The Gendered Shaping of University Leadership in Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom

Abstract

This article analyses career trajectories into university management in Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom (UK), skills required to operate effectively and the power of vice‐chancellors (VCs) and their impact on the gendered shaping of university leadership. It is based on qualitative research with 56 male and female senior managers. The research found that the typical career path was modelled on male academic careers. Not surprisingly, in South Africa and the UK the perception of the top university leader was of a man but in Australia, where more women have been VCs, there was no such assumption. Characteristics valued in university leaders in Australia and South Africa were ‘soft’ leadership traits, but in the UK ‘hard’ aggressive and competitive leadership prevailed. VCs are enormously powerful and can shape the gender balance in management teams and thereby potentially broadening leadership styles beyond the predominant transactional model to include transformational leadership.

Women as leaders of higher education institutions: a British–German comparison

“…Whilst valuable, such a focus can implicitly or explicitly assume 'blanket' gender differences between men and women (for example that women 'prefer' transformative rather than transactional leadership styles, and/or that women are more able to perform 'soft skills' such as empathy and conversational skills). At times this conception of women and men as homogenous groups can lead to an essentialising of gender, as if men and women 'naturally' have different styles of leadership and professional performance (White et al, 2012).…”

“…However, as feminist critics have pointed out, the representation and success of women students is by no means universal across disciplines, universities and countries and the picture is further complicated by the representation of women amongst senior academic staff. At professorial level in the UK there were only 16% women in 2009 (Women in Science Database, cited in White et al, 2012) and just over 20% in Germany at the end of 2012 (Destatis, 2013). Once we look at the picture for governing boards, Vice Chancellors and Principals the argument for the 'feminised academy' seems very weak.…”

Executive power and scaled-up gender subtexts in Australian entrepreneurial universities

“…Fourth, there has been a reassertion of gendered knowledge-power relations around the dominance of discourses of science and technology linked to innovation around high-status 'hard' science dominated by males (Thornton, forthcoming;Blackmore 2014). Fifth, while there are more women in middle management, we illustrate, as others have illustrated Lynch 2009a, 2009b;White, Bagilhole, and Riordan 2012), that there is at the executive level a gendered division of labour between the 'domestic' (internally oriented) roles of change management, teaching and learning and 'public' (externally oriented) organisational roles such as research, finance, partnerships and global engagement. Finally, the conditions of executive labour presume a particular capacity for flexibility and mobility, a 'careless' and 'carefree' individual, that discourages many women from taking up leadership (Devine, Grummell, and Lynch 2011).…”

“…New regulative regimes opened universities up to greater market competition, corporatised universities through managerialism and marketisation, introduced greater industry influence through partnerships, and intensified focus on outcomes in terms of performance management, quality assurance and research assessment as emerging measures of national and international reputation (Marginson and Considine 2000;Blackmore and Sachs 2007). It was a period in which women were encouraged to move into leadership positions in middle management (in roles such as Heads of School and Deans) through leadership programmes, mentoring and other formal strategies (Devers et al 2006;White, Bagilhole, and Riordan 2012).…”

Challenges Facing Women in School Leadership Positions: Experiences from a District in Zimbabwe

“…It was however interesting to note that there is little difference between the leadership styles of successful males and female school heads. White (2012) and Avolio (2010) assert that there is no significant difference between the leadership styles of successful men and women leaders in organisations. This argument was confirmed by one of the focus group discussant who said: "Our former male head behaved like our current female head.…”