Throughout history, women have been prevented and discouraged from taking on positions of leadership. Although it would seem counterintuitive, it is more likely that women have learned how to be leaders even more because they have been pushed down into secondary or even tertiary positions. This reminds me of one of the readings we had a couple weeks ago when an author mentioned how minority followers are more likely to know their [oppressive] superiors because they are in positions of followership. I believe this same theory would apply to women because for the longest time women have been forced to watch from the sidelines. So, it would only make sense for women to know the obligations of, the behaviors of, and the best strategies that a [male] leader could use to be their most effective version of a leader.
Schein’s claim that women’s leadership is typically more geared towards world peace, increased opportunities and decreased corruption highly correlates to women’s’ natural ability to be nurturing. In addition, all of these things mentioned could be considered to be utopian values as they would stand opposed to what has been valued throughout history and what is valued today by male leaders. This does not go to say that men strictly desire inequality, corruption, and war from the start. Yet, women have sat back to observe the dominating phenomenon of male leadership and cherry-pick what they would and would not desire as results of their leadership.
In Rosener’s entry, she mentions key aspects of interactive leadership to include the encouragement of participation, the will to share power, and the enhancement of others’ self-worth. These all align with the expectations of how women should lead. They are all along the lines of wider distribution of power and democratic values.
This response reminded me to consider the significance of the psychological differences between females and males for example the trait you mentioned of many women being more nurturing than men by nature. There are pros and cons to a leader of either gender due to these psychological disparities. If a society only has male leaders or only has female leaders, these leaders will not be representative of its constituency and will not be able to represent all perspectives; it is fundamental that there is a combination of genders to ensure all voices are represented and all perspectives get a say.