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discuss the influence of role models and mentors in allowing women to be capable middle managers.
6.2 The Influence of Role Models and Mentors in the Personal Domain
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struggles are pertinent to what the women middle managers in this survey claim they learned from their role models and mentors.
Hema writes to the mentors and role models in her personal domain and what she says shows they helped develop her capabilities of resilience and social and collective struggles. Although both these capabilities should be discussed separately, I have combined them because Hema couples these in her letter. She indicates that she aspires to the capabilities of resilience and social and collective struggles when she addresses the achievements of particular South African women political activists and leaders, such as Mamphele Ramphele, Fatima Meer, Albertina Sisulu and Dr Goonam who were public figures in the South African anti-apartheid struggle for social justice prior to 1994. Hema writes:
You have inspired me in persevering in my toil. Your life, the hardships and the sacrifices that you‟ve made inspires me not to give up in my struggle for gender justice. I may come across as passive and unassertive, but, I would not hesitate to voice my honest opinion and feelings – this I‟ve learnt from you. Like you, I have thrown my energies into education, because I believe I can make a difference. Although apartheid has been abolished, the struggle continues. Social injustices still exist and many years into democracy we are still victims of sexism and gender discrimination. I consider it my mission in life to empower and develop young people into critical, independent thinkers. It is an upward battle to change attitudes and values that were designed to advantage male dominance. You have shown us guts and determination and have broken the conservative mould that society has drawn for us women. (Hema, Unsent letter)
In this extract from her letter we see Hema as a school leader acknowledging that there were unfreedoms (barriers) she faced in her leadership role. The most notable unfreedom that Hema highlights is gender discrimination and the dominance of men in leadership roles. Therefore, it is significant that Hema identifies women leaders who are able to resist male dominance and who strive to achieve gender equity as her role models and mentors and who she aspires to be like in her role as HoD. By aspiring to be like these role models and mentors who demonstrated the capability of resilience in their lives, Hema is inspired to persevere in the face of her own
workplace adversities and difficulties.
Hema saw her task as trying to achieve gender justice in society as a challenge and therefore, like her role models and mentors before her, she asserted that she also had to persevere in her job and face the “hardships” and make “sacrifices”. The
persistence and determination she writes about in her fight for the eradication of social injustices at school show that she had a vision for a better future society, one that
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would be free of discriminatory practices. The strong ethical and moral convictions in her letter are the sort of attributes that Bass (1985) and Bass and Avolio (1994) associate with a transformational leader. Through calling on idealised influences Hema hopes to be able to empower and develop others to be critical thinkers. This she does because her role models and mentors influenced her to develop the capability of social and collective struggles. This capability allows her to promote human rights within her community. In her letter to her role model and mentor Hema indicates that, as a transformational woman middle manager, she had broken the “conservative mould” of women leaders who are passive. Instead she identifies herself as a leader who is assertive and determined.
Having developed the capability of social and collective struggles, Hema believes that through her leadership role she can empower young people, just as her role models empowered her into becoming an “independent and critical” thinker. Through her role as a middle manager Hema believes that she can change the mindsets of young people to embrace social justice issues and empower them to fight for human rights and welfare. In society both men and women are usually taught that men are the stronger gender, and therefore, that they dominate in all spheres of life, particularly in
leadership roles. It is this mould that Hema wishes to break through her “guts” and
“determination”. She does not want women to be seen as the weaker gender; rather they should be seen as equal to their male counterparts. These ideas chime with the ideas of scholars like Walker and her colleagues who have researched professional capabilities needed for social and collective struggles to promote poverty reduction (Section 3.3).
Some participants implied in their letters that a woman leader should be hard and tough and determined to succeed. Valerie‟s letter to her mother, who was both her mentor and role model, is an example of this association of ideas. For Valerie that toughness and determination would make her a winner with resilience to constantly push herself “to the limit”.
When I had obstacles I had to deal with them. I did not allow people‟s opinions of me and my drive in life to get me down. I was going to win...I will always be grateful to you as you inspired me to push myself to the limit. I have the opinion that nothing will get me down. Because you were such an excellent role model to me, I use the same tactics at school to drive my learners to succeed. I am able to place the cards on the table and tell them that life is not easy. Only the toughest will survive and this somehow motivates them. And as a result, I get 100% pass rates at
146 the end of the year exams. You were very hard on me and I hated you for driving me the way you did. (Valerie, Unsent letter)
This extract from Valerie‟s letter shows that, as a woman leader, she also faced barriers, but her determination to succeed in life, made her resist the “obstacles” that came her way. Valerie‟s resilient and determined nature is evident in the language she uses to address her mother. The phrases about her “drive in life”, the ability to push herself “to the limit” and not allow anything to get her down, and that only “the toughest will survive”, are an expression in words that suggest that Valerie is capable of resilience, perseverance and determination. Such capabilities are enhanced through a role model or mentor who has an idealised influence on her protégés. Through the effect of her idealised influence of her mother Valerie is, in turn, able to act as a role model for her learners and motivate them in the same as her mother did, through the means of “tough love”.
Being a woman leader, Valerie‟s letter shows that she has to prove herself and has to always push herself “to the limit”, suggesting that she perceives she has to work much harder as a woman leader to prove her worth than her male counterparts. She applies the lessons she learnt from her mother to her teaching practice. She endeavours to teach her learners to be survivors in a harsh world where the only way to survive is by being tough. This suggests that, for Valerie, being tough is dimension of the capability of resilience. The fact that she will not let anything get her “down” shows that Valerie has developed into a resilient person. The tough love displayed by her mother made Valerie “hate” her mother for being so hard on her and for “driving” her to succeed.
Yet, she also describes her mother as inspiring her and being an “excellent role model” for her. Surviving the “tough love” approach helped Valerie become resilient as a woman leader. This shows that the capability of resilience can develop toughness and assertiveness in the woman middle manager.
In contrast to the tough love that Valerie received from her mother, Irene‟s father taught her to be kind and loving. These are qualities that are soft and associated with feminine behaviour, rather than the tough qualities of being unemotional and hard which are associated with masculine behaviour. In the following section I discuss how role models and mentors influenced the women to develop the capability of emotion.
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6.2.2 Interacting with Significant Others
The capability of emotion, according to Nussbaum (2000a, p. 79) deals with the ability to have attachment to things and other people. It concerns the ability to care, to express love, hate, grief and anger. Similarly, the capability of affiliation is the ability to show concern for others and to engage in various forms of social interaction and to care and respect people from diverse groups (Nussbaum, 2000a, Walker et al., 2010).
It is detrimental to the development of this capability in humans when people are exposed to overwhelming fear and anxiety, or traumatic events of abuse and neglect (Nussbaum, 2000a). According to Walker et al. (2010), the capability of emotion deals with empathy such as having a narrative imagination. This capability integrates being rational with emotions. It is the ability to be emotionally reflexive and compassionate.
The letters to the role models and mentors show that the women participants
developed into caring individuals through their affiliations with their role models and mentors. Although Tong (1989) asserts that a leader who displays androgynous leadership styles has qualities that are characterised as both masculine and feminine, some women middle managers choose to lead their departments in a stereotypically feminine leadership style. An extract from Irene‟s letter to her father demonstrates this:
Dad you taught me to be kind, loving and humble in life. You always said at home, in church and in the classroom, „It‟s nice to be nice‟. You were loved by people from all walks of life because you were so loving and respectful... At church, when visitors from other churches come over, they meet me and when they hear me sing, they always ask me if I am related to you. Some of the much older people actually tell me that I have to be your daughter, and that really makes me feel so proud! As a manager, I am approachable and understanding and I treat my teachers and students with respect and dignity always. (Irene, Unsent letter)
Irene‟s father, who was her mentor and role model, taught her softer and more nurturing qualities of being nice, loving, understanding and respectful. These are the caring qualities that became important to her in her management role. Developing this capability of emotion enabled her to function as an inspirational manager who was able to empathise and care for the members in her department. Irene is evidence that softer feminine qualities can be applied in a management role, rather than the harder more masculine qualities that are associated with management and leadership. Her father‟s nurturing nature instilled in Irene a loving and caring nature as well. Irene‟s mentor and role model had qualities that were stereotypically feminine, like being
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“kind”, “loving” and “humble”. Hence Irene says in her letter that she embraces these qualities as a leader.
Irene‟s father also influenced her membership in other institutions apart from school.
From the above extract, it appears that Irene‟s father was an influential church member, and Irene aspired to be like her father in church as well. Irene lays claim to being engaged in various forms of interaction in this regard with members of her cultural group. This shows how her father‟s participation in society worked to develop her capability of affiliation. Her religious affiliation shows that she has developed into a caring and empathetic person who accepts the people with whom she interacts and treats them with respect and friendship.
The affiliations the women middle managers have extended outwardly into their communities. Like Irene, some of the other participants openly accepted religion in their lives, and they assert that their faith in their religious teachings helped them become the school managers and leaders they are. Like Irene, the religious teachings that Mandisa received from her mother helped to develop her as a person. In her letter to her mother she writes:
As a community member, especially at church, my spiritual life has changed and improved a lot because of your teachings. You instilled in us that we had to live, practise and apply faith daily in our lives. You have instilled in me to have courage, zeal and strength to face our challenges throughout our lives. We used interventions of supernatural powers to keep us going. I pray and wish that somewhere, somehow, I could touch people‟s lives and better their lives the way you did to me. As a head of department, I try to better the lives of the learners and educators by offering them opportunities to grow. Once more I say thank you. (Mandisa, unsent letter)
Mandisa‟s letter shows that she developed the capabilities of affiliation, emotion and resilience. The capability of affiliation comes to the fore when she says that she has become involved in the community and in religion. She used the capability of affiliation to foster opportunities for development in the teachers she manages.
Mandisa, however, used a very self-righteous tone in her letter, unlike Irene. The type of person Mandisa has become gives the impression that she is somewhat elevated in her spiritual beliefs and morally uplifting and strong. As a woman, she seems to have been prepared to face the challenges she encounters in her life. Mandisa‟s letter shows that not only had she developed the capability to be caring, she also had developed resilience. This is evident when she writes of the “courage, zeal and strength” she has in order to face the challenges she experiences in life. Her caring for others is brought
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to the fore when she states that she would like to “better people‟s lives”. She was not alone in facing the challenges as she refers to “our challenges throughout our lives”.
This suggests that she perceives other women are also facing challenges in their lives and this is an ongoing situation. However, personally, she had developed the
capability of resilience to persevere in the face of struggles. She appears to view her role model as a saintly figure who could “touch people‟s lives and better their lives”
just by interacting with them. This affiliation with her role model and mentor led her to develop as a caring and empathetic middle manager trying to “better the lives of the learners and educators” in her department.
Although the psychosocial support received from mentors may not help the women HoDs in career advancement as much as in career support (Tharenou, 2005), the women HoDs indicate in their letters that the friendship and encouragement that they received from their mentors and role models did impact on their roles as HoDs, and the type of managers that they have become. Through mentoring and/or aspiring to be like their role models, the women middle managers developed the capabilities of emotion, affiliation and resilience that would be useful for interaction with colleagues in the workplace. However, a leader and manager is also someone who must be well- organised and who plans ahead. Such skills relate to the capabilities of informed vision and of goal setting and these are discussed in the next section.
6.2.3 Envisioning a Future
The capability of informed vision is about an alternative future and improving social arrangements. Through informed vision women middle managers are able to create a sense of purpose in their lives to be pursued over many years (Leithwood, 1999).
Through forming an informed vision, women middle managers can set goals for themselves. The goals that people set for themselves can take the form of pursuing desirable outcomes or avoiding undesirable outcomes (Lockwood, Jordan & Kunda, 2002). This means that people may be inspired by positive role models who represent a “positive self” and a “desired self” when they wish to be successful, or a negative role model who represents a “feared self” when they want to avoid failure (Lockwood et al., 2002, p. 854). Therefore, setting goals leads to increased performance for a variety of tasks. Gene in her letter shows how she used the teachings of her
grandmother to envision a future of a more ambitious state for herself. She used her grandmother‟s teaching to set goals for herself that led her to an occupation as a
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teacher and later a HoD position. Yet Gene‟s letter brings the vexed issue of gender role stereotyping to the fore. By teaching her to do regular household chores, Gene‟s grandmother established a work ethic in her that she should always work at her optimum level. By being taught household chores such as ironing, Gene was able to learn the valuable lesson of commitment to work. Gene was able to learn how to be a conscientious manager, through the practical everyday work at home.
This family member taught me how to iron clothes. Yes, I know this can be regarded as strange.
But, how many people can boast about learning to iron with a steel iron which can be heated on a coal stove? She could iron clothes from a very young age to perfection, and I was taught to do the same. This was the start of what I think was the art of starting something and doing it to the best of your ability right to the end. Even in my position as a HoD, I make sure that I do things to the best of my ability; there are no half measures with me. (Gene, unsent letter)
The above extract suggests that Gene was taught and prepared from a young age to accept a homemaker‟s role. It is apparent that Gene‟s role model and mentor viewed learning household chores as essential for a female. However, Gene did not restrict this learning to the home; rather she applied the lessons learnt to her workplace and her role in a school management position. Therefore, the letter shows Gene is able to imagine a future state that did not involve household chores. Instead, she had
visualised applying what she learnt at home to her professional life. She learnt to set goals in her life that involved her working to the best of her ability and not doing things in “half measures”. In the letter she reflected critically on what she was taught at home, and how she applied this knowledge positively in her middle management role. This capability which she developed under the influence of her grandmother was employed to inspire the team members at school and motivate them as teachers and members of a department. Gene is an example of a woman middle manager influenced by social actors in the home or the community. Other participants drew on people in their professions for their inspiration to develop the capabilities needed to be a middle manager in a school. Thus I turn to role models and mentors from the professional domain in the next section.