ericas house a few times and she thought how marvellous it
was that you could flow from the kitchen right through to the living room with
this table in the middle. And even when things were a hive of activity people
could be doing something in the kitchen and still take part in things ... It
certainly keeps things from becoming too bureaucratic. (Eve)
An
image associated with both meals and circles is that of a cup, chosen by
several of the participants to describe leadership in their organisations. For
example, Lara says she chose the cup as an image because it is a vessel
open to receive but also out of which much can be given and it symbolises
that in all our endeavours, including leadership, we recognise the gifts
and talents of everyone and work in a way to bring them out in people.
The
connection image chosen by Kiri to describe leadership in her organisation is
the web:
Its like a web. You can keep turning a corner and staying on the web.
Its all linked. It applies too to the fact that we have such a small
number of active members. No one person is responsible and you havent got
people who arent responsible in the group. Everybodys got their
little bit of responsibility, so therefore we all have to exercise leadership
and doing our bit. If somebody breaks down, theres a major collapse.
(Kiri)
Noras connection image describes leadership in her organisation as being
like standing in a line of midwives going back into the past, standing in
the point of readiness, midwifing the future. Ericas symbol is the
grevillia flower because its reaching out and it has a large centre
and lots of pieces going out; it takes up a big place on the paper and
everybody is important. A knitting pattern is the image chosen by Bea to
describe leadership in her organisation because there is feedback and
connections in all directions.
Life/Movement Images
One
quarter of the participants chose images of life, of strength, of movement to
describe leadership in their organisations. These images give a sense of a
leadership that is vibrant, growing and purposeful. They include animal images,
images of moving vehicles and images of movement and growth.
Animal images include a bird, a gazelle and a can of worms. Jocelyn chose a
gazelle as the image of leadership in her organisation because it
captures the sense of going forward and it is a vital and surging,
not a decadent model. Angela chose a bird because it is associated with
movement forward. Daisys image is of the can of worms on the
computer screen saver because people take leadership at different times
on different things and youve got lots of people involved in it.
Two
images that capture the sense of vibrancy and movement of leadership in
community-profit organisations are those of a flame and of mountain climbing.
Lalas image is that of the flame:
The
thing that jumps immediately into my mind is a flame. It is burning which holds
people together. It activates things and catalyses things and burns off the
dross and keeps us committed to the core. The things that really matter to the
spirit; it is the image of spirit as well. (Lala)
Agnes
believes that in her organisation they are trying to get away from the image of
leadership as an old woman who sits in a wheel chair knitting and
capture a new one:
So
I suppose Im saying that weve got a complete new generation here
very different from the women of the past, better educated women, and
theyre out there and theyre doing things ... perhaps the image of a
woman climbing a mountain and shes getting there. (Agnes)
Several of the participants chose a moving vehicle as their image of leadership
in their organisation. One of these participants is Grace:
Some kind of vehicle, an open vehicle that has a certain number of people on
board; probably someone driving, but different ones can take the driving seat.
They are on a journey, everyone with eyes looking out to whats needed in
the countryside as we pass by, inviting people on board. Anyone already on the
vehicle can invite anyone on board, having lots of discussion and laughter and
fun as we go but always with an eye to what we can change. Its a vehicle
with no cover on it, no sides, bits built on at various stages. The vehicle
itself changes, and everyone with an eye to what can be changed, what can be
transformed, who can add to it, people getting on, getting off, different
drivers at different times. I guess the main drivers would be from the core
team but there are different drivers at times. But checking that were
going in a positive way and we might go down little tracks that we have to back
out of and I like that kind of leadership. (Grace)
Other Images
Only
two participants in the sample chose a personal image and one participant chose
an institutional image to describe leadership in their organisations. Six of
the participants chose a variety of other images such as a shepherd and sitting
on a see-saw. Holly chose the image of a heart and related an incident which
captures for her why the heart is an appropriate image of leadership in her
organisation:
Yes, its heart stuff; the commitment comes from the heart. The heart
would be a symbol, yes, very much. For example, meeting older women at the
National Conference last year was so inspiring. They dont give up and you
ask Where is this commitment coming from? And thats where it
comes from - its heart politics. There was a wonderful moment; actually
it was one of the healing moments of the handover from the old to the new
designated leadership, where at the start of one of the sessions at this
National Conference last year one of the younger women tried to get us singing
at the beginning of the session so it wasnt like a formal meeting with
formal meeting procedure and there was this energy around singing together. So
a couple of these younger women put up on the board the words of a song about
the women at Greenham Common and tried to teach us and get us singing this, you
see. And we entered into this. We didnt do it all that well; we
didnt have any musical accompaniment but we did it; we sang. And when we
were finished with it and we were about to go into the business the woman who
was the immediate past national President, a woman in her seventies, got up and
said: There is just something that I want to say. Im not trying to
upstage anyone but I just thought youd like to know that I was present
when that song was composed. And then she told us the story. It was just
so powerful; yeah, thats power! They are living history these women. They
were on a train going somewhere and ... Its interesting, because in one
sense it isnt a womens organisation that gets a lot of publicity.
So it works from the back or underneath. Its not one of those
womens groups that is prominent in the media. Thats partly the
history of it and also partly the nature of it. (Holly)
The images chosen by the participants to describe leadership in their
organisations reveal an understanding of leadership that is collaborative,
appreciative of the contribution of everyone in the organisation, vibrant and
purposeful. It is an understanding of leadership that focuses on interactions
in the group and on the work of the organisation rather than on the leader
herself.
7.3 Recipe for Effective Leadership
To
explore how women understand leadership in community-profit organisations the
researcher asked the participants to list the ingredients they would put into a
recipe for effective leadership. This question aimed to elicit from the
participants what they understood as the most significant components of the
leadership interaction. Table 7.1 shows the frequency distribution of
participants suggested ingredients for a recipe for effective leadership.
Communication skills are particularly important for non-positional leaders
while honesty and integrity and openness are important for the designated
leaders in the sample.
Table 7.1 Frequency distribution of participants suggested
ingredients in a recipe for effective leadership
Suggested ingredient
Number of designated leaders (n=35)
Number of non-positional leaders (n=22)
% of total participants
Communication skills
10
12
39
Honesty/integrity
16
3
33
Openness
13
5
32
Vision/goals
9
8
30
Ability to collaborate
11
5
28
Ability to empower others
9
5
25
Relationship building
9
5
25
Sense of humour
8
1
16
Competence
4
2
11
Analytical skills
4
2
11
Consultation
3
3
11
Patience/persistence
3
2
8.8
Balance between work and personal life
4
1
8.8
Approachable
4
-
7
Organisational skills
2
2
7
Conflict resolution skills
2
1
5.3
Resources
2
-
5.3
Margot says that to believe youve got all the answers is a fatal
flaw and emphasises the importance of believing that the energy and
the answers to the questions of life are out there - theyre not contained
within the leadership necessarily. Jade also emphasises the importance of
openness and believes that leaders have to be able to put aside their own
set agendas in order to be open to the agendas of the wider membership.
For Eve openness means being able to look at new ideas and to reshape
ideas and adapt ideas and bring in people with ideas. Una describes the
importance of openness this way:
And
sometimes it seems that after listening, to have a mind that can expand on
something thats said, sometimes when people get stuck on something
theyve said, to find another solution, in a facilitators role
thats actually part of the role, to suggest another way of looking at it,
to find another view. (Una)
Hollys comments on the importance of communication as an element in
effective leadership are typical of comments made by both non-positional and
designated leaders:
You
have got to be honest and level and open communication has to be there. There
has to be trust and good communication flow so that people arent
excluded. There has to be a culture of inclusiveness and that includes
including people by keeping them well-informed of everything thats
happening thats relative to the group so that people feel they belong.
Thats very important. An effective leader has to make sure that
communication channels are good and that all members are well informed.
Thats the first one because you build trust on that. (Holly)
Having a vision and a set of goals for the group and helping the members of the
group to stay focused on the vision is of particular importance to
non-positional leaders, but is also significant for the designated leaders in
the sample. Several of the participants express ideas similar to those of Ria
who says:
I
think to have some sort of vision and the ability to capture peoples
imagination, to inspire people to believe that the task is possible, the goal
is achievable, I think is probably the initial step, that solutions can be
found. (Ria)
The
ability to collaborate is seen as an important ingredient by the designated
leaders in particular, but also by a significant number of the non-positional
leaders. Gina describes the ability to collaborate as the ability to take
other peoples ideas on board and process them and to be able to work with
others for the good of everyone. The following responses from Ria and
Holly also express what participants mean by the ability to collaborate:
Id also include participative decision making so that both the process
and the outcome are sufficient to maintain peoples continued involvement,
and benefit from their skills and finally be the solution that theyre
looking for so that you deliver the goods. A self-nominating meritocracy I call
it; you know, you paint the overview, you enthuse people, you show them how it
could be done and you allow them to identify what part they would like to play
in it. So Ive seen that just work so successfully time and time again -
people in areas that their life skill would never allow them, doesnt
appear to have equipped them for, or their life situation would never allow
them to have access to, end up being able to do these really remarkable things
and often its that experience, not actually getting to the goal that
leads them to changed life circumstances. (Ria)
And
the other really important ingredient of leadership is realising that you
dont have to do it all yourself and women fall into this trap all the
time because they think they arent good enough; they always think they
have to try harder. And its realising that the talents are in the group
and the leader doesnt have to do it all herself. Thats number two.
You dont have to control it; you cant control it really. If you try
to youll be in strife. That gets back to the ego getting in the way.
Its your ideas about goals and aims and your understanding of the
relationship between process and outcome. And if youre hooked on outcome
your ego will get caught into it. But if your balance is towards process and
you accept that you cant achieve everything then you dont have the
ego investment in outcomes. Thats a different sort of leadership,
isnt it? Process automatically demands involvement by more than one; it
demands an acknowledgment of the whole group and not just your ego. It revolves
around having a group commitment without ego attachment. In a group whose goals
are values-based thats particularly important because you have to make
sure the goals are operative in the process. (Holly)
Other
ingredients mentioned by a significant number of the participants are the
ability to empower others, relationship building and a sense of humour. It is
interesting to note that it is the designated leaders who identify a sense of
humour as an important component of the leadership interaction. Table 7.1 lists
the ingredients that were suggested for a recipe for effective leadership,
including those mentioned by only a small number of participants. There is much
wisdom expressed by the participants in commenting on these ingredients even
though the ingredients are not mentioned by a large number of the participants.
For example, Jocelyn comments:
I
think if you are going to influence people (and there are no leaders without
followers) and leadership is influencing people to get things done, you have to
show your own humanity, show your own frailties and be willing to laugh at
them, go out on a limb and make a mistake. But you have to know pretty quickly
when youve made a mistake and get the retrieval system working. My recipe
would never include never make a mistake or never be seen to make one.
(Jocelyn)
Cara
comments on the importance of passion or energy as something that holds all the
ingredients together:
And
a commitment and a passion for the thing youre doing. And I suppose
passion depends on how you define it; but talking from a community basis, to
survive you have to have a lot of energy. If youre not feeling like
youre too interested or energetic about an issue, I think it takes too
much of a toll. You need more energy in a community organisation because of the
lack of resources and structures. Often the community is inbred and well
often be on other committees and provide support to workers in other
organisations and government departments too. In a community organisation you
are often in a stand alone position, so the demands tend to be much higher and
its much harder to feel like there are other people or organisations to
take up those issues. Maybe its a different form of energy in a community
organisation, not more energy. (Cara)
The participants suggested ingredients in a recipe for effective
leadership show that the participants understand leadership as a relationship
based on good communication, collaboration and an openness to accepting the
contributions of others. This understanding of leadership is consistent
with that revealed in the participants images of leadership and in their
perception of themselves as relational leaders who are good communicators (see
Figure 6.2). The designated leaders stress that such a relationship demands
honesty and integrity in those who form the relationship and both designated
and non-positional believe that the relationship is based on the common
commitment to shared vision and goals for the group.
7.4 Participants' Perceptions of the Relationship Between Designated
Leaders and Non-Positional Leaders
In
order to explore further the understanding that the participants have of
leadership as a relationship between members of a group, the participants were
asked to describe the relationship between those in designated leadership
positions in their organisations and those who were non-positional leaders or
active followers in their organisations. As this is a key relationship in the
leadership interaction, the researcher was interested in the perceptions of
this relationship from the perspectives of those who exercised designated
leadership as well as those who exercised non-positional leadership in the
research organisations. Table 7.2 shows the relative support for five different
categories of statements by participants about the perceived relationship
between designated leaders and non-positional leaders in the research
organisations. These categories were developed by the researcher after
clustering together quotations from the interviews with similar responses to
the question asking the participants to describe the relationship between the
designated leaders and the non-positional leaders in their organisations.
Strong, moderate or weak support for a position was determined in terms of the
number of sentences given to talking about the position in NUDIST as well as by
the number of participants who adopted the position.
There is overwhelming support from both designated leaders and
non-positional leaders in the sample for the position that the relationship is
healthy, open and collaborative. There is strong support from the whole
sample for the perception that the relationship between those in designated
leadership positions and those in non-positional leadership (or active
followership) is a healthy, open relationship.
Table 7.2 Relative support for statements of participants
perceptions of the relationship between designated leaders and non-positional
leaders
Participants perceptions of the relationship between designated leaders
and non-positional leaders
Designated leaders
Non-positional leaders
Positions make no difference
***
**
Collaborative relationship with shared responsibility
***
-
Healthy, open relationship
***
***
Distinct roles, salaries and responsibilities but open and collaborative
**
***
Some concerns about the relationship
*
*
Key:
*** strong support
**
moderate support
*
weak support
Ria
describes the openness of the relationship in the example of a particular
practice that her organisation has adopted:
Weve introduced things like the chat where any time new
information comes up because its a very complex, information-wise
organisation, anyone can call a chat no matter where you are in the pecking
order. Ive got a problem - and everyone gets involved in the
solution whether theyre the resource worker or the clerical assistant or
whatever, so that works and works really easily because were all women,
and most of us live in co-ops so were used to that kind of decision
making process. (Ria)
Beryl
as a paid employee in her organisation holds a designated leadership position
as coordinator but is also accountable to a management committee made up of
volunteers. Her comments on the relationship between designated leaders and
non-positional leaders are given from both perspectives and are typical of
those participants who were paid employees in the research organisations:
...
now we have an extremely talented, dedicated chair who has a clear
understanding and we think very alike, so we complement what we think the role
is. She trusts my decision making and doesnt, isnt on my back every
five minutes if she sees something, is readily available day or night and I
brief her regularly. When we dont meet at committee we meet informally
and I brief her so she is always up to date. And with the committee, because I
see them every month at least and I work on most of the sub-committees I feel
they have a very good understanding of what I do and in turn what the staff do.
So its been very good this year. In previous years theyve had none
.... but this year they seem to have a far better understanding; but
theyre also coming here more often and are invited to more functions with
us and get more involved. The relationship between coordinator and staff I
would consider it to be healthy in that if I have concerns or issues that I
would discuss those directly with the people involved. If I felt it was out of
my depth I would talk to someone else to try and get some assistance and I feel
that the staff can come and talk to me although some dont because I know
they can be intimidated by my nature regardless of how I talk. I know some
people wont choose to come and talk with me. Theres very little I
can do about that. Ive promoted you can write to me; theres little
I can do except try to be aware if theyre not right and approach them.
Overall I dont promote Im your boss you do as I say; I dont
like that and never have and the reason Im coordinator is to coordinate
activities. Im not there to manage how they do what they do because, I
dont know, they do that better than I do, so I try to put that across. I
think people feel that and I try to have people own stuff ... That power and
control stuff, youve got to put the brakes on but I think its
healthy. (Beryl)
Many
of the participants believed that holding the position of designated leader or
not made little difference to how people worked together in the organisation .
This perception was held more strongly by the designated leaders, but
non-positional leaders also gave this perception moderate support. Lucy and
Yetta see little difference between the positional and non-positional leaders
in their organisations:
I
dont find any difference in the relationship really, because we are into
sharing, encouraging, trust, cooperation. We form sub-committees and people
will do things that I have no talent for anyhow ... Were all just taking
our turns at these jobs and hopefully people who have never held any designated
positions will do so in the future. Actually it will be that most of our
members will have held some position at some time. (Lucy)
There isnt that kind of differentiation. Its really fairly equal in
terms of - there are people who are leaders by virtue of personality but not by
any virtue of election or being raised up whereby the ethos of the group
supports the concept of leadership. I mean, nobody thinks about leaders,
its not something that we discuss, we never put people forward as leader
... People have those positions because we need to have so many directors or
whatever; it is to fulfil certain legal criteria and in terms of the say that
people have and in terms of the input its up to the individual entirely.
It does tend to be that people who make that commitment probably do more
things, but that isnt by virtue of them holding those positions but by
virtue of them wanting to do that. And we could have an organisation with no
directors, there is no president or anything of that nature. We could have a
different person facilitating the meeting each week, theres not a nominal
head, there are people to do things like be the secretary or the treasurer
because they are jobs that need to be done. But all those people could not
exist and the same dynamics would happen in the group. (Yetta)
Eve
concurs that those who wish to hold designated leadership positions have a
chance to do so in her organisation:
I
dont actually think that there are a group of women out there aspiring to
designated leadership roles in the organisation and they just didnt get
the chance to get there. I think its quite the reverse. There are lots of
people who are willing to be active followers at the moment and are happy about
the way the structures will emerge and they will get their chance if they
aspire to positions of leadership. Or they can actually take on other formal
leadership roles. For example, there is a fund-raising group that has emerged.
The same occurred in earlier stages when we were developing policy. People were
very happy for those who were going to take a leading role in developing policy
to develop drafts and then put them out for consultation because people found
it very hard to put their minds around what might be the shape of a policy.
Once they saw something on paper they were happy to be part of a critiquing
process ... It was a very collaborative process. (Eve)
There
is strong support from the participants for acknowledging the distinct roles,
salaries and responsibilities accorded to those with designated leadership
positions but they perceive the relationship within the context of those
distinctions as open and collaborative. The designated leaders are especially
strong in their perceptions of the relationship between themselves and
non-positional leaders as a collaborative one. The distinct responsibilities of
the those in designated leadership are described by Beth:
They see me as the person who has the greater responsibilities and earns more
than them. They see me as responsible for strategic directions and responsible
to make contact with key bureaucrats ... The staff would also see me as someone
who enables things to get done. Coordinator is a good title because a lot of
the things that I do, I coordinate activities that enable staff to get - They
see me as their spokesperson on the committee ... Staff would see me as support
to them. (Beth)
Unas description of how her organisation is trying to come to terms with
the reality of designated positions while at the same time making sure that
there is no suggestion of a hierarchy in the organisation typifies the concern
for equality and mutuality in the leadership interactions in community-profit
organisations that are having to adopt more structures in order to ensure
ongoing supply of and accountability for funding:
So
one of the issues were discussing is trying to think of a different word
because we dont want directors and members; we want all
people, but because of the structure we need to have directors. But to myself
it makes no difference to the role I actually play in the group. Facilitators
can be anyone. Now we have a situation where a facilitator facilitates for
three meetings with a co-facilitator and then that co-facilitator takes over
for the next three. Were actually going to try it in a structured way, to
take turns, so I dont feel I need to be a director ... There was an issue
at one of the last meetings we had. One of the members - you have to put down
if youre a member or director solely because you have to make the quorum
- and she put in sausage which on the Agenda went out to all the
directors, because shes just concerned that just having the term existing
doesnt sound too good, like having to see it in the book, so were
going to try and scrap the word director. It may go into legal documents
that go to the Registrar, but within our meetings I suggest that we write the
letter D in that column so that you dont actually write the
word but its there as a guide so that you know how many. Something like
that so that it doesnt look - if it is a concern because we really
dont want to have any sort of elite hierarchy effect. (Una)
Joy
describes the attitude of many of the designated leaders who see their position
as a responsibility within the group, not as status putting them above the
group:
Strangely enough, its probably one of the few organisations where we all
see ourselves as women. We all have - we just admire the organisation so much
that - I dont see myself as any different to any member who goes along to
the meetings. Its just that I have a job to do and thats to run the
meeting. And I can be a President and stand up and trip over and fall back and
laugh about it or something like that. So I dont see myself as being
different to any other members. And they are - like the grass roots people, the
members, are the most important people in the organisation and I think if you
set yourself up to be different from them then you are not going to get them to
support you. (Joy)
As a
non-positional leader, Lala agrees that positions of designated leadership are
a responsibility within the group and on behalf of the group:
People are in the organisation in their own personal identity and they live
that out in whatever shape or form that they do regardless who they are. I
think with that strong sense of identity that you are living from a basis of
similar vision and similar values without real investment of authority as such
in any person over, above and outside yourself in a team. The team is there to
facilitate the ongoing activities of the group between the decision making
periods but it is the local groups who decide on what activities and whatever
will be done except for major events. (Lala)
There
is weak support from both designated leaders and non-positional leaders for the
perception that the relationship between them is problematical. This perception
is stronger in those organisations that have for some time adopted and operated
out of a strong feminist ideology. Beth sums up the concerns that are expressed
by a few of the participants, concerns that are the result of demands for more
structures and accountability:
From the management committees point of view, without me, they dont
know whats going on. I am delegated by them to conduct the day to day
running of the centre. Ive got the content, the strategies and the
issues. I sometimes think that I dont need a management committee. It
feels like they are just another layer that I have to resource. I do a lot of
the researching, partly because that is the sort of person I am and I like to
do things well and it is slightly a control issue as well. There is this notion
that is shared by many of the staff that management committees can get elected,
they can have no association with the centre, they can have no sense of
belonging to this place and they can be in a very powerful position, where they
can dictate a lot of policies. There is potential for the centre to shift off
in some direction that - I suppose that the staff feel that they have a right
to a greater say because they have made a commitment to work here. The
relationship has been at times problematic. It is currently very good and I
think its about good selection of management committee, but also about
the management committee having a sense of what their role is. (Beth)
The research findings show that the participants, whether designated leaders
or non-positional leaders, perceive the relationship between them to be one in
which the designated leaders have distinct roles and salaries and
responsibilities but these distinctions do not affect the open and
collaborative interaction of the designated and non-positional leaders in their
organisations. Equality, mutuality and collaboration are so valued by
designated leaders and non-positional leaders alike that they form a primary
framework within which leadership interactions occur, even in those
contexts where there is a demand for more formal structures. Erica
encapsulates the general attitude of all of the participants when she says:
There is a general concept that leadership is someone out front - the leader -
and others trot behind. And its scary ... Weve really shared around
the leadership and its really been good ... so its a very inclusive
relationship and there is shared responsibility for reaching our goals. (Erica)
7.5 Women's Understanding of Power in Their Exercise of Leadership in
Community-Profit Organisation
In
order to generate data about the understanding that designated leaders and
non-positional leaders have of power, the participants were asked if they think
of themselves as someone who has or has had power. They were also asked whether
in their experience there had been any jockeying for power in their
organisations.
Eighty percent of the participants give a qualified yes answer to
the question about whether they think of themselves as someone who has or has
had power. The qualifications given by the participants focus on the definition
of power. The participants have a certain wariness about using the word
power. Lara suggests that this wariness is because women have so
often experienced powerlessness they are very aware of what it means to use
power well and to see it in the wider context of empowering others out of the
resource of their own power, not domination. Freda says:
Less and less power is my frame of reference. I think there have been times in
the past when getting power was very important to me thinking I could do
something. In one role I had I was responsible for the closure of a major
institution, a major service of which I was the director, and I think at that
time of my development having the power that was associated with that role was
quite important and I was quite conscious of that and of using that. I think
there are times now where I probably forget that I have some power. Power
doesnt figure strongly in my thinking and sometimes I have to consciously
remember that I am in power relationships with government or with other people
in the community that I am trying to influence and I have to decide how I want
to use that power. I think power is a very useful tool to think about inequity
in relationship and access to resources, so it is certainly part of my social
analysis. But I guess because I work in an organisation that works very
collegially Im not conscious of it day to day. (Freda)
Dora
expresses in her own response the acute awareness that many of the participants
have that the misuse of power can work against their conscious choice of
collaborative, mutual and participative interactions:
Yes, I have power in my workplace. The mere fact of being a worker,
automatically the clients associate you as someone who is more powerful; so
Im always aware of those power issues and I think power is associated
with you whether you think you have it or not. And I think that in my work I do
as much as I can to lessen that gap with the clients or workers or whatever and
that comes into the language you use, where you sit - Ill sit on the
floor if they feel more comfortable - and being nonjudgemental and trying to do
what sort of stuff lessens that. Because I think everyone has a certain amount
of power. Even if you sit silently somewhere you have a certain amount of power
... I think the thing is that with the women I work with it can be detrimental.
Like, if you come in as judgemental and authoritarian they just back off and
youll get nowhere so in that situation I think ... but if youre in
a forum where youre lobbying for your clients issues in a policy
arena then I think you use all the power you have because they use all theirs
so its an advantage. (Dora)
Like
the majority of participants, Joy is at pains to distance herself from the
understanding of power as something used for ones personal
aggrandisement:
No,
I dont think I have power. Not in the sense of power, youre down
there sort of thing. If youre saying power, I would look at it in the
sense of influencing change, from that point of view. So I dont interpret
power in the normal perception of power. We have goals where we want our
organisation to be so its saying to people, Yes, we can do
this. Thats how I see power. I do influence people. At a local
level if theres a bit of dissension they will ring me and say What
do you think? So obviously people respect my opinion, which is very
flattering but its not something I dine out on all the time. I dont
normally talk like this about myself sort of thing because Im not
comfortable in talking about how great I am or Im supposed to be. I think
thats typical of women. (Joy)
Approximately one third of the participants agree that they think of themselves
as having power if power is understood as a connective energy between people.
There are no differences between designated leaders and non-positional leaders
in the support for this understanding of power among the participants.
Keelys and Mariahs responses are typical of this group of
participants:
I
hate power. Its funny; if there is ever any public relations thing I hate
that and I try to keep away from the camera and those things. I like having
ideas and I like seeing those ideas implemented and I think I really like
change and things happening and I like people to be a part of it. I certainly
like to see people as a part of that change and directing that change. I know
that Im certainly very grass roots in that I believe you dont get
change unless it comes from people themselves. I suppose I believe in
networking and I see that I have influence rather than power through networking
and moral support and because I have confidence in valuing other peoples
unique skills and contributions as I see this nurtures and encourages
peoples involvement in a group. So you have to try to tap at the base of
what people want in a way. And use your influence to network and link those
people. The important thing is using other peoples power to make changes
happen. (Keely)
I,
like a lot of other people, was brought up as a religious sister on the
traditional spirituality where power was a negative, supposedly negative thing
for women. Ive come to understand power as being the empowering of my own
being and the empowering of people with whom I work and I have no fear of power
at that level as long as there are people and situations around to call, to
evaluate, to discern, to keep linking. So the dynamics of it, the relational
aspect of it is what Im interested in and its always a changing
thing. Powers not a dirty word. Its a word about enabling and my
interest in these last few years and my choices have been to work for women, to
gain some sense of their own story and the empowering of one another they can
do in that. (Mariah)
One
fifth of the participants agreed that they had power if power is defined as
group energy and another one fifth agreed that they had power if power means
personal power. Again, there are few differences between designated leaders and
non-positional leaders among these two groups of participants.
Erica
describes power as group energy as it is understood by the group of
participants who agree that they have power if it is described in this way.
Im not into power at all. And thats one of the things that I find
hard. I have to say two things about power. The first thing is I dont
want personal power for myself. Were operating on a model where all the
decisions are made as a group and I dont try to make any decisions that
are significant for us as a group by myself. Id never even consider doing
that. In fact even on small decisions it can be quite debilitating sometimes.
So I think thats empowering in itself and the way weve operated as
a group, if you made a study of our group, you would find that people who were
into power wouldnt understand how its all happening because
everybody has a part of the power and they are all operating out here. It
almost looks like its autonomous but its not because the whole
group is interconnected and were all into sharing the power and
thats really what were on about. And we think thats why
its hard for us to be effective with ordinary organisations because if
you operate on that model you basically dont get anywhere. Because you
have to operate on the model thats operating within the organisation
youre relating with and thats why I believe you see women who are
feminists who get into these leadership jobs and the only way they can survive
is to start operating like all the men operate otherwise they cant
survive. So if you go and start operating on a power sharing basis you just get
obliterated. (Erica)
Kiris belief that an individual has power in a very limited
way and it is a collection of people going in the same direction
that have power is shared by this group of participants. The sentiments
expressed by Holly are also representative of this group of participants:
Yeah, its a different kind of power isnt it? We all have power in
the group; thats the good bit about it I think. Im a bit
uncomfortable with associating power with the kind of leadership that happens
in the group, yes. Its very much wanting to exercise power from behind.
Yeah. Its interesting, isnt it? I guess its the dislike about
power over, that stuff; not wanting that. Its very much a
sense of standing back more than anything else and allowing the process to - I
guess the power comes from taking the ego out of it. Thats what it is.
Its when you can take your ego out of it then the leadership is shared
and everyone can be the leader. Its very interesting because we actually
had an incident within the group in the last few years where there was one
woman who had an ego problem actually. That was it; it was all ego stuff. She
ended up resigning after doing a fair bit of damage. She excluded herself. It
was very interesting. It was like an ethic had come about in the group and she
was not able to be part of it or accept it. (Holly)
The
one fifth of participants, both designated leaders and non-positional leaders
who see themselves as having personal power contrast this power to positional
power or power that could have an impact on the wider community. Eve makes this
distinction:
Yes, I do have power. It is very much an individual thing, though. Ive
got personal power over what I do and what I dont do. And what I do try
to influence and what I dont waste my time on. In a wider sense I
dont think I have a lot of power in the wider community. (Eve)
Lala
describes her personal power as being:
in
terms of who I am and the questions that I have and my concerns and my ability
to keep searching and my sickness which is a strength in terms of people
respecting you for your capacity to keep going in the face of adversity. (Lala)
For
the participants who describe the power they possess as personal power, their
power is not dependent on what happens in the group. As Ita explains:
Yes
I do have power. I have personal power. And Im listened to. We are all
listened to. There are times when I dont have personal power, but
thats not anything to do with the group. Thats to do with me and
the energy I am able to put into INT, my job, myself at any given time. (Ita)
The
personal power described by the participants is not a power to be wielded in a
public and domineering manner. Jocelyn describes it as power exercised
two steps from behind:
Power was a word that we didnt use in the past. Power is a
word that Im very comfortable with now. I was brought up to exercise
power two steps from behind. I can remember one of my grandmothers saying
Jocelyn, be as clever a you like but dont show it. That was
the word of wisdom and the state of knowledge at the time. And Ive
probably observed enough of that to get me credibility to move beyond it.
Because I didnt always walk just two steps behind at all, not at all. But
I think you have to build up your credibility before you can use your
idiosyncratic credits then to do other things. So that is probably how I use
power. Ive never stopped to wonder whether I was powerful; Ive just
moved powerfully I think. (Jocelyn)
Ella
emphasises the importance of the collaborative structures of the organisation
acting as a curb to the misuse of personal power:
Do
I associate power with the leadership I exercise? I think the potential for
power is there. I guess there is to the extent that when things go wrong people
call you and ask what you think; so there is the potential to influence other
peoples views about things because they are seeking your opinion. So that
is power. I dont feel uncomfortable particularly about that because I
tend to think that I dont abuse power and there are enough safeguards in
the organisation for that not to happen. So, yes, there is power involved. The
controls in the organisation arent restrictive; they are just a
cautionary safeguard against the abuse of power. We are still very concerned
about that ... But some people inherently have more power than others and
thats where the collaborative structures in DH and the decision making
processes are important. And I think that as long as our structures are sound
and our decision making processes and we are fairly vigilant about evaluating
them when theyre working and reviewing them when they dont work
that there are fairly good safeguards against the abuse of power. (Ella)
Ten
of the participants agree that they have power if power is described as
organisational or role power. The following extracts from the interviews of
some of these ten participants express what the participants meant by role
power or organisational power:
Yes, definitely I have power; I am quite powerful, powerful because of my
position, powerful because of the work that I do with women, powerful because
of the history Ive had with organisations. I think Im quite
powerful in the way I present that at times too. So, sometimes I present that
in ways that if Im very strong about something Ill use that power.
Often I feel that Im not powerful enough when I come across structures
that I cant impact on. (Cara)
I
have been conscious of power a number of times in my work. Ive been
conscious of it in terms of if I blow this the price of it will be profound not
only in millions of dollars but in peoples lives and that sort of thing
and if I mishandle this negotiation or whatever. Im very conscious of it
then. Ive also been conscious of it when its been intimated to me
that it could be used for my benefit, usually by the opposition or by the force
of the opposition and it makes me realise how frightened they are or how
powerful they perceive me to be although I cant see what it is - where
the power is - I must have it somewhere. (Ria)
When you are in a position of leadership you do have power, you do have the
authorisation, particularly in elected leadership, people put you there. People
put you there, they have authorised you, so thats a power and at its best
its a people power. But leaders arent the only ones who have power
so whats the best power role to adopt if you want to influence people?
(Nora)
I
really think everyone has a certain amount of power. And certainly being
elected to a role like this gives you a certain power, however limited it is,
and so its probably about finding where you can exercise that
appropriately for the kinds of ends or goals of the group and to somehow bring
to realisation the goals and the vision and the projects if you like that the
group is on about. (Magda)
About
one quarter of the participants say that power is a negative concept for them
and that they dont relate to it at all. Many of the participants feel
uncomfortable using the term power to describe their exercise of
leadership because of its overtones of domination and control. Fay explains her
discomfort with the term:
Do
I think of myself as someone with power? Thats a really difficult
question because I have often been told by other people that I have power but
Im not conscious of it. Ive often been told that I can influence
other people but that notion makes me feel uncomfortable to tell you the truth.
I really dont like the thought of influencing people unduly. Id
rather them come to the conclusion themselves than to just feel influenced by
another person because I feel that maybe they could just as easily be
influenced by someone else in another direction. I do feel a bit uncomfortable
about that but Ive been in a bit of trouble in past organisations in past
jobs and been accused of having a lot of influence over other people in some
situations. And Ive never seen that. Ive just seen a common
commitment to things. (Fay)
Some
of the participants who reject power totally as a negative concept do so
because of its association with men who have power. Agatha explains this
position:
But
power is not a very nice word; power to me is a dominating word
and I wouldnt like to dominate anybody. Id like to persuade them
and encourage them but not dominate. I suppose we associate it with men who
have power and when men have power they use it against women and I also
associate corruption with power because they are in a position to do devious
things; yes, that must be it. (Agatha)
Only
one of the 57 participants could recall an incident where people who exercised
leadership in the research organisations had been involved in a struggle for
power in the organisation. The other participants had not experienced or
observed any jockeying for power among the leadership of their organisations.
Whether the participants understand power as group energy, as connective
power, as personal power or as organisational power they are wary about
claiming power if it is tainted by any suggestion of domination or control or
ego. The few participants that reject the concept of power as negative reject
it because they feel it is irretrievably tainted with such overtones. Power is
understood by the participants to be an energy, a capacity to influence that is
generated in the interactions of the group and for the purpose of achieving the
goals of the group. There is a very strong belief among the participants that
power as energy or capacity to influence is never to be used for personal
aggrandisement but only to bring about social or organisational change which
will create greater equity and opportunity for their constituencies.
7.6 Some Recurring Themes
Participants were asked questions about what other organisations could
learn from the practice of leadership in their own organisation and about how
they would describe their leadership role. They were also asked if they would
like to make any general comments about their experience of womens
leadership. A number of recurring themes emerged from the participants
responses to these questions and from their reflections on their experiences of
womens leadership. A summary of these themes as developed by the
researcher after immersion in the texts and memo writing and of the relative
importance attached to these themes by participants is found in Table 7.3.
Again, strong, moderate or weak support for a position was determined by the
researcher in terms of the number of sentences given to talking about the
position in NUDIST as well as by the number of participants who adopted the
position.
Table 7.3 Summary of recurring themes in the participants
experience of leadership in the research organisations and the importance
attached to those themes by participants
Recurring themes
Importance attached to those themes by participants
Collaboration is essential
***
Women in community-profit organisations are good at leadership
***
People matter
***
Its easier to focus on organisational mission with fewer bureaucratic
constraints
***
Womens leadership needs to be supported because of obstacles women
continue to face
**
Women are uncomfortable with the prevailing understanding and practice of
leadership
**
It is unnecessary and unhelpful to adopt a masculine leadership style
**
Ego is not central to womens leadership
*
Womens leadership is evolving
*
Leadership is for social transformation
*
Women enjoy the experience of leadership
*
Key:
*** strong support
**
moderate support
*
weak support
Over and over again the participants emphasised the value of collaborative
leadership, especially participative decision making, and its centrality in
womens community-profit organisations. Ria emphasises that
womens choice of collaborative leadership is not because women are soft
and afraid of conflict but because it is the best option for effective
leadership:
I
take no crap from other women! Thats been my experience. I
come from a long line of Irish matriarchs and if a push and a shove will get
you there well well do that; and if youve got to negotiate then
well do that too. Why Im so impressed with this whole process
[collaboration] is that not only is it so successful, you end up with people
being good friends and caring about each other, but you also end up with a good
outcome. I do it because its effective and I dont think women take
dominance from other women when they might think theres not much you can
do about it from a man. (Ria)
Many
of the participants agreed with Ella who said:
I
guess the collaborative style of leadership in DH is one that could be applied
across the board. And I think globally. I think for me its the way things
should be done no matter what the size of the organisation. And I guess
Id be the first to say that its harder work and it takes more time
but the benefit, the outcomes are worth it. No one gets left behind and the
quality of service you deliver is by far better. (Ella)
Una
expresses a common view of the participants that in their experience women
leaders in community-profit organisations attach great importance to
participative decision making:
I
think that women as a whole seem to know more of the dynamics of the group,
they seem to know where they might be if theres a trouble spot brewing,
the potential for a sore with someone to fester ... I would tend to think that
women are a lot more aware of whats happening that way, so that when
decisions are made they are a little bit more effective because views are being
brought up and expressed more openly rather than people not speaking about the
issue. I think women might have helped get involved in something so that when a
decision is made it is made from a very clear point where everyone feels
theyve been heard and you havent got some people going away and
feeling that they really didnt get a chance to say what they wanted to
say. And therefore theyre not really behind the decision made. (Una)
A
second recurring theme in the participants reflection on their experience
of womens leadership in community-profit organisations is that they
believe women in such organisations are good leaders and their leadership is
better than mens leadership or than womens leadership in mainstream
management. The experience of the participants is that women leaders in
community-profit organisations are better listeners, are better with group
processes, are more accountable and are more supportive of other people in the
organisation and show that they respect and value them. Ella sums up this
perception:
Womens leadership is very different from mens. Women have a very
different style. The best women leaders are superior to the best male leaders
in my experience because they have a capacity to generally value people and
take them with them in a way and ... I dont know what it is that
distinguishes them. I guess there is a concern for the emotional aspects of a
process and not just the outcomes. That means that the process and the outcomes
will be different. I think women who exercise leadership in mainstream
management roles are constrained by the structures, inevitably. (Ella)
The
emphasis on knowing, valuing and supporting people and recognising their
leadership potential is a third recurring theme in the participants
experience of womens leadership in community-profit organisations. Beryl
describes her experience of this aspect of womens leadership:
The
best resource, its so old hat, the best resource is the people and if you
lead them and work with them then ...I worked in a bank and the leadership
style was autocratic and I think to adopt our collaborative style to adopt our
strong approach of the community here would have been better. We like to have a
meal together, morning tea , I think thats important and we function at a
level of knowing about each other in lots of ways. So we know the person as
well as the role. I know the person who is doing the job and what difficulties
they face and what theyre really good at so when stuff comes through I
know where to direct it most appropriately. Knowing your human resources,
thats what its about. Knowing who works with you. (Beryl)
The
participants experience is that people are valued in their organisations.
For example, Rhoda says:
Everyone here thats involved feels like a big family and they know they
can if theyre upset they can say it. Mostly they wont be taken the
wrong way. And if theyre angry with someone they let it out, they
dont have to sit on it and just bottle it up. Peoples emotional
thing is validated - their needs and expression of their needs I suppose.
(Rhoda)
Ella
reflects the position of many of the participants who believe that valuing
people is part of the end in itself:
Its much more responsive, its much more creative, it utilises
everybodys ideas and people are valued in the process, peoples
contributions are valued in the process, you get to look at things in different
ways, people, clients - its a more equal thing. People, the clients, the
workers, the volunteers are valued. ...And in doing so I dont think the
outcome is necessarily compromised, especially when you compare something like
DH to Family Services or Social Services which are massive bureaucracies that
Ive worked in and schools that operate very bureaucratically. This is a
much more supportive organisation generally. I think people generally have a
better time, have a better experience of the world through these organisations
and feel better about themselves and produce a better quality of service
because of it. (Ella)
Because many of the participants have experienced or are experiencing in their
paid employment leadership in bureaucratic organisations, they are in a good
position to draw comparisons between their experiences of leadership in those
organisations and their experiences of leadership in womens
community-profit organisations that are on the margins. A significant
difference for them is that it is easier to focus on the organisations
mission when there are fewer bureaucratic constraints and this is another
recurring theme in the participants experience of leadership in their
organisations.
For
example, in commenting on the bureaucratic organisation in which she had paid
employment Kay said:
They could learn from ENV to be clear about what their aims are and not get so
caught up in the steps along the way. I see such a lot of concentration on
minor issues instead of being focused on the patients needs. Theres
a lot of energy spent on irrelevant and non-patient focused decisions. We did a
survey recently at work where there was a computer logging of the tasks you did
and the results were that 33 per cent of our time was spent documenting or
liaising with other levels of staff on the computer. Thats a large chunk
of your day. It would be better if the time was spent with your patients. (Kay)
Grace
describes the way in which bureaucratic organisations that collaborate with PIV
view it from a bureaucratic perspective and she notes the potential threat to
PIVs organisational mission as it becomes larger:
I
think they would see us as really aware people in touch with the community,
trying to respond to needs with no intention of building ourselves up.
Were simply there to enable people. I think they are caught up in a lot
of red tape which restricts people. We try to do the opposite I think.
Thats what makes us the centre that perhaps others in government services
envy, because as centres grow they become constrained by their leadership. And
that is one of our problems. As we get bigger can we remain as a centre that is
for people? Thats our concern with the government grant. We are going to
be more and more accountable. We cant continue without that government
help, but at our meeting the other day we were saying that we need to keep as
simple as possible, but not naive. We need to be certainly accountable but in
the simplest way possible to enable us to be flexible. (Grace)
Eves experience in bureaucratic organisations leads her to conclude that
The
expectations are a lot more hierarchical in the way that you are meant to
cooperate; you dont have the freedom to be able to be more inclusive or
to be able to consult widely with people. Also in bureaucracies these days the
performance standards being set are very much individual directed and not so
much set over the outcomes of the group of people you manage. Its what
you have actually done and achieved yourself, not what the whole group or
branch has achieved. (Eve)
The
majority of the participants felt that bureaucratic structures and processes
threatened the two things that were most valued in their organisations -
affirming and supporting the contribution of all those involved in the
organisation and achieving the purposes for which the organisation existed.
The threat of bureaucratisation which accompanies greater demands for
accountability for funding in the womens community-profit organisations
in this research was countered by an ongoing commitment to and development of
those collaborative and participative processes which would best achieve the
purposes of the organisations.
Another recurring theme in the participants experience of womens
leadership in community-profit organisations is that womens leadership
needs to be supported because of the obstacles women continue to face. The
participants experience of these obstacles is very personal and this
theme emerges in the data through very concrete stories of difficulties faced.
For
example, Adas experience of the obstacles to women exercising leadership
is situated in the very masculine context of her paid, professional job in the
film and video industry where she sees women such as herself as disadvantaged.
I
wouldnt exactly describe it as trailblazing but I could see how it could
be described like that. When we are actually having meetings it doesnt
feel like that. I certainly think there are some excellent film makers in
Brisbane and excellent male film makers as well but, maybe Im just
bitter, I dont know, but it does seem that they have it a lot easier,
especially if they want to become camera operators or sound technicians or the
more demanding roles. If you want to become a production assistant its a
lot easier if you are a woman, but to actually be on the creative team is very
hard. You really have to prove that you can carry the camera and carry the
typewriter and all that sort of stuff. And you shouldnt have to. There
are weedy looking men around and they dont have to prove anything. If
women want to express their creativity through film they are being
disadvantaged because of their physical status. All it means is that if there
are ten boxes to move a women might have to do ten trips whereas a man might
only do five, but they still get moved. But can you imagine what the film
Piano would have been like if a man had directed it? It would have been
a completely different film. And thats not to say it would have been a
bad film; it just would have been a different film. I think its really
important that we get to see what the womens idea is as well. Getting
back to the trailblazing, I guess those hacking a trail out of the forest
dont see much except the branches and the scratches they are getting, and
its just the vision of where they are going that makes the pain
worthwhile. (Ada)
One
of the older participants emphasises the obstacles facing older women who
aspire to leadership but notes that her daughter also faces these obstacles:
Well the only thing is repeating what I said before, that it has been difficult
for women to reach leadership positions in any mixed organisation with some
notable exceptions of course. But I do think women achieve leadership positions
with greater difficulty than men, particularly if theyre in the age group
say over 55 or 60. They havent been expected to be the leaders. Its
always been the man leading and the woman can be the secretary. They grew up in
that more subservient role and you should look at how they have had to fight to
move out of that subservient role into the leadership role. Also important is
the reaction of some men to women in the leadership role. My daughter has just
started taking a different track in her career, enrolling in a graduate diploma
in management, and when she discussed this at work where shes been in
administration she had a couple of quite sarcastic remarks as much as to say
not another woman trying to do that. I think thats one of the things
about leadership; there are many men with open minds to accept women as people
but there are many men who think women cant be quite as powerful in a
leadership position. (Amy)
The
participants experience a variety of obstacles to their exercise of leadership.
For Jade the tension between work and home commitments is an obstacle.
The
other thing that is difficult for women too, and I suppose I have some of this,
and thats that are you a mother or are you a career woman? Theres
always this draw even though you have the other half whos very helpful,
theres this draw and its a female thing I think, always this I
should be home, I should be doing this or I cant do this at work until
the kids get to that point and they can drive and work themselves and
theres always that stress level - not a stress level but a tearing apart
of the soul. So I think in that respect I think its that pull thats
always there. (Jade)
Eve
identifies the need for women to prove themselves as leaders as a very real
obstacle.
I
think that lots of women who are in management roles do take on lots more than
they ought to or lots more than their male counterparts and theyre in
danger of burning out. I think that lots of women like to continue to have
their way of doing things and their commitments that theyve been involved
in on top of their job; that might be their children and their family or it
might be the volunteer organisations that they keep in touch with or it might
just be their general hobbies. The other thing that has been an impact also has
been lots of pressure on women in higher positions to do additional work
because of the agenda; being the woman that sits on the selection panel or
being the token woman on the committee. There is a burden that comes with being
a woman in a leadership position. (Eve)
Agnes
tells a story from her experience about the entrenched social expectations
women working as volunteers in organisations encounter in trying to exercise
leadership:
It
was coming up Christmas and we wanted to organise a Christmas function in our
group. My husband was working at an old car place at Acacia Ridge and there
were hundreds of men over there and he was helping to organise a night for the
men. This particular night we went to bed and I asked him if theyd
decided where they were going for the function. Oh yeah he said, we said how
about we go to Broadbeach on the Gold Coast, such a time Saturday night suit
you? Okay done! As for the women - oh I dont know if I can get over
there, it depends if my husbands got the car, what night did you say? He
usually goes for such and such a thing on Saturday night. Ill have to get
a babysitter. Its a bit more than I can afford. Talk about hassles! But
the men - they just go. Its interesting that the men didnt say
theyd have to check with their wives or get a babysitter. Gee that makes
me mad. The women had all these hassles to get out, they had to fit in with
somebody else. (Agnes)
Erica
points out that even those things that were once seen as stepping stones to
womens exercise of leadership have become obstacles. She uses the merit
system as an example:
If
youre talking about leadership and getting women into positions of
leadership and what we have to do to bring about change, I dont think the
merit system is going to help because I dont believe that its
meritorious. While thats been a path that we wanted to go down to get
women into positions of leadership, we couldnt see what the hassles were
going to be, although some people could. Basically youre just not going
to change the attitudes of all those people who are making the meritorious
decisions. They are very embedded and it doesnt matter whether you talk
about women or racism or whatever, people have got preconceived ideas and
youre just not going to change those. ... The problem with merit is that
it is based on the assumption that women operate in the same way as men and
they dont. And all the meritorious categories are male-defined. It
doesnt matter whos had an input into them. Women who succeed under
the merit system are women whose careers have taken them in a way that they
have had to operate in terms of the male system. (Erica)
Because of the variety of obstacles that the participants themselves had
experienced in exercising leadership and that they had observed in their work
in both community-profit and other organisations and because of their
conviction that women in community-profit organisations are exercising
leadership in a way that others could learn from, they believe that such
leadership needs to be supported. In particular the participants believe that
women need to support each other in the exercise of leadership.
Another recurring theme which emerges in the data is the participants
discomfort with the prevailing understanding and practice of leadership. This
theme reinforces the participants unwillingness to see themselves as
leaders within the dominant models of leadership.
Fays discomfort is typical of many of the participants. In commenting on
womens leadership she says:
I
suspect that womens leadership in some organisations might be very little
different to mens leadership; women who are coming from a fairly
authoritarian perspective anyway. I dont know that their leadership would
be very different to mens. I guess whether women even see themselves as
leaders - leadership to me seems almost a male concept, so whether women even
feel comfortable with that term. (Fay)
Several of the participants emphasised that their understanding of leadership
was not about breaking through a glass ceiling or following a linear career
path. Angela was very emphatic in her comment:
For
me, leadership, power, they can be positive or negative. You can lead without
being in a leadership role. I like to think of leadership as service; its
not about power, but its about service, helping people. Lead by example
is the strongest image for me. I dont ask anyone to do something that
Im not prepared to do for myself. (Angela)
Eleanor struggled to find words to express her understanding of womens
leadership as something significantly different from the prevailing
understanding:
With women its not a linear approach to leadership either horizontally or
vertically. Its a focus on task that ends up being the chaos area of
physics. So whereas they are not thinking about a career path either in
something like the public service or even non-profit organisations,
theyre very hard to focus, so it may not even be with the peace
organisation that the peace principles infiltrate. Its even something
more generic than that I think. Its a task-service approach. So whereas I
dont believe in top-down management and I dont necessarily believe
in everyone sitting around a table and having a collective approach, I believe
there is a middle ground there which I call my Ying- Yang approach,
when you need an element of both of these. (Eleanor)
Magdas description of the way in which members of her organisation are
trying to envisage new ways of exercising leadership reflects the way in which
the discomfort participants feel with the prevailing masculine models of
leadership is often expressed in the search for something new:
A
number of our members have begun to think about the whole issue of leadership
from a new perspective or to imagine, to begin to try to name something that is
different from patriarchal kinds of models if you like, or those shaped by the
dominant patriarchal culture and to consciously try out new possibilities and a
lot of them would be around adult-adult relationships as distinct from
mother-child or superior-inferior relationships. And the whole thing of
participation, involvement of people in decisions that affect their lives and
even the whole area of shared leadership. ... So you have a whole different
model there of people interrelating. Its much more the idea of engaging
oneself with others, each person committing herself to the group in a certain
way on the basis of shared needs - something like that - organic leadership
which talks more about everybody in the whole group taking responsibility in
ways for how the group is led or what direction it takes. (Magda)
Closely related to the discomfort with prevailing understandings of
leadership are two other recurring themes - a negative response to those who
adopt a masculine leadership style in order to exercise leadership effectively
and a rejection of the ego dimension of leadership that participants identify
as central to the prevailing understanding of leadership. For example, Bea
believes that in general most women do not see leadership in terms of force and
power, except for women in politics who have adopted a masculine style of
leadership and she says:
I
dont find that particularly good. It means that they have lost contact
with who they are supposed to be helping and the power has become more
important. (Bea)
Jade,
like many of the participants, believes women have other options open to them
in exercising leadership other than adopting male leadership styles:
Well, if we look at commercial for instance, business, sometimes I think that
women try to play a mans role, to be hard and tough. I think theres
better ways of doing that. I think women have to work on doing that. And
intuition, we dont work on intuition enough. Its a great skill
women have, and weve really got to learn to tap into that more I think
and okay you might sound a bit strange when you say this in a mixed board room
but hey that clicks something over here then it comes around. So I think we
need to look into our intuition a bit more, we need to step out of that male
aggressive role because all were trying to do is compete in the same
world and I dont think we need to do that. And Im just thinking of
a couple of women I know who run reasonably successful businesses and their
image to me is very controlling, Im the boss, you will do what
youre told and that just doesnt work. (Jade)
Celia
gives advice to women in leadership that resonates with the comments of all the
participants:
I
would say to women leaders, and to women who aspire to be leaders, do it as
women and dont try to be one of the boys. Be ever mindful of the issues
in womens lives and not just in their organisational roles and work
roles, but all the things that make up womens lives. I think women in
leadership roles need to be ever mindful of the other responsibilities that
women have and how that impacts on their work place. (Celia)
One
of the reasons for such a negative response to women who adopt a masculine
leadership style is the rejection by the participants of what they call the ego
component of masculine leadership styles. Angela expresses the common view
among the participants that women lead differently from men and she explains
the main difference this way:
I
believe very strongly that far too often men let their egos get in the way of
their leadership and I really dont think that women do that. (Angela)
Yetta
agrees that this is one of the main differences between mens leadership
and womens leadership:
I
think one of the main differences is to do with ego. That women are less likely
to attach their own personal ego to the processes that are going on so that in
NEC it is an amazing organisation. I am constantly amazed at how amicable
decisions can be, how little conflict occurs, how little there is of people
attaching themselves to an outcome personally. In recent times Ive become
involved in another cooperative where there are a number of men who have come
into it new and dont know about the cooperative process but who think
they have all the answers and their egos are all bound up in the process and
theres a lack of listening. ... I think its the ability to listen
and how not to bind your ego up in the exercise of power - thats my
opinion anyway. But I can see that men lead. Its rare to have a man (and
they do exist because Ive seen them) but who can lead in a way that gets
the most out of the people who he is leading. Most men lead in a bludgeonly
sort of a fashion and that is so ineffective in achieving good things with
people. (Yetta)
Kiri
notes some differences in the motives of the men who have recently become part
of one of ENVs projects:
I
dont think that the men coming into the group have changed the way we
operate because our way of operating was so established by the time they joined
that they just went along with it after an initial period of bewilderment. ...
Most of the guys are there because it is meeting their own needs ... but
whether its the same drive that I feel about forming community spirit,
well thats different. (Kiri)
Eve
sees evidence of the lack of ego in the leadership of RAP in the efforts made
to seek feedback and reflect of it:
I
suppose one comment is that male leaders I think try to rationalise away any
criticism of how they operate whereas women, and especially I know its
true of us in RAP, try to take on board any criticism of how we operate and see
how we can best respond to it. In fact weve spent a lot of time trying to
deal with the negative and havent just been basking in the glory of the
positive. Women can actually take the criticism and build on that and find ways
to be a better leader. I think the other thing were good at doing is
getting feedback whether its positive or negative. We actually ask for
feedback. (Eve)
The
lack of ego was not only a recurring theme in the participants responses
to questions, it was also evident in their own demeanour and in their own
stories of leadership. The participants emphasis on developing
collaborative and participative processes which best achieve the purposes of
the organisation (usually purposes under the broad heading of social
transformation) is totally consonant with a leadership that does not focus on
the leader but on the leadership relationship and its purpose . Related to
the recurring theme of ego not being central to womens leadership was the
theme of social transformation being the focus of leadership and the theme of
women enjoying their experiences of leadership in community-profit
organisations.
A
story told by Holly encapsulates many of the recurring themes that characterise
the participants understanding of womens leadership in
community-profit organisations and illustrates, in particular, the theme that
womens distinctive understanding of leadership is evolving in the
experiences of leadership in these organisations.
I
found it a very, very interesting experience going to the national meeting.
There were about 50 women there and they had come from every state and there
were a lot of older women there. There were women in their 80s. They were so
wonderful to meet and so powerful. And there was just this wonderful sense of
this history in the organisation. Then there were the middle aged and younger
women coming up as well. And, not all, but some of the older women were used to
doing things in a very formalised way. You could see that the new executive
were wanting to introduce a different kind of culture there. And so on the
first night the women who were taking over the national leadership and had
organised the program had various activities which were really getting to
know you activities and asking women to tell their stories and so on and
introduced singing and things like that. And some of the older women were
saying This is a waste of time! What are we doing this for? Weve
got business to do! Wheres our agenda? And then when it came to the
AGM there were some proposed amendments to the Constitution which would have
formalised even more some of this cultural change. Some of the women who
opposed that became very legalistic about it and they had the old Constitution
with them and the proposed amendments and theyd gone through it and they
were lobbying people in the breaks and after the meetings and so on. And the
AGM itself was quite horrendous, very dramatic. At one stage, Ill call
them the old brigade, actually defeated the amendments put up by the incoming
executive. And so the incoming executive said Well have to resign.
We cant do this if we dont have your support. It was a very
dramatic meeting. I thought the woman who chaired it did a wonderful job. We
actually had to reconvene some of it the next day. I was fascinated by looking
at that because it seemed to me that there was a culture change going on as a
new generation of women who were in their 40s, I mean theyre not really
young women, were bringing in a more what some of us who are feminists would
see as a woman culture, as a different model of organisation and wanting it to
be more collaborative and less formalised. I think the opposition to it was
really around the fear of losing control. I think that some of those older
women had invested of themselves in this organisation over many many years so
it was very meaningful to them. And I think that things were being done a bit
differently. I think that was what it was about. The culture change was
eventually accepted. The motions were passed in the end. It was very, very
interesting because the objections to the proposed amendments were carried and
then you could see that the women who opposed them were quite shocked to see
what they had done. They had actually won the day. And they began to realise
what the consequences were; how divisive this was and so on. It had to be
reconvened the next day so people could sleep on it a bit. There was a moment
where - this is indicative of a new culture - it was towards the AGM and we
were seeing what had happened and a couple of other women and I went outside
the room and said Weve got to do something about this. Weve
got to do something with healing here. Weve got to do something with
energy here. So we spoke to the chairperson and she agreed and we
actually got everyone to stand in a circle and hold hands. And so that is the
new kind of culture and way of dealing with it. I cant remember the
actual details of what we did then. And then there were a couple of other bits
of business that had to be conducted after that. One of the issues that was so
divisive was around having people represent the organisation being elected to
the positions where theyd represent the organisation internationally at
the international executive. And what happened was that there was someone who
was up for re-election as the international representative who wasnt at
the meeting, but she had been this for many years and she was one of the old
stalwarts. But the way it came about is connected with funding and how these
organisations get funded. Often the work is taken on by women whove got
private means. And this woman had means to travel. And so it had fallen to her
to do this. And one of the main issues of the new group coming in was that
these had to be open for everyone. It couldnt carry on like that. And
there had to be funds found to fund women to do this so it could be anyone who
nominated for these positions. What we actually found was that there were two
positions; so that it could be healed and the older woman could be endorsed but
we could bring in another woman who was funded. And that was strongly
supported. In fact there were women who got up from the floor and said I
commit this amount of money to create a fund for this person to go. The
reason why this could all happen was because all the women there, including the
ones who were having the fight were also terribly concerned about having
harmonious relationships overall in the group, about achieving harmony. I think
thats a strong value - this is the organisation some of whose leading
lights have been leaders in the conflict resolution business! There were a lot
of healing sorts of statements after that and endorsement of the new national
executive. (Holly)
7.7 Conclusion
This
chapter has presented the research findings which illuminate the understandings
that the participants attach to their exercise of leadership in
community-profit organisations. The participants images of leadership,
their recipes for effective leadership, their reflections on the relationship
between designated leaders and non-positional leaders, their understanding of
power and the recurring themes that emerge as they reflect on their experience
of leadership in community-profit organisations provide an understanding of
leadership that can be summed up by the words mutual
relationship,collaboration,responsibility,intentionality
and purpose . The next chapter presents the
research findings on the participants experiences and practice of
leadership in their organisations.
Contents of the
thesis
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