Category: unit 8

Regarding recognition and a sense of belonging, I am proud and privileged to work in the organization that I do. We are democratic, and my assessment would be that we as nurses, may it be in nursing leadership, we do a fairly good job of modelling this. Most of the departments are lead by women, our leadership team is mostly female, and our staff team is made up of more women than men. This could be due to working in a health care field in a Catholic missionary elderly residential care home and the majority of health care team comprises of nurses, health care workers that basically forms a huge female dominancy. Nugent, Pollock, & Travis (2016) in their Catalyst report states that employees, regardless of gender, who experience a sense of uniqueness and a sense of belonging, feel that they are being included within the organization.

I could improve recognition and a sense of belonging for women in my organization is by encouraging staff to share about experiences when they felt intimidated as well as comfortable with their effort and discuss these experiences, and then use these experiences to help form a common vision of inclusion (Nugent, 2016, pg.no 7). As per this, we could make necessary changes in areas to make all staff feel encompassed. We could ask their opinions and additional ways for staff to give feedback. Allocate time for personal meeting with a leader to offer feedback, which perhaps would receive more honest feedback from staff who do not feel comfortable speaking up in public.

Many organizations and non-health care fields don’t always give the first priority to women for leadership roles, but I understand that in some instances there has been an effort to get more women involved in higher levels, unfortunately women aren’t first option when compared to men. Some potential reasons for this could be due to the safety, amount of travel required, lack of childcare options provided for women who are mothers, or it could be due to gender bias against women in high levels of leadership regardless of the organization openly valuing women in leadership. This system could be eradicated by collecting data about why women who have been offered these leadership positions have turned them down and then revamp the positions to make them more inclusive (Nugent et al., 2016, p. 11). Another effort could be discussing with leaders about the lack of women in these positions because “talk leads to action” (Catalyst, 2013). Moreover, having the current leaders take a test like the Implicit Association Test offered by Harvard University so that they can be ethical leaders who are honest with themselves and open with others (Northouse, 2016, p. 346) if an implicit bias does exist.

References:

Catalyst (2013, September 3). Talk Leads to Action. Retrieved from https://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/talk-leads-action

Nugent, J. S., Pollack, A., & Travis, D. J. (2016). The day to day experiences of workplace inclusion and exclusion. Retrieved from http://www.catalyst.org/system/files/the_day_to_day_experiences_of_workplace_inclusion_and_exclusion.pdf

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice, Seventh Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

In Northouse (2018) case study 15.3- Pregnancy as a Barrier to Job Status, Marina experiences a barrier to her job status because of gender prejudice and discernment though she is a managing director for a manufacturing company for ten years and has worked extremely hard. She is highly motivated and committed to her work and she proved to achieve the promotion in the company as a top executive. Marina was reluctant to share the news about her pregnancy with her boss, Roy as she was aware about the history of the firm releasing women prior to or shortly after giving birth. Marina is fearful and anxious about the possibility of losing her position, thus pregnancy was a barrier to her achievement. Moreover, lack of “commitment to employment and motivation” (Northouse, 2018, pg.no. 408) are implied when the news is delivered to Roy which further supports gender biases for women in leadership roles.

Roy’s response highlights these gender biases and discrimination. “I knew this was going to happen sooner or later; it always does and there’s no point in talking about this now. We’ll think about it later” (Northouse, 2018, pg. no. 420), was is response despite wishing her a great motherhood and offering a thorough plan to distribute her work while she is off, he communicated with a hidden agenda of discrimination. What Roy should have said in response to Marina’s news, additionally to congratulations, would be to ask her plans prior to and after her leave by following a transformational servant leadership approach to understand Marina’s situation and needs. Discussion on planning to distribute her work and seeking to understand her needs and goals on a professionally and personal level, with the organizational policy and protocols would have been the appropriate response.

Roy should have ensured that Marina’s work will be covered in her absence and should have included Marina in the process of assigning her work to someone else or asked her suggestion for a colleague for replacement. This ensures that her work would be done effectively and provide her the comfort and encouragement. Conducting a professional growth and development planning session prior to Marina’s leave gives assurance that her goals for professional advancement won’t fall apart and discussing her career objectives and how she plans to reach them helps eradicate those gender bias about pregnancy as a physical and emotional barrier for career accomplishments.

In this case study, organizational manager was too authoritative and is preoccupied with discriminative thoughts on pregnant women in leadership positions. To eradicate this, legalities around the Family and Medical Leave Act should be front and center for an organization (Northouse, 2018). Senior administrators and division heads should have this legal education embedded into their practice and organizational policy and immediate action must be taken if law is violated. Moreover, training sessions on rights of employees and educational seminars to bring awareness to gender discrimination in the workplace is necessary. To wrap up, a change in an organization to adopt a “family-friendly reform” (Northouse, 2018, pg.no. 413) to ensure job protected maternity leaves and dismiss myths as pregnancy being a barrier to job status would benefit Marina and other pregnant women in this organization. Being pregnant isn’t a curse, it’s a boon that molds a woman to be more responsible, affectionate and protective. If she is strong enough to give life, guide another human from the scratch, she is already a great leader and will excel as a leader if given a chance to be in the eligible position keeping aside the gender discrimination. Remember, a mother is the first teacher and a mother who is educated, knowledgeable, skillful and experienced will be more fruitful.

Reference

Northouse, P. G. (2018). Leadership: Theory and practice, Seventh Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pg.no. 408 – 420.