women and minorities

Our recent readings concerning gender and race as factors in educational leadership particularly peeked my interest. Women and minorities in education are part of my topics of interests. I have to admit that I was somewhat surprised to learn that researchers assumed that their research could be applied to women and minorities mainly because women and minorities were not offered the same considerations. Role theory perhaps fits perfectly here. It is based on the idea that a role defines how individuals are expected to behave, how individuals occupying roles perceive what they are supposed to do and the actual behavior of individuals. Much of the text focuses on the leaders’ influence on others and leader behaviors. I believe it is also important to study the influence of followers’ behavior on the leader also. When considering role theory a follower may behave in a certain manner based on what they believe the leader role should be. For instance, I have worked in a situation where followers believed the role of the leader was to control every aspect of work. Also, many often thought of the role as women leaders as more as nurturers instead of leaders. This role often seemed to limit the upward mobility of women leaders. Perhaps higher level managers were seen as aggressive, cut throat, go getters and not nurturers. Role socialization is mentioned as important when considering women and minorities. It mentions that leaders learn to accept and adopt appropriate values, rules, and policies through their socialization into the profession and participation in professional organizations. Women and minorities have the potential to change the institution in which they work and colleagues. In this situation I believe the ability to change the organization and it workers has much to do with the culture. Many organizations may not be open to change at that time. Either way, the nature of the organization and the followers may have great influence over the leader. Maybe even more than the leader has over them.