Step In, Step Up - Jane A. G. Kise

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one likes a man who speaks his mind,” or “I never tell anyone I’m the school head”? We can’t, but we’ve certainly seen women regularly criticized for leading “like a man.”

      With these concerns, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that women are underrepresented in positions of power. However, how can you influence people so they view women who engage in high-impact leadership behaviors—sharing ideas, adding to collective wisdom, guiding a vision, and encouraging a shared purpose—as competent, rather than … well, you’ve heard the labels! These leadership behaviors aren’t wrong; rather, people have inadequate and incomplete definitions of power.

      Mary Beard (2017), professor of classics at Cambridge University, captures the problematic big picture of why women struggle to lead: “We have no template for what a powerful woman looks like, except that she looks rather like a man” (p. 54). And, she offers a solution: “If women are not perceived to be fully within the structures of power, surely it is power that we need to redefine rather than women?” (Beard, 2017, p. 83). She suggests separating power and prestige and including the collaborative power of followers in the definition. Not power over but power with sums up her message.

      Power … is not an end in itself, but is an instrument that must be used toward an end.

      —Jeane Kirkpatrick (1926–2006),

      first female U.S. ambassador to the United Nations

      We agree that power with resonates with archetypal feminine values, such as behaving cooperatively and having empathy—those values and characteristics that, through millennia and across cultures, people have connected more with women than with men. However, striving for power with ignores the upside of positional power—the power to influence what will be done, when, in what ways, and by whom—that it can provide. Leaders, and especially women leaders, need to identify the impact they wish to have and where they might make it happen. And for women in education, this is the moral imperative of their why—for students to learn and flourish. To have an impact requires clarity of vision and courage.

      What would you like to have the power to accomplish in education?

       WORDS FROM A LEADER

      Women have learned to turn power into empowerment. They get the urgent work done. Women know the power of collective leadership through experience and do not find power over others a satisfactory way of working. Women have learned to listen carefully, critique options, and meaningfully integrate a variety of options as they lead change—often in small, subtle, and not-so-overt ways. When women use power with and not power over, new directions emerge. Often other voices from the margins feel empowered to make decisions alongside their women leaders. The strength is that women leaders see power as multidirectional and multidimensional. They embrace co- in collaborative leadership. Co-learning, co-leading, and co-laboring are three words for us all to live by. (Dr. Lyn Sharratt, Canadian teacher, principal, superintendent, and researcher, personal communication, April 12, 2018)

      Why does this book focus on women? Don’t men need to know these things too? Yes, they do. The path to effective leadership shouldn’t create a male-female dichotomy, but in many ways, the masculine path to effective leadership differs from the feminine path, with men generally taking a more direct and intentional approach to the journey. As you explore our research, theory, and practice, you will see that women face more barriers and different challenges than men. The existing gaps in gendered paths to leadership mean that talent falls through the cracks. And education needs that talent—both because it needs great leadership and because research confirms that women lead in a different way that positively influences organizational success. In this book, we’ll apply that research to what might blossom in education if it has more female leaders.

      We need the best women and the best men in leadership because the impact that school leadership has on student outcomes is second only to that of teaching (Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, & Wahlstrom, 2004). Schools don’t become high performing in the absence of great leadership. Thus, schools need all the great leaders they can get—yet, in a female-dominated workforce, women remain underrepresented in senior educational leadership positions.

      At the heart of our why for writing this book, we dream that the gender of those embarking on the school leadership journey will someday no longer influence their willingness or success—ultimately, a world where gender has no influence on whether students aspire to become educators, education leaders, or leaders in any other field. But we simply aren’t there yet. Unconscious bias and the demands of balancing career with other commitments still prevent many women from achieving their leadership potential. In this book, we will delve into the barriers women face in the leadership journey through the ways in which they position themselves as leaders, how limiting notions of gender affect ambition and expectations, how others see women, and how women see themselves.

      We need women in educational leadership with power to bring what people have historically seen as feminine wisdom to the world of education, where policies and practices have long stayed within the domain of men. We do not mean to suggest that the masculine approach is somehow wrong, but rather, that it remains incomplete without feminine wisdom contributing to more complex, nuanced, and holistic definitions of power and leadership.

      We have both personally experienced gender bias. However, as we’ve listened to other women, gathered stories, and facilitated discussions around barriers that affect women who aspire to influence and lead others toward needed change, we’ve realized that we as white women face challenges that are the final, not the first, hurdle for many.

      Imagine being an attorney of African American heritage who also holds a doctorate. You walk up to a registration table at a continuing education event for lawyers. The registrar barely glances at your business attire and says, “This is where the attendees check in, not the service staff, honey.” This happened to one of Jane’s colleagues, who told her, “I don’t ever get to the sexism barrier, because the racism barrier still looms too large.”

      If you move in diverse circles, you’ve no doubt heard too many of these stories. We wish to acknowledge that other women face multiple barriers besides gender: racial prejudices, sexual orientation prejudices, religious prejudices, and mental health stigmas, to name just a few. We also want to acknowledge that these barriers cause pain and problems beyond those that women generally face on the path to impactful leadership.

      The scope of this book simply cannot do justice to describing and supporting women in overcoming all these other barriers. As societies struggle to acknowledge—let alone confront and remedy—these prejudices, we hope that you can gain some wisdom from the school leadership journey as we describe it from a gender perspective.

      So, what do we want for you? As you read this book and interact with the suggested exercises and reflection activities, we want you to unleash your potential. We have included stories from our experiences and from other women—vivid accounts of their lived experiences and lessons, which they willingly shared with us with the hope of inspiring you to step into leadership. These stories, together with quotes from other successful women outside education, highlight the interconnectedness of our challenges and experiences as women and how we tacitly support, motivate, and empower each other no matter where we are. For this, we give them our heartfelt thanks.

      We hope that through our research and observations on leadership, gender, and education, you’ll find guidance for reflecting on your leadership identity—and, as a result, acknowledge and energize your strengths, gifts, and talents to step up as the leader you want to be.

      We also hope this book will help you embrace pursuing leadership as a way to gain power to. No doubt women are more than their gender, but gender affects the way many women view leadership opportunities (Wise, 2018). Through

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