Gender Equality and Leadership

Event Center A & B

The purpose of this study is to examine variables that may contribute to understanding gender inequalities in leadership. Because gender stereotypes continue to play a role in career choice, it remains important to learn what might mitigate the advancement of women into leadership roles. Career Entry Point (CEP) refers specifically to the expected and aspired career entry position and compensation when entering the workforce in a preferred field. Watts et al., (2015) found that expected and aspired career positions were indicators of job attainment and future job status, respectively. McCormick, Tanguma and López-Forment (2002) indicated high Leadership Self-efficacy (LSE) to be a strong predictor of leadership behavior and a distinguishing factor from non-leaders. The construct of Affective Motivation to lead (a-MtL) is thought to influence the inclination to obtain leadership training and the tenacity and effort intensity of a leader (Cho, Harrist, Steele & Murn, 2015). With nearly 50% of women in the workforce pipeline and so few in top leadership roles, the stagnation in leadership advancement may begin at the CEP. The expected and aspired position and compensation may be negatively affected by CEP and thus lead to job dissatisfaction, decreasing the desire to pursue leadership opportunities (Hoobler, Lemmon & Wayne, 2014). Data are currently being collected from CSUSB students, asking them to rate their expectations in attaining a supervisory job, expected and aspired job compensation and to complete the surveys for a-MtL, LSE and CAS.