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To give an understanding of the gender dynamics at play in organisations, and how these dynamics affect those who get to be leaders, Professor Deborah M. Kolb was at the ISB, teaching a course in Gender and Leadership. Kolb is a Professor for Women and Leadership at the Simmons School of Management in Boston, USA, and is faculty affiliate for the Centre for Gender in Organization (CGO), the School’s international resource centre.
In a face to face with ‘ISBInsight’, she looks closely at the different models of gender and leadership and how women confront and navigate through challenges in their leadership roles. This is followed by an article written by Professor Kolb reproduced from the CGO Newsletter. |
| Professor Deborah M Kolb, Simmons School of Management, Boston, USA and Facul |
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Your course at the ISB, focuses on a certain gender lens on leadership. What exactly does such a lens scan?
Gender lens on leadership, or any other social process, deals with the issues of a woman’s legitimacy in a role. A woman may not be easily accepted in a role as a leader and may have to do a number of things to make it more likely for people to accept her as legitimate. Legitimate power is not accorded to woman easily. She needs to negotiate for it. A gender lens thus looks at the subtle ways in which a leader may not be accorded the legitimacy that she deserves in a leadership role.
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The way we think of leadership in the US, I think it is the same in India too, is that it is coded masculine. That is, it fits the traits of man more specifically than it considers the traits of a woman. We prefer leaders who are more decisive, heroic, who inspire people to follow them – these traits are more associated with men than women. The other thing about leadership is that we believe that it is a full time occupation and that it requires your giving all to it and makes family invisible.
The Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, was not seen as much of a Mayor till September 11th, 2001.
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