Project description
Focussing on the force of female leadership
Highly educated and skilled female professionals make excellent leaders. Even so, despite efforts from institutions such as the United Nations or European Commission, there is still a substantial underrepresentation of women in leadership positions. An understanding of the importance of interpersonal leadership skills could change this. The EU-funded WOMLEAD project aims to research women’s advantages in the case of business leadership competencies. It will study the role of soft skills in increased customer services, positive results of servant leadership and altruistic values for the growth and well-being of businesses. Women’s leadership will be strengthened by disseminating the research findings widely, holding business seminars, and establishing a Women’s Leadership Centre at the University of Seville.
Objective
The lack of women in leadership is a concern raised by several multinational organizations including the UN and the European Commission. Research suggests that women’s underrepresentation is partly attributable to stereotypes regarding female leaders. Despite the persistence of these stereotypes, leadership scholars have shown that women are in fact, more skilled than men at almost all attributes that distinguish excellent leaders from average/poor ones. In an effort to lessen the gender gap in leadership, the current project seeks to solidify “the business case” for increased women in leadership, by developing and testing hypotheses to demonstrate that women’s leadership advantages result in increased customer service. Based on research on servant leadership, which focuses on altruistic values that engage followers in relational and emotional dimensions, so they are empowered to grow, I propose that servant leadership will positively relate to subordinates’ soft skill development and that this relationship will be stronger among female leaders. Further, given the research linking soft skills to customer service, I propose that subordinates’ soft skill training will mediate the relationship between servant leadership and customer service. While I will publish theoretical and empirical studies based on this research in scholarly journals, a distinctive feature of the proposal is dissemination to non-academic stakeholders. I plan to lead seminars in the business community to share the practical implications of my findings. The pinnacle of my communication efforts will be creating a Women’s Leadership Centre at USE that I will lead after the fellowship period. To prepare myself, I will carry out a secondment at an academic institution that has a diversity centre and at a non-academic organization focused on gender equality, to acquire knowledge about the pressing research issues facing European working women and to learn how to develop and sustain the centre at USE.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF-EF-CAR - CAR – Career Restart panelCoordinator
41004 Sevilla
Spain