• Angeliki Lazaridou 

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Issues of gender, leadership, and values have occupied the minds of researchers in educational administration and leadership for decades. Breakthroughs in neuroscience and neuroepigenetics have produced numerous insights into the complex operations and influences in the human brain between men and women. Taking into account some of these differences, in this chapter, I will revisit the literature on leadership, gender, and values with a two-fold purpose: one, to review understandings that have accumulated, and two, to add a new perspective for re-examining these understandings. At first, I review existing theories of gender, leadership, and values, paying attention to the different modes of operation between men and women to recapture the conclusions these lines of research have produced. Then, I turn my attention to recent findings from neuroscience and neuroepigenetics as a new lens through which these reported differences can be illuminated. My thesis in this conceptual paper is to raise awareness of this emerging line of research and its potential to shed more light into the neural dark of our conceptions about gender and women’s ways of leading in education with significant implications for educators and educational leaders.

Introduction

For decades, the main objective of researchers, theoreticians, and writers in the field of leadership has been to find ways of building effective and efficient organizations in which individuals mobilize the human, technical, and managerial resources in harmonious ways to achieve organizational, professional, and personal needs (Bass, 1985; Bloisiet al., 2003; Yukl, 1998). This search for harmonizing principles has been at the heart of theorizing and research concerning educational organizations as well since the inception of educational administration as a specialization many decades ago. Studies of the human nervous system are not new; however, it is only in the last few decades that advances in medical technologies have allowed scientists to explore the structures of the brain and its complex operations (Markramet al., 2011; Mateos-Aparicio & Rodriguez-Moreno, 2019).

One area of focus in those studies is differences between male and female brains, and regardless of some results being controversial, researchers have started paying more attention to how those differences may be related to differences in how women and men assume their societal and professional roles (Adolphs, 2003; Shoemaker, 2012). In this chapter, I focus on an issue that continues to be of great concern–gender in leadership and values. The objective of this chapter is to review understandings that have accumulated and to add a new perspective for re-examining those understandings. Specifically, I want to indicate how applying insights from a neuro-sociological perspective can enrich our knowledge and understanding of the role of women in educational leadership contexts. The above themes are of great importance to educators, researchers, and practitioners in the field of education, as they provide valuable insights into promoting diversity, inclusivity, and effective leadership practices within educational organizations.

The Gendered Landscape of Administration and Leadership

As an interdisciplinary field of study, research, and practice, administration has been evolving for over a century, first in the U.S., later in the U.K., and subsequently in other countries. For the most part, it has been dominated by men who grounded the discipline’s work in rational, technical, and mechanical operation models. This has led to a body of theory and research wherein men were at the center of administrative actions, and women were sidelined. They were expected to interpret the world and respond according to versions of men’s leadership (Oplatka, 2002, p. 211). Initially, female researchers and theorists were relatively few or rarely acknowledged during the foundational years of the field (Blackmore, 1999; Shakeshaft, 1989; Strachan, 1993). An example from the first half of the 20th century is the work of Mary Parker Follett, who established the philosophical base of the Human Relation Movement yet was overshadowed by the studies done by men in the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company in Chicago (Hoyet al., 2013). Ironically, these experiments’ best-known product-the “Hawthorne effect”-was later shown to be fiction (Levitt & List, 2009).

Administrative theories remained heavily gender-biased until the late 1970s and 1980s. Nevertheless, as women entered the all-male leadership world and attained leadership positions, research on women’s ways of leading began to appear. These sporadic beginnings were accelerated by the feminist movement and the influential feminist research on educational administration pioneered by the work of Charol Shakeshaft and others. Since the number of women in the field, practitioners, and academics continued to increase, scholarly work by women and a few men precipitated a shift in the minds of educational leaders. The time of “womanless administration and leadership” (Reynolds, 1995) was gone for good.

Although women have achieved much in the last decades, the gender gap in leadership still exists, is a global phenomenon (Powell & Graves, 2003), and correlates inversely with the high concentration of women in lower-level leadership positions. Elite leadership positions are still primarily the domain of men in government, military, and business, among other sectors. Moreover, as the number of women who aspired to and gained leadership positions increased, another gender-related problem came to light. It became apparent that women struggle not only to reach administrative positions but also encounter unique impediments once through “the glass ceiling.” This additional aspect of women’s journeys into the administrative ranks has been described as the leadership labyrinth (Eagly & Carli, 2007). In the literature, four dimensions portray it: human capital issues, gender differences, discrimination and prejudice, and culture.

The Human Capital Component

The human capital component includes deficiencies in educational qualifications, inadequate work experience, insufficient opportunities, and home-work conflicts. Data expose an undeniable truth. While women make up slightly more than 50% of the population, they are not 50% of the workforce. Likewise, under-represented minorities do not participate in the workforce at levels equivalent to their percent of the population (Ely & Thomas, 2001; Page, 2007; Perez & Salter, 2019; Temm, 2008). As this literature shows, discrimination is not a thing of the past or practiced only by a small set of uninformed people. Research has shown that we all–regardless of the social groups we belong to–perceive and treat people differently based on their and our social groups, be they race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and so on (Valian, 1998). In education, there is evidence that the percentage of women in lower-level leadership roles is disproportionate to the qualifications women have compared to their male counterparts (Daviset al., 2017). Women also have less work experience and fragmented advancement opportunities due to motherhood and childcare responsibilities (Gabaldonet al., 2016). They also struggle more with work and household responsibilities, even though in the last decade or so, men’s participation in domestic duties has increased (Galinskyet al., 2013).

The Gender Differences Component

This component of the labyrinth encompasses various issues regarding leadership styles and effective leadership practices. However, there is a lack of consensus among researchers about the relationship between gender and leadership styles and practices (Book, 2000; Helgesen, 1990; Van Engenet al., 2001). Some researchers have linked women’s way of leading with more democratic, participative, transformational, and interpersonal styles of leading, while men’s ways of leading, in contrast, have been described as assertive, formal, normative, and goal-oriented (Eaglyet al., 1992, 2003). In another school of thought, leadership styles have been allocated to four categories. Two of these categories (fact-based and control/power-based) predominantly consist of traditionally masculine attributes such as analytical, technical, controlled, traditional, and authoritarian. The other two (creativity-based and feelings-based) include stereotypically feminine traits such as being flexible, imaginative, spontaneous, holistic, open-minded, emotional, and emphatic (Hermann, 1980). The influence of Anglo-American capitalist values and traditional leadership orientations has strongly impacted the perpetuation of masculine and feminine leadership traits (Raduet al., 2016).

Notwithstanding such purported gender-related differences in styles of leading, men and women be equally effective leaders, with women rated as more effective in leadership positions that were seen as feminine (i.e., education, social services, government) as opposed to leadership roles that are seen as masculine, as in the military (Northouse, 2016). Regarding commitment and motivation, women and men are equally motivated and committed to work. However, women are less likely to promote themselves to official leadership roles, accepting informal roles, such as facilitators or organizers (Bowles & McGinn, 2008; Fletcher, 2001). Finally, with regard to aspiration to higher and more prestigious leadership positions, men and women vary in their approaches. Men do not hesitate to promote themselves to higher leadership positions, negotiate with others, find the necessary resources, establish networks with critical people, receive encouragement and mentoring–all of which make the way to the top less arduous (Babcock & Laschever, 2003; Ensher & Murphy, 2005; Ryanet al., 2011; Smallet al., 2007). When women engage in these behaviors, they face gender bias. Their self-promotion and negotiating traits, associated primarily with males, are seen as less socially attractive–and women are categorized as less hirable (Northouse, 2016).

The Prejudice and Stereotyping Component

An unfortunate adage hints at some aspects of this leadership labyrinth: Women take care, and men take charge. Indeed, men and women traditionally have been attributed various characteristics that have gradually become gender stereotypes. Accordingly, men are described as confident, assertive, independent, rational, and decisive, whereas women are described as sensitive, warm, helpful, and nurturing. In contrast, males are described as more pragmatic and emotionally distant (Robbins, 2001). The feminine characteristics are deemed more suitable for educational institutions as they provide a supportive climate (Robbins, 2001). These personality features appear regularly in formal descriptions of requisites for leadership positions. However, there is a cruel paradox: On the one hand, higher leadership positions are seen as requiring masculine characteristics, such as the above; yet, when women manifest those characteristics, bias sets in, and they are seen as “too manly” (Northouse, 2016), thus, they are deemed as less suited for these higher positions.

The Culture Component

The pressures to conform to a predominantly male-centered world leave women under constant scrutiny to perform according to expectations. Positioned in a given socio-political ideology, women must sustain a culture rather than bring about change. In research done with Swedish teachers, Franzen (2006) found that female leaders were expected to emphasize the supportive aspect of their role, as opposed to male leaders’ emphasis on the managerial aspect. This disparity had also been encountered by Coleman (2003), who found that over 70% of female secondary heads felt that they had to prove their worth as female leaders. As in other patriarchal contexts, women in leadership roles are more likely to be constrained by power relations within organizations. The dominant image of an effective organization involves hierarchical and masculine features that inevitably favor men (Acker & Fennerger, 1996, as cited in Cubillo & Brown, 2003). Research shows that most men and a large number of women in all age groups and across a wide range of nations subconsciously associate leadership with maleness, an indication of the persistent power of the dominant paradigm of post-industrial value orientations to leading and managing organizations. Despite the changing image of leadership in recent years, correlations between dominant forms of masculinity, authority, and leadership are still evident in most successful institutions worldwide.

Notwithstanding the persistence of gender inequality, the research findings of the last decade overwhelmingly indicate that more women have begun to overcome the hurdles of the labyrinth of gender biases. In many cases, changes at the organizational level have allowed women to overcome such problems. Also, adjustments to the balance between work and household responsibilities have lessened considerably, allowing women to renegotiate domestic roles with spouses and extended family members. These changes are reflected in leadership; research has shown that leadership is identified less frequently as masculine or feminine and more as androgynous (Koeniget al., 2011) leader and suggest that every leader, regardless of gender, should draw on both sets of characteristics to be effective (Daft, 2005; Venkatesh & Morris, 2000). Along similar lines is Stelter’s (2002, p. 1) affirmation that “the successful organization of the future will not only understand leadership in terms of gender but also of its contribution to the workforce and organizational effectiveness.”

Notions of social-constructed perceptions of women in educational leadership seem to be deeply embedded in the conscious and subconscious spheres of the human psyche, thus making the struggle to overcome them a constant challenge. Research in the emerging fields of neurosciences and epigenetics shed new light on the ongoing debate on gender issues by arguing that behind the socially constructed views of gender, there are foundational neurobiological mechanisms that may partially explain these differences (Higgins, 2018; Lawson-Boyd & Meloni, 2021). A brief description of some of the findings of this research will be presented later in the chapter. Before that, I turn my attention to issues of values.

Values and Gender Differences in Educational Administration

Values have been discussed and contested since Plato described them as “the ends which all life, private or public, should realize” (Cornford-MacDonald, 1974, p. 211). Ever since philosophers and researchers have continued studying values in various cultural contexts. Values are implicit or explicit conceptions influencing a person’s selections among available modes, means, and ends of action (Kluckhohn, 1951). They are historically, culturally, and socially conditioned, if only because they have been shown to differentiate men’s and women’s leadership. Hofstede (1998), for instance, has found that concepts of masculinity and femininity are value-laden, with (other things being equal) men stressing self-promoting values and women stressing social-group-oriented values.

Similarly, Stelter (2002, p. 4) has pointed out that cultures that favor masculine values perceive them as “best practices.” It is reasonable to assume that those values impact people’s perceptions and behaviors about leadership and its varied manifestations by men and women. If masculine leadership styles are seen as the default, then women’s leadership behaviors are likely outside the expected range and socially acceptable. In the educational administration discipline, prominent scholars such as Greenfield (1986), Begley (2001), and Hodgkinson (1991) have sought values as the springboards behind human action and behaviors.

In Western cultures, the rise of second-wave feminism and the emergence of gender studies programs in universities led to the transformation of educational administration into a more inclusive discipline (Einarsdottiret al., 2018; Leonard & Leonard, 2001). In addition, feminist poststructuralist theories have emphasized the many contradictions inherent in an androcentric culture that shapes reality using male values and perspective (Enomoto, 2000). These theories brought the awareness that “the historical and socio-political dominance of masculinity has… defined and constituted our… ‘reality’” (Wooldridge, 2015). This realization led to the attention of women’s voices, women’s rights, and actions for social justice in educational leadership, which led to the adoption of a critical perspective. While critical perspectives were purported to unmask the power dynamics in place “in order to reconstitute the world in less oppressive ways” (Davieset al., 2006, pp. 87–103), poststructuralists’ fundamental assumptions about language, meaning and subjectivity (Brooks, 1997) supplemented by the cognitive concepts of schemata added yet another dimension to view and construe gender issues.

Schemata are cognitive, non-conscious hypotheses that influence our judgment of others (regardless of our group). Schemata are culturally shared and are applied more under circumstances of ambiguity (including lack of information), stress from competing tasks (e.g., job and family responsibilities), and time pressures. Both men and women hold them about gender; white people and people of color hold them about race/ethnicity; and, most importantly, people are often not aware of them (Fiske, 2002; Steele, 1997). A significant strength of gender cognitive schemata is their understanding of the maintenance and power of gender beliefs. Through observations of individuals within one’s culture, typical attributes, activities, and actions of males and females are transmitted and incorporated into one’s gender schema. Additionally, recent findings in cognitive neuroscience (St Jacqueset al., 2013) suggest that when schemata become too solid, false memories and misconceptions of experiences are formed (Van Kesteren & Meeter, 2020). Understanding the mechanisms the human brain uses to form and maintain cognitive schemata adds a valuable perspective to our understanding of gender and the formation of values that merit further exploration.

Interaction of Gender and Values

While the mainstream line of research continues to produce substantial and essential findings that enrich the knowledge base of leadership, attempts to investigate values and gender are few. This is an essential lacuna in current research because values and gender influence an individual’s leadership approaches. In the general literature on organizations, numerous studies have shown that differences exist between the preferred values of men and women. Specifically, women have been shown to express the values of conformism, security, self-determination, benevolence, and achievement. In contrast, men show values associated more with power (e.g., Schwartz & Rubel, 2006). Studies on the values of female education leaders are few, though (Campbellet al., 2010; Coleman, 2002, 2005; Goldet al., 2003; Hall, 1996).

Much like values, gender concepts have been characterized as historically and socially constructed and as stipulating appropriate behaviors and craft-centered identities for men and women (Sinclair, 1999). Paechter (2006, p. 261) argues that how we understand ourselves as masculine and feminine varies according to time, place, and circumstances. Overall, notions of masculinity and femininity are associated with different values. This emphasis on masculinity (Blackmore, 1999; Grace, 1997; Hargreaves, 1994; Marshall, 1990; Whitehead, 1999) “has enforced the values of instrumentalism, control, rationality, technical knowledge, and hierarchy as the basis of authority” (Sinclair, 1999, p. 60). Sinclair (1999) refers to this masculine, hegemonic leadership as ‘heroic leadership’ (p. 37). Other writers have defined it as the valuing of rational technology, rules, regulations (Lumby & Coleman, 2007), performativity, and effectiveness (Thrupp & Willmott, 2003). These terms are referred to the still-popular concept of managerialism. Different connotations of masculinity and femininity imply supremacy of the former value over the latter. In general terms, “masculinity becomes ‘what men and boys do’ and femininity the other of that” (Paechter, 2006, p. 254), a value orientation that perpetuates the domination of men and the subordination of women. MacGhaill (1994, p. 12) has argued that hegemonic masculinity is associated with the valuing of heterosexuality, power, authority, aggression, and technical competence, most of which are privileged in leadership roles. Despite the prominence of the social orientation of gender and values in social sciences, cross-disciplinary research in evolution theories, anthropology, neurosciences, and the newly developed field of neuroepigenetics provides the missing link that may explain these differences. For this paper findings from two areas of this emerging research are reported in the next section.

Two Complementary Perspectives to Viewing Values and Gender in Leadership

The Biologically Defined Self

One of the most fascinating lines of research in the last decades involves studies of the biology of the human brain, and it comes from the multidisciplinary field of neurosciences. Neuroscientists seek to understand the fundamental and emergent properties of neurons and neuron circuits, which form the biological basis of human learning, memory, perception, behavior, and consciousness (Kandel, 2012; Tanner, 2006). Advances in medical technologies, including functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scanners and EEG caps, have shown that there are inherent physical differences in male and female brains, how they are “wired,” and how they work (Cosgroveet al., 2007), thus they have provided us with another lens for coming to understand ourselves, our behaviors, and that of others around us (Scarlett, 2019). However, those differences do not point to one sex being superior or more intelligent than the other. Instead, there are structural differences that may account for the different ways men and women perceive the world and respond to life experiences. For example, in research by Ingalhalikaret al. (2014), it was found that men have a greater intrahemispheric connection via the corpus callosum while women have greater interhemispheric connectivity. Other studies have reported sex differences in the primary glucose metabolism (Fujimotoet al., 2008), the cerebellar-thalamic-cortical circuitry (Xinet al., 2019), and the limbic-thalamo-cortical circuitry, which is associated with the cognitive and emotion regulation systems (Drevets, 2001; Fanet al., 2016).

Because of the structural, chemical, genetic, hormonal, and functional differences, men and women have been found to have different ways of encoding memories, sensing emotions, recognizing faces, solving problems, and making decisions. According to Brizendine (2006) and Whittleet al. (2011), the brain differences between men and women reside in areas of the brain that regulate:

  1. Sensitivities to conflict and stress,
  2. Language processing and problem-solving,
  3. Observing, expressing, storing, and remembering of emotional events,
  4. Processing of fear and aggression,
  5. Tracking gut feelings and rational thoughts.

Due to these differences, it is argued that women have better verbal agility, connect deeply in friendships, read faces and tone of voice for emotions and states of mind, and defuse conflict (Brizendine, 2006). The reported evidence adds perspective in considering issues of gender dispositions and value orientations between men and women, and to some extent, it helps to explain the “gender gap.”

The Socially Developed Self

Despite the exciting findings from neuroscience studies, few scientists have raised concerns that brain research is inconclusive (Joel & Tarrasch, 2014). These voices argue that there is no scientific basis for a “gendered brain” (Mosconi, 2020) and that the “gender gap” has become a self-fulfilling prophecy (Rippon, 2019). Instead of inquiring into the differences in male and female brains, these scientists advocate a focus on newfound evidence that shows that the human brain changes throughout a person’s life, a term neuroscientists have called plasticity or neuroplasticity (Rippon, 2019). Neuroplasticity of the brain is the ability of the nervous system to change its activity in response to intrinsic or extrinsic stimuli by reorganizing its structure, functions, or connections (Mateos-Aparicio & Rodriguez-Moreno, 2019). The crucial role of the brain’s plasticity has been at the core of the emerging field of epigenetics and the even more recent subfield of neuro epigenetics that focuses on the relations between the environment and the brain “through modification in neurons, which may subsequently affect their function, lifespan, and capacity to retain memories” (Lawson-Boyd & Meloni, 2021, p. 2). Although this research is still in its infancy, we see evidence that the interplay between environments and biological selves offers an alternative, perhaps more holistic perspective to explain and debate issues of sex, gender, values, and, ultimately, differences in leadership between men and women.

Dissolving the Boundaries of Nature vs. Nurture Dualism

The evolving research in neuroscience and epigenetics is holding promising revelations in the near future about humans and their continuous and arduous adaptations to an increasingly threatening and hazardous environment. With the help of advanced technologies, our knowledge of what takes place in the “neural dark”-our brain-can have profound effects on how humans interact, learn, evolve, adapt, and lead rewarding lives. Differences in the brains of men and women have existed for centuries. Women’s brains are structured differently, use chemical systems in slightly different ways, and change in different ways under the impact of hormones (Blum, 1997). Recent research findings from neuroscience studies have identified the brain areas from which these differences step. While this knowledge may pose the risk of being characterized as deterministic, reductionist, and a vehicle for the justification of social, cultural, racial, and gender inequalities, natural plasticity blurs the boundaries by showing that experience and training make the female and male brains alterable to new and better schematic representations of its environments (Hiebert, 2015).

Brain structure, neural connectivity, and sex hormones are all functions of the biological brain sex. Looking into the biological properties of the female brain, women need to become aware of and tap into their brain strengths, particularly its neural plasticity, recognizing at the same time that some of its social origins and nurturing conditioning may account for the obstacles and possible injustices they encounter in the social arena. Until now, gender issues and variations in leadership properties have been primarily perceived through a critical stance emphasizing power structures’ influence within various economic, political, historical, and social contexts. Critical theorists aimed to bring to the surface any underlying discrepancies, conflicts, and contradictions and, through dialogue and reflexivity, to lead to better understandings and more inclusive practices (Gunter, 2001). Adding to these claims, findings from the field of neuroscience may help expand the horizons of this understanding to benefit women, men, and societies as a whole.

Humans, though, are not just biologically defined. Contemporary research in neuroepigenetics draws our attention to the social conditioning of the human brain and the long-term consequences on brain wiring and behavior (Adolphs, 2003; Shoemaker, 2012). This knowledge can be empowering and liberating for men and women alike as it permits us to plan better futures, professional careers, personal lives, and societies by acknowledging our unique abilities and needs. By staying trapped in mental schemata that perpetuate misleading and distorted images and conceptions of men and women, we hurt ourselves and do a disservice to societies and the future of our children. Seeing the male norm as the default, we waste the strengths, talents, and possibilities of the other half of the human race. For all those in service to educate, we must use the developing scientific evidence to quash misperceptions about the legitimacy of the domination of one gender over the other. We should and can imbue future generations with more holistic, inclusive, and balanced approaches to viewing the world around us by considering the gifts and talents each of us has to offer without labels attached. The first step begins with acknowledging that the current ways of operating have caused much suffering to all, women and men alike. The 21st century is the golden age for a new humanity through a revolutionary consciousness that excludes no one and accepts all as they are. It is up to women and men to insist on a new social contract that will see that happening. It will be our contribution to future generations.

Implications for Educators and Educational Leaders

This paper can help educators and leaders better support gender diversity and inclusivity in their organizations in the following ways:

  1. Understanding gender differences. By delving into the nuances of gender differences from a neuro-sociological perspective, educators and leaders can gain a deeper understanding of how biological and societal factors influence individuals’ behaviors and decision-making processes. This understanding can help in recognizing and appreciating the diverse perspectives and approaches that individuals of different genders bring to an educational organization.
  2. Challenging stereotypes and biases. Educators and leaders can use this knowledge to challenge and mitigate these biases within their organizations. By promoting awareness and actively working to counteract stereotypes, they can create a more inclusive and equitable environment for all individuals.
  3. Promoting inclusive leadership practices that value and leverage the strengths of individuals regardless of gender. Educators and leaders can use this knowledge to implement leadership development programs that focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. By fostering a culture of inclusivity, organizations can empower individuals of all genders to thrive and contribute effectively.
  4. Encouraging collaboration and communication. Understanding the role of gender in leadership and values can also enhance communication and collaboration within teams. Educators and leaders can facilitate open dialogues about gender diversity, encourage respectful interactions, and promote teamwork that values diverse perspectives. By fostering a culture of collaboration and communication, organizations can harness the collective intelligence and creativity of their diverse workforce.
  5. Supporting career development of individuals of all genders within their organizations. By providing equal opportunities for growth, mentorship, and advancement, they can help break down barriers and create pathways for diverse leadership representation. This proactive approach can lead to a more inclusive and dynamic organizational culture.

Overall, understanding the influence of gender on leadership styles, values, and decision-making processes, educators can cultivate inclusive learning environments that celebrate diverse leadership approaches and perspectives. They can leverage insights from neuroscience and gender studies to design leadership development programs that cater to the unique strengths and challenges of individuals of all genders. Furthermore, educational organizations can promote gender equity in leadership roles by addressing biases, stereotypes, and systemic barriers that hinder the advancement of women and underrepresented genders. Embracing inclusive leadership practices and fostering a culture of respect, collaboration, and empowerment can not only enhance organizational effectiveness but also create a more equitable and supportive environment for all members of the educational community.

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