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42 <a href="http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette">www.mca-marines.org/gazette</a> M a r i n e C o r p s G a z e t t e • M a y 2 0 0 9 IDEAS & ISSUES (LEADERSHIP) (DoD) is the Nation’s largest employer of women. There are over 500,000 women employed in defense. This in- cludes 371,000 civilian employees and over 195,000 active duty women.2 Women comprise a significant portion of the defense force—12 percent of the active duty force, 14 percent of the Re- serve force, 37 percent of the DoD civil- ian labor force, and 19 percent of civilian midlevel managers (GS–13 to GS–15). The leadership positions for women in defense vary amongst the Services. Women serve as senior-level leaders, as- sistant secretaries of defense, and as sen- ior executives in the military depart- ments. In 2007 the Air Force had 12,836 female officers; the Army had 12,586 female officers; the Navy had 7,647. The Marine Corps’ figures are most extravagant with a mere 1,096 fe- male officers.3 This is an astonishing percentage of female officers accounting for only 0.6 percent of the Marine Corps’ total active duty force of 180,252. From this research it is evident that female officers in the military are considerably fewer than males, and as leaders they predominately lead males. With such vast ratios of women to men, it is important to investigate the dynam- ics of leadership in such an arena. Femininity Previous leadership research focused on gender stereotyping and social role theory. For instance, Eagly and Karau’s social role theory discussed two kinds of expectations for leaders—agentic and communal. Agentic characteristics are more strongly ascribed to men and are described as primarily assertive, controlling, and confident tendency— “aggressive, ambitious, dominant, forceful, independent, self-sufficient, self-confident, and prone to act as a leader.”4 Communal characteristics are more strongly ascribed to women and relate to a concern for the welfare of other people; for example, “affection- ate, helpful, kind, sympathetic, inter- personally sensitive, nurturing, and gentle.” Communal and agentic quali- ties are required for successful leader- ship in business or the military sector. The true objective of this argument is in negating the traditional perception that agentic leadership is more success- ful than communal leadership, espe- cially in a military setting that is often assumed to endorse authoritarian lead- ers. Recent leadership research concern- ing female military officers contradicts previous social role research. Women officers have an advantage as leaders in the military leading in a male domi- nated environment.5 The scarcity of women in top-level positions warrants a unique leadership approach that calls for aspects of femininity, self-efficacy, emotional intelligence, and teamwork. Self-Efficacy Contradictory to the general per- ception that more agentic qualities are ascribed to leaders, women officers in the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps argue that maintaining their feminin- ity is a key part of endorsing high self- efficacy, confidence, and competence as leaders.6 There is no longer a need for female officers to “act like men” in order to be considered successful lead- ers. The main premise behind this ar- gument is that the ability to be oneself and not feel obligated to endorse agen- tic qualities as leaders positively affects self-efficacy. When a leader is confident in her abilities and who she is it is di- rectly related to her overall feeling of competency and self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is defined as individu- als’ beliefs about their capabilities to produce designated levels of perform- ance. This is significantly applicable to organizational research, which has uti- lized self-efficacy as a related variable in training, leadership, newcomer social- ization and adjustment, performance evaluation, stress, negotiation, and work-related performance.7 A leader’s expectations about goal accomplish- ment will affect the performance of his or her followers. For example, the Pyg- malion effect occurs when leaders ex- press high expectations for followers, which results in high performance from followers. Conversely, the Golem effect refers to leaders expressing low expectations for followers, which re- sults in low or nonexistent perform- ance from followers. A leader must first be confident in personal expectations in order to better understand how best to influence or impact the organization in which she leads. Emotional Intelligence Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to understand and express emo- tion in thought, reason with emotion, and regulate emotions within oneself or others. Current conceptualization of EI focuses on one’s: . . . ability to accurately identify, ap- praise, and discriminate among emo- tions in oneself and others, understand emotions, assimilate emo- tions in thought and regulate both positive and negative emotions in self and others.8 This can be extremely influential in lead- ership. The question is, do women offi- cers have an upper hand in this aspect? EI is a controversial topic with broad ranges of results that are incon- sistent with a purely situational expla- nation of gender differences; however, results are consistent with the notion that men and women are socialized to express emotion and empathy in differ- ent ways. These differences are incum- bent upon the individual’s perception and how he believes he should regulate emotion and thought. Women in the workplace display more sensitivity to problems associated with interpersonal relations than men do.9 Researchers also report that women seek social sup- port, using emotion-focused coping with their mood to a greater extent than men, whereas men use more problem-focused coping than women.10 As leaders women may in- The question is, do women officers have an upper hand in this as- pect?
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www.mca-marines.org/gazette