Force and Inertia: A Systematic Review of Women’s Leadership in Male-Dominated Organizational Cultures in the United States

Abstract

The ascension of women into top leadership roles in male-dominated industries and organizations in the United States remains significantly low despite inroads women have made over the past two decades. The scarcity of women in leadership has been attributed to gendered traits and socialized beliefs that inform organizational cultures. However, research suggests that leaders can also influence organizational culture because they model the primary principles undergirding workplace cultures. This systematic review sought to understand how women’s leadership has been described in influencing male-dominated organizational cultures. Three major themes were identified to answer the research question—Strategic Femininity, Shared Power, and Change Agents. Using the analogy of inertia and force, a discussion of the findings and implications for human resource development (HRD) research and practice are presented.

Women's career in Vietnamese academia: An analysis from multiple lenses

“…Traditionally, men have been predominantly employed in occupations and sectors which are characterised by stereotypically masculine traits (e.g., physically strong, aggressive, and competitive) while women have been largely employed in occupations and sectors which are characterised by stereotypically feminine traits (e.g., caring, nice, and nurturant) (Campuzano, 2019;Jandeska & Kraimer, 2005). Examples of male-dominated professions are construction workers, engineers, and lawyers; examples of female-dominated occupations are nurses, early childhood education teachers, and secretaries (Carli, Alawa, Lee, Zhao, & Kim, 2016;Catalyst, 2020b;ILO, 2019).…”

Impact of leadership development and facilitated peer coaching on women's individual, collective, and organizational behaviors in human services

“…While organizational cultures are being reexamined to better understand how the environment (structures, policies, practices, and norms) contribute to discrimination and racism, progress is gradual, and transforming long-standing biased attitudes and behaviors is complex (Caver & Livers, 2020;Walter et al, 2017). Given White women tend to dominate leadership roles within nonprofits, creating equitable leadership development opportunities for women, between both management and non-management staff, is a fundamentally important and strategic component for diversifying leadership ranks (Campuzano, 2019). As women of color have been especially denied or overlooked for leadership development opportunities, training and coaching to prepare them for leadership positions is one important step in combatting racial disparities (Beckwith et al, 2016;Biu, 2019).…”

Collective and Individual Sources of Women’s Creativity: Heroism and Psychological Types Involved in Enhancing the Talent of Emerging Leaders

“…On the one hand, there is a greater presence of women as leaders in various sectors of society [77][78][79]. On the other hand, the obstacles that society itself puts in the way-more or less implicitly-of women's leadership make it difficult to consolidate and place on an equal footing with men's leadership [80]. As a strategy to cope with this situation, the importance of authenticity has been highlighted [81], which suggests a preparation that favors the empowerment of leadership in women [82,83], with special emphasis on their creativity: "In order for the force of women's leadership to continually build momentum in dominant organizational cultures, women leaders must be able to fully, rather than just strategically, engage in their unique, feminine, creative, and innate approaches to leadership" [80] (p. 21).…”