Motivators for Women to Consider Advancement Into Senior-Level Leadership: The Role of Relational Responsibility

• In Event: 66.079 - Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: 66.079-11 - The Role of Faith in Various Contexts

Abstract

Researchers across higher education have expressed concern that highly talented women are choosing not to pursue positional leadership roles, or are leaving such roles, in part because the values of male-normed cultures are incongruent with their own. As a part of a multi-faceted research project focused on the motivators, encouragers, and discouragers of women to consider and pursue senior-level leadership in faith-based higher education, this study sought to understand how women perceive the role of “relational responsibility” as a motivator. Data analysis from this qualitative research, involving fourteen participants in a four-day Women’s Advanced Leadership Institute, suggested that the concept of relational responsibility may take three forms; moving beyond the largely ineffective “pipeline” metaphor has implications for leadership development.

Authors

• Karen A. Longman, Azusa Pacific University

• Wendy L. Liddell, Moody Bible Institute

• Debbie Lamm-Bray, Northwest University