Gender DIfferences Among Entrepreneurial Leaders

Within recent legislation we are seeing bills, acts, and statues that are proposed and passed that target businesses and how they operate, start, grow etc… Among the most recent is the JOBS Act which had passed within the House of Representatives on March 8th, 2012 and is currently a topic of debate within Congress. The JOBS Act mainly addresses the issue of businesses not getting the financing or the start-up capital that they need to survive start-up and thrive in years to follow. It also creates a new category of publicly owned businesses entitled “Emerging Growth Companies” which are companies that will be exempt from certain regulations if they fall within a given revenue range. While the bill is actually very extensive, I have found an article on the Forbes website that highlights and talks about the JOBS Act’s key provisions. The link follows: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjcolao/2012/03/21/jobs-act/

Hi everyone, have any one read the book “The girl’s guide to being a boss ” by Caitlin Friedman and Kimberly Yorio?  This book gives valuable lessons, smart suggestions and true stories for succeeding as the chick-in-charge. As women, we still don’t have much of a road map right now when it comes to taking charge at the office. In this book, you will learn to be powerful without being possessive. You’ll learn to own the role of queen bee in a positive  way. Women will be empowered to become that one-in-million manager. My favorite chapter is: “Being the boss without being bossy”. One technique is sharing is caring, since we did not win by ourselves. …nothing will inspire loyalty like a boss who acknowledges  that she didn’t d it flying solo.  Along with sharing credit, effective managers need to also share information. Also if the team make a serious mistake, then the good boss takes the blame. That is the way it should be.

In my earlier post I had discussed the most successful women is Asia, that had made it to the Forbes list. The women that were discussed were working in a corporate environment and achieved success by overcoming the barriers that women face.  In this blog-post, I wanted to share with you this article that I came across on the website Under30CEO.com.  It was mentioned on one of the Discussion Board Topics, that why are all entrepreneurs of successful websites like Facebook, Zappos, and Twitter all male, when women are the key factors behind the success of these websites. So I decided to do my own research on some successful women entrepreneurs, who not only were able to come up with a successful business plan but were running ti successfully today.

The link to the article is : http://under30ceo.com/top-15-young-female-entrepreneurs-and-their-rising-companies/

All the women mentioned in the article range from the age of 15-29 years old.  It is astonishing and motivating to know that there are successful women entrepreneurs there who started there business doing something they love.   The story that stood out to me the most was of Maddie Bradshaw who is only fifteen years old.  It is mentioned in the article that:

“Maddie Bradshaw is the founder of the $1.6million a year company, M3 Girl Designs. What started as simple locker decorations has turned into a thriving company for young girls.  The companies necklaces and designs are sold throughout the U.S. and they sell over 50,000 necklaces a month.

Maddie has plans to expand the company into other accessories beyond just necklaces in the near future.”

Who would have that some girl would be making over one and a half million dollars out of what seems to be normal ritual for a teenager girl, which is decorating lockers or making jewelry?   As inspiring the story is, I could not help but notice the fact that a majority of these women owned business that were more “women-oriented”.  There was only two business’ that  Learn Vest that dealt with helping women develop good financial habbits and Khush an iPad music app that dealt with finance or technology, and industry predominantly male entrepreneur are present.

I found the article  that is very interesting and relevant to our class discussion. This article is  about gender differences in leadership.

THE TOPIC OF GENDER DIFFERENCES in leadership style has been of great interest to researchers in the fields of psychology, management, and sociology, especially in recent years, as women have begun to assume more leadership positions.

There is basic disagreement focusing upon the primary question being examined-i.e., is there really a difference between the leadership styles of males and females?

Tags:

http://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/7791/librarytrendsv40i3h_opt.pdf?sequence=1

“The Glass Ceiling”- i enjoyed reading this article because it goes to show how still today despite the laws against inequalities amongst men and women, women are still treated on a lesser scale. This quote stood out to me personally “The general consensus is that women’s careers suffer because of their desire to have a family life.” The idea that women’s careers suffer for wanting to have a family makes no sense to me. I know that it takes focus and time away from work but this is something that can be work on with husbands. They both should be able to balance the load.

“The Women Crusade”- This article caught my attention and its an eye opener. If any one thinks that within this country things are bad for them, all they have to do is meditate on situations like what Saima went thru. It also goes to show what women can do when given Help and an opportunity.

Britteny Vukas

‘The M.R.S. and the Ph.D.’ by Stephanie Coontz is an article I found in the New York Times that I felt was a sort of follow up to our discussion on feminism and The Feminine Mystique. The article describes how in the list of desirable traits of a potential wife, according to men, intelligence has moved from being one of the least important traits during the post WWII period being one of the most important today. Despite this being said though it has been found that many women today still feel the need to ‘marry up’, meaning marrying a man that is more educated, more intelligent, and makes more money than them. I found this to be very interesting because I see how so many men today admire their girlfriends and wives for their intelligence yet, perhaps because this so-called truth that men are turned off by women that are smarter than them has been so ingrained in us, many women still feel uncomfortable being the more intelligent one and the one that makes more money in the relationship.

This week the list for the “Asia’s 50 Power Businesswomen” was published.  It was interesting to see that 42% of the women were from China,  Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau and 16% from India, with the remainder from Singapore.  Being from India I was very intrigued as to what Industries these powerful women belonged to and decided to do more research on it.  In a newspaper named Hindustan Times, a collage of pictures was published titled “India’s most Powerful Women”.  The list of women on this list ranged from an executive of the ICICI Bank to a Film and Television Producer.  The whole array of profession that these women belonged to changed my thinking.  In my eyes the most powerful women would belong only to the corporate world where they can work head to head with men in equality.  But women such as Malika Srinivasa, the chairperson of Tractors and Farm Equipment caught me by surprise.  Who would think that a woman would be in the business of Tractors and Farm equipment, especially in India.  This field is completely dominated by men and I am sure Malika Srinivasa must have had to face many hurdles in order not only be the chairperson of this company but also to be named among India’s Most Powerful Women.

What makes these women powerful and how were they able to achieve this position?  After reading the biography of a few, the one common theme seemed to be education.  All of these women had not only went to college but had attended Graduate school at some very prestigious universities.  Even though they had much power and control in the business world, most of the women have families and children.  This emphasizes on the role of women being a superwoman.  I also couldn’t help but think of the cultural norms in the Asian societies and stigmas attached to working women and how they women must have dealt with it.  The answer to this question I think was in the biography of Mallika Srinivasan, who not only attended the Wharton School of Business for her MBA, but also had a supporting family.  Being successful and powerful is not possible by one person, you have to have your family on board.  Being a women you are expected to be the primary caretaker of the family, so it only makes sense if you want to have your family on board with you in your business adventure.  So it is not only important for women to empower themselves, but also be let known to the world what they are capable of.  This ties to one of the points mentioned in the Modest Manifesto for Shattering the Glass Ceiling.   Publishing’s such as the Forbes: Asia’s 50 Powerful Women validates the advancement that women have made.

Attached I have an article from the New York Times entitled What Women Have to Do.  Within the article is a discussion as to the possible reasons as to why women have not punctured the barriers of top management as well as discussing that barriers not only come from within an organization, but from within ones self (in the case of the article, a female) too.  Sponsorship, mentorship and the lack of females sponsoring or mentoring also brings up a point as to issue of females penetrating the scene of top management.  “The absense of female role models is compounded by a heightened perception of the difficulty of achieving success in today’s business environment.”  Although it is important to seek sponsorship etc… The biggest point made within the article is that “women need to be more comfortable promoting themselves and to be assertive about their performance, abilities and ambitions.”

Dear Classmates,

Today’s post is on The Women’s Crusade. I found this article in the New York Times Magazine before we started our class. The reason why I want to share this article with you is because it covers most of the things that we have talked about in our class.  When I read this article I had mix emotions, I was livid, hurt, and happy as well, you will understand after you read it. In our discussions, we had talked about how women are still perceived as a “risk” with respect to being in a position of leadership . Also, I have said many times that education is power and that we must be given an opportunity to show how talented we are. I encourage you to carefully read this article. Yes, ladies We can do it. Let’s show Society and Men in particular that We can be successful and We can run the business. Note: Please read up to the fourth paragraph of the second page, right before What Should…

Hope you enjoy reading it,

Elizabeth Duran