Woman of Privilege or Woman of Circumstance? Exploring Influences on Women Leadership Styles

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Do you consider yourself a woman of privilege or a woman of circumstance? We set out to explore if or how self-identifiers influenced women’s leadership styles or mindsets for leadership. Privilege is defined for this research as having special advantages, benefits, or experiences. Circumstance is defined for this research as happenstance, attributes, or demographics. Our primary goal is to determine if privilege or circumstance has different meanings for different women.

Detailed Abstract

Success in developing women leaders often comes from helping women recognize the barriers they individually face as they become unique, effective women leaders
(Devnew & Storberg-Walker, 2018)

Purpose
Against the backdrop of women rising to have their voices heard and rising into leadership positions across business and government we asked ourselves these questions. Do you consider yourself a woman of privilege or do you consider yourself a woman of circumstance?
Our personal responses varied. As African American women, who are leaders, we defined privilege as supportive families, education, and or social networks. Our extensive search for literature, using these terms, uncovered no studies exploring the self-identifier “privileged” for women in leadership. However, during the recent International Leadership Association Global Conference, we increasing heard the term privileged used as a self-description by several non-African American women attending the conference.

We set out to develop an in-depth understanding of the term privilege, initially, defined for this research as having special advantages, benefits or experiences. Our first goal is to determine if that self-identifier has different meaning for different women. Our second goal is to uncover any additional definitions of the term privilege. What is not yet clear is the impact that self-identification, as privileged, may have on leadership styles so we set out to find out more. The guiding question and purpose for this current study is to determine if privilege or circumstance has different meanings for different women, why, and if or how self-identifiers influence self-described leadership styles.

Methods
Using mixed methods for data collection this study is designed to explore the cultural theme of privilege as a self-identifier among women in leadership. Data collection involves sending out a questionnaire to a target goal of 100 women across varying cultures, ages, and leadership positions. Our questionnaire goal is to uncover any general tendencies found in individual responses and how these tendencies vary. Recognizing that the questionnaire will only provide nominal data the study includes interviewing 10 – 20 women to gain a deeper understanding of how they self-identify themselves and why. Hoobler, Masterson, and Nkomo (2016) conducted a meta-analysis of published research on women in leadership. They concluded that commonly used methods of testing business cases for women leadership limits scholars understanding of the value that women bring to leadership positions. This research seeks to examine if individuals’ perception of value has any influence on self-identifiers.
Vasconcelos, (2018) investigation into published research on women in leadership found that stereotypes about women are changing among males. This research seeks to explore if women leaders have self-imposed stereotypic identifiers, that we need to explore. Carol Dweck’s (2006) research into Mindset Theory provides the theoretical framework for this study. As explained by Dweck (2006) mindset can potentially create limiting beliefs about one’s capability. This research seeks to uncover if self-identifiers among women in leadership create potentially limiting beliefs about leadership.

Potential Value
This research seeks to contribute broader understanding of how we women self-identify ourselves. Our goal, for this conference is to facilitate a panel discussion on the topic of woman self-identifiers and leadership styles. We anticipate that developing a shared understanding of self-identifiers will help us to “recognize the barriers we individually face as we become unique, effective women leaders” (Devnew & Storberg-Walker, 2018)

Panel Participants: 3-5 women holding leadership positions:
• For profit business leader
• Non-profit business leader
• Education leader
• Entrepreneur

Panel Questions:
1. What caused you to consider yourself a woman of privilege and how do you define that?
2. What caused you to consider yourself to be a women of circumstance and how do you define that?
3. As women gain more authority, power, acceptance should we understand perceptions of privilege?
4. Should privilege be a term we use in today’s society
5. How can women positively move toward removing barriers of self-identity and uplifting ourselves and each other?

Keywords: Woman of Privilege, Woman of Circumstance, Mindset for Leadership

Stream

• Advancing Women in Leadership

Chair

• Janice L. Cardwell, Conceivers Leadership Development Group

Presenters

• Renee R. Green, Passionate Coaching and Career Service LLC

• Bonnie Matthews Ellis, University of Phoenix

• Patricia Munson, University of Phoenix

• Summer Van Pelt, University of Phoenix