Removing Macho Management: Lessons from the Field of Education

Abstract

This article examines discourses of management and leadership in the light of gender inequalities in social relations and in educational administration in particular. It is argued that women's viewpoints and critiques of masculinist managerial perspectives are important in debates about alternative models of leadership. Interview data from a recent study of a group of six women working in teaching/managing positions in some primary and secondary schools in New Zealand is used to analyse a leadership style and philosophy which cuts across traditional gendered splits between private and public spheres, emotionality and rationality, teaching and administration. In this holistic approach, emphasis is placed on integrating such dichotomies through affiliation with others and power sharing. The paper concludes that such a management style must be supported and valued for the contribution it can make to improving organizational cultures and enhancing school learning and teaching environments. An original version of this paper was presented at the NZARE 13th National Conference at Knox College, Dunedin, New Zealand on 30 November 1991.

Happy Families? Pedagogy, management and parental discourses of control in the corporatised further education college

“…The women managers in this study overwhelmingly presented their own management styles in ways that are consonant with much of the research on women managers (Ferguson, 1984;Shakeshaft, 1987;Valentine & McIntosh, 1991;Marshall, 1992;Court, 1994): open, democratic, consultative, supportive, fair, consensual, listening, encouraging and drawing on people's strengths. One woman senior manager said: I think my role is largely about enabling and motivating others … I think some of those kind of essential values that I talked about earlier on like you know kind of valuing teams and fairness and delegating but on the other hand holding things and always being there if they start to go wrong.…”

The exclusion of women from agri– political leadership: A case study of the Australian sugar industry

“…They may therefore give status and value to some knowledge, skills and qualities, and correspondingly, are able to devalue other knowledge, skills and qualities (Burton 1987;Bryson 1994;Nethercote 1994). They may, for example, give higher status to particular types of leadership over others as Court (1994) found in her study of women working as primary and secondary school principals. The more collaborative, participatory and communicative styles adopted by these female principals had been overlooked and undervalued by the male dominated educational hierarchy, which tended to endorse more authoritarian and traditional styles of leadership.…”

No Man’s Land: Exploring the Space between Gilligan and Kohlberg

“…More recent feminist work (Acker, 1991;Court, 1994;Davies, 1992;Gherardi, 1994) has sharply questioned the traditional binary opposition of a rational public masculine world against an affective private feminine one.…”

“…Caring for self is also legitimate say Gilligan (1982), Tronto (1993) and Slote (2000), though this obviously becomes selfindulgence when in excess. Caring is neither a positive nor negative attribute but instead forms part of a subjectively experienced relationship, which may be used both to control and/or to empower others (Chodorow, 1978;Court, 1994).…”