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Are social stereotypes keeping women out of leadership positions?
The Book Review for Women: How Remarkable Women Lead
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Contributing Author: Robert Cordray
The business world has long been recognized as being tough and very competitive.
If anything, it has gotten even more cutthroat in recent years. As a result, women have always had a hard time in the workforce.
Although the number of women in leadership positions has increased greatly in the last few decades, there are still many tough obstacles that women can expect to face throughout their professional lives.
Any entrepreneurial woman intending to climb her way up the success ladder must become aware of the challenges as well as the ways in which she can tackle them.
The Glass Ceiling
Much has been said about a supposed “glass ceiling” that prevents women from being promoted to the highest leadership positions.
Although the number of women in management positions has increased to around 50% of the total number, most of these are middle-management positions. There still seems to be an evident lack of women in the highest positions.
Why is this?
Well, the glass ceiling is often taken to mean that women are being denied the highest-paid jobs.
Why the Void of Women in Leadership Positions?
Social stereotypes are not the only things keeping women out of leadership positions.
Certainly there still exist some stereotypes regarding women in the workplace.
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It is often assumed that a female is more likely to put family needs in front of professional decisions.
One such example is pregnancy and maternity leave.
Although this cannot be a reason for not hiring someone, most employers would be lying if they stated that it was never a factor.
It may not be too unreasonable either, to state that a woman may have less desire to stay on her career path after becoming a mother.
This is only the case for some women however – most of whom would not be seeking high-end leadership positions anyway.
Social stereotypes are not the only things keeping women out of leadership positions.
How Women Can Overcome These Barriers
Despite these obstacles, there still remains a select few women who have beaten the odds and made it up the ladder.
These women have overcome these barriers and formed a small group of professional females, which will hopefully keep growing. How do they do it? There are no hard and fast rules.
Confidence plays a huge part.
If you can put together some life goals and come up with your own professional plan, then put your mind to it. You can achieve it.
Life coaches are a great way to help you to get your thoughts together in a structured manner.
With tons of resources online, it is easy to find a coach that can help you with your specific needs i.e. life coach San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa, etc. Whether in a professional or personal sense, you can utilize such a tool to create a plan of attack on your chosen profession. It doesn’t matter if you have specific questions or you are just seeking advice, they can be an invaluable resource.
By becoming aware of these barriers, you have made a start in overcoming them. After you are aware of them however, you can ignore the stereotypes and push through them.
If you have the confidence to succeed, you can.
Keep your goals in mind and create an organized life plan that will help you to carry them out. If you do this, and stick to it, no one can stop you.
About the Contributing Author:
Robert Cordray is a former entrepreneur/business consultant. After spending many years in the business world he decided to dedicate his life to helping others. As an aspiring business coach, he draws upon many examples he’s seen in the business realm to give good examples. Currently Robert resides in the Southern California region with his beautiful wife and three children.
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How Remarkable Women Lead - The Breakthrough Model for Work and Life
Based on five years of proprietary research, How Remarkable Women Lead speaks to you as no other book has, with its hopeful outlook and unique ideas about success.
It's the new "right stuff" of leadership, raising provocative issues such as whether feminine leadership traits (for women and men) are better suited for our fast-changing, hyper-competitive, and increasingly complex world.
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