Harmony and Help: Recognizing the Impact of Work-Life Balance for Women Leaders

Abstract

Women leaders operate within multiple roles, managing both work and nonwork obligations. Exploring work-life balance constructs, this study examined role integration, social support sources, and work-family conflict to determine their influence on women leaders. Findings suggested that women leaders felt the benefit of a variety of social support services, but especially from sources external to the organization. Women leaders were diverse in role integration strategies, with respondents largely divided between blurring and segregating their work and nonwork roles. Time-based work-family conflict was slightly more apparent than strain-based conflict. Women leaders also indicated that their work interfered with their family more than their family interfered with their work. Findings provide valuable insights as to how women view work-life balance within their roles as leaders.

In search of factors that hinder the career advancement of women to senior leadership positions

“…According to the spillover theory, an individual's life domains are interconnected, and thus emotions (both positive and negative) can be transmitted between work and personal life domains (Radó, Nagy, & Király, 2016). According to Brue (2018), women leaders must take on multiple roles, presenting challenges in balancing their work-life interface effectively. As a result, female leaders are more likely to carry emotions, attitudes, behaviours and gossip from work to home and vice versa (Liu, Wu, Yang, & Jia, 2020).…”

A Collaborative Model for Leadership Education in High-Potential University Women Students

“…Prior WLDPs have used various evaluation methodologies, especially analysis before and at the end of the course, through self-reports by the participants (surveys, journals), mentoring analyses, focus groups, in-depth interviews [34,[37][38][39]46] and to a lesser extent by doing post-training follow-ups applied to the labor market [77,87,88]. The evaluation of these programs has focused on measuring the effectiveness of the course through the acquired leadership skills and satisfaction [35,38,39] and affective reactions [46] considered from the perspective of Emotional Intelligence [89].…”

“…However, it was considered fundamental and very relevant to the program. Its objective was to offer a vision of gender equality, highlighting the importance of coresponsibility in the family when women access positions of responsibility [77]. This dual vision was incorporated into the following courses in a transversal manner in all modules, with more participatory methodologies, seeking a reflection exercise for young women and with the participation of female managers from large companies.…”

An insight to the lived experiences of Saudi females in leadership

“…Similar results have been reported by Fritz and Knippenberg (2020), who suggests making workplaces more supportive in terms of flexible working hours, leaves, and on-side child support to encourage female employees to aspire for more leadership positions. Brue (2018) contends that women are likely to feel strain when they are not able to balance their work and non-work roles, time-spent in each role, or when they are not able to adjust their behaviours between the two roles. In the context of Saudi Arabia, family dynamics are rooted in traditional gender roles, which require women to prioritize their roles as mothers, wives, and daughters overwork (Alsubhi et al, 2018), and support and understanding of family members, may play a crucial role in developing (or de-motivating) leadership aspirations for females.…”