This was a paper I wrote sometime in 2018 for a class on servant leadership.
Abstract
The #MeToo movement has had a ripple effect across organizations, industries, and societies. Organizations have responded with policies and risk-management strategies based on a fear-driven mentality. Furthermore, this fear mentality has complicated how men and women interact inside and outside the workplace and, as such, has worsened the barriers keeping women out of positions of leadership. This paper does not presume to articulate how a systematic servant leadership approach would solve these complex issues. However, since Jesus repeatedly has been used as an ideal model for servant leadership and was successful in engaging and honoring women in a culture that devalued women, this paper assumes a solution is attainable. It seeks to point out how servant leadership has already indirectly assisted women’s advancement into positions of leadership, has had its own battle against gender bias, and has some key tenants capable of impacting how leaders perceive and respond to these issues, specifically in the wake of the #MeToo movement.
Two me too movements exist. The first began in 2006 to provide a community of help and healing for young women who had been sexually abused, assaulted, or exploited (Burke, 2013). The second movement began on October 15, 2017, when actress Alyssa Milano tweeted, “me too” (Lang, 2019) after the New York Times reported allegations regarding how producer Harvey Weinstein had paid off sexual accusers for decades (Kantor & Twohey, 2017). In the tweet, Milano shared, as a suggestion from a friend, “If all women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem” (Prasad, 2018; Lang, 2019). According to Fox and Diehm (as cited in Prasad, 2018), the #MeToo’ appeared in more than 500,000 posts within the first twenty-four hours.
In both cases, the movements began from a sense of empathy. For example, Burke (2013) cited empowerment through empathy as one of the main goals in assisting young women who had been violated. Furthermore, on the week allegations came out against Weinstein, reporters like McLaughlin (2017) and Walsh (2017) not only reported on how the movement was exploding through social media but also went on to share their own experiences with sexual harassment in the workplace. Several hashtags existed prior to #MeToo (Walsh, 2017; Lang, 2019); however, they all primarily served as a means to provide healing and community through conversation. In contrast, #MeToo became an informal census wherein many women disclosed their own personal experiences of sexual harassment, thus igniting a “visceral response, evoking pain, anger, frustration, and sadness” (Lang, 2019, pp. 7-8).
The second incarnation of this movement began primarily by calling out harassment and sexual allegations among the entertainment industry and high-profile men. Today, the movement has become a global phenomenon penetrating numerous industries and organizations (Soklaridis, Zahn, Kuper, Gillis, Taylor, & Whitehead, 2018), even impacting high-profile pastors like Bill Hybels, who had to resign in light of allegations (Wehner, 2018). Furthermore, the scope of the movement has expanded to address sexism and discrimination against women (Soklaridis et al., 2018). For example, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, stated that she hoped the movement would extend to working women who have never had anyone take them seriously and their concerns about workplace abuse (Prasad, 2018, p. 2512).
Over the last year and a half, the #MeToo movement has been incredibly successful in initiating conversations about and challenging sexual norms. In response, laws (Prasad, 2018) and workplace policies (Lenkov & Kuprionis, 2018) have been scrutinized, with questions emerging on how men and women relate in the workplace. A primary method by which organizations have begun to review their policies regarding sexual harassment has been through the lens of risk management (Lenkov & Kuprinonis, 2018; Kantor, 2018). In other words, across industries, a fear-driven mentality now exists, which places sexual harassment in the same vein as other organizational concerns, such as security and hacking risks. Therefore, a lot of resolve among organizations to prevent sexual harassment has revolved around strategies such as training, policies, employee vetting, and complaint and reporting procedures.
Unfortunately, these strategies have produced mixed results (Kantor, 2018). For example, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) (2018) surveyed employees, executives, managers, and non-managers representing 15 industries. Executives surveyed cited morale, engagement, and productivity as the driving factors for driving workplace change. Ninety-four percent of human resource professionals reported their company had a policy to protect workers against sexual harassment, and 72 percent of employees surveyed stated they were happy with the employer’s efforts; however, more than one-third of Americans reported they still believed the workplace fostered sexual harassment. In response to their survey, SHRM has advised employers to move beyond a reactionary mindset dependent on rules, education, and training; instead, organizations should pursue cultural change and begin to ask, “What do we really believe as a company and workforce?”.
Before the fallout from the Weinstein scandal, Hewlett (2010) found that 64 percent of senior leaders opted to refrain from one-on-one contact out of “fear of being suspected of an illicit sexual liaison (para. 6). The #MeToo movement has exacerbated this fear, increasing the likelihood that men in positions of power will avoid interacting one-on-one with women in the workplace (McGregor, 2017; Soklaridis et al., 2018). This can be seen in a resurgence in support for what has been coined the “Billy Graham’s Rule.” Graham would not dine, drink, travel, or spend time alone with a woman other than his wife (Everding, 2018; Garbarino, 2018). Similarly, Vice President Mike Pence has stated he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife and that he won’t attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side, either (Parker, 2017). Such a rule may appeal to some as taking a moral high ground; however, such a rule has inherent problems. For one, enforced chaperoned meetings can quickly become costly and convoluted. Not every organization has the funds to finance a spouse’s attendance, nor does every leader have a spouse.
Moreover, Moslener (2018) pointed out that such a rule “posits that women and sex are threats to powerful men’s reputation” (para. 7). In other words, these rules place too much emphasis on women and sexual desire and no consideration to the abuse of power. Although avoidance rules often get discussed in relation to men, it should be noted, that avoidance rules work both ways. Women in leadership positions must also navigate how they interact with men. Additionally, leaders who follow these rules of avoidance risk modeling a culture of distrust and weak working relationships. Instead, Janove (2019) argued for a “common sense rule.” In all interactions, remain strictly professional – no sexual comments or behavior of any kind, no matter how welcome the conduct might seem at the time” (para. 7).
Amid all the purported strategies to curb sexual harassment, Kantor (2018) cited an ultimate solution as having an increased number of women in positions of power. As has been already shown, fear is one of the primary forces driving change in the wake of the #MeToo movement. It has caused organizations to take a risk management stance and has decreased the likelihood that men in positions of power will take an active one-on-one role with women in the workplace. This is unfortunate as, repeatedly, women leaders have reported mentoring, coaching, and sponsorship with men in leadership as instrumental in helping them navigate and obtain leadership opportunities (Saad, 2018; Soklaridis et al., 2019, p. 2270). Saad (2018) further distinguished formal and informal mentoring and sponsorship, arguing that informal mentoring followed by sponsorship programs was more effective. Formal mentoring programs tended to be short-lived with a “tendency to benefit the person providing the mentoring more than the protégé.” Sponsorships were slightly more beneficial than formal programs in they included an explicit intention to advocate the protégé for career advancement (p. 41). Most effective mentoring relationships occur during one-on-one dinners and informal after-work settings (McGregor, 2017; Janove, 2019). Therefore, as long as organizations and male leaders in positions of power relate to the #MeToo movement from a risk management fear-driven mentality, a hindrance to the advancement of women in leadership will continue to grow.
Servant leadership advocates often cite Jesus as an ideal illustration of a servant leader. In his interactions with women, Jesus refused “to treat women as inferiors despite living in a culture that treated them deplorably” (Wehner, 2018, p. 2). If Jesus could properly interact with women, then a servant leadership approach has the potential to counteract this fear-driven risk management mentality towards women in the workplace. More specifically, a servant leadership approach has the potential to discover solutions to some challenging and complex issues regarding sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and how men and women can professionally interact in the workplace. The remainder of this paper has not been written with the audacity of knowing exactly how these issues should be solved; instead, it aims to point out how servant leadership has already indirectly assisted women’s advancement into positions of leadership, has had its own battle against gender bias, and has key tenants capable of impacting how leaders perceive and respond to these issues.
Several studies have tried to explain the lack of women in the upper echelons of leadership by analyzing the barriers, sometimes referred to as a glass ceiling or a labyrinth (Saad, 2018), which leave women at a disadvantage over their male counterparts. These barriers and biases were not considered intentional or overt but phenomenological, invisible (Eagly & Karau, 2002), and covert (Hogue, 2016). Therefore, research emphasized gender roles, leadership roles, and perceptions and expectations of how these roles overlap (Eagly & Karau, 2002; Ely, Ibarra, & Kolb, 2011; Duff, 2013; Hogue, 2016). Gender roles refer to the perceptions of what a group of people actually do and what society ideally expects a group to do (Eagley & Karau, 2002). Leadership roles were typically bifurcated by leadership theories (Saad, 2018) or behaviors (Ely et al., 2011; Hogue, 2016) to distinguish leadership approaches as heroic and post-heroic or agentic and communal. The former typified an assertive leadership style (dominant, controlling); whereas the latter employed a more supportive approach (unselfish, nurturing, relationship-building, teamwork) (Hogue, 2016; Sims & Morris, 2018). These two forms have also been distinguished as low and high employee engagement (Duff, 2013). In other words, women are at a particular disadvantage when a mismatch occurs between what society ideally expects from them (e.g., nurturing) and how it defines effective leadership (e.g., agentic).
Women have historically faced a disadvantage because effective leadership roles were assumed to be comprised primarily of masculine dominant characteristics. For example, Ely et al. (2011) cited research where an assessment emphasizing stereotypical masculine characteristics was used. Moreover, their bosses rated women in the study as equal to or outperforming their male counterparts. Yet in another study, the same women were rated lower by their bosses in long-term potential (p. 481). Encouragingly, Eagly and Karau (2002) acknowledged the data collected “over the years” has shown a decrease in disadvantages for women – citing a possible attitudinal change in both gender and leadership roles (p. 589). Hogue (2016) agreed with the covert nature of the barriers keeping women from positions of power in the workplace; however, she also called attention to a historical overt gender bias, arguing leadership has evolved, and expectations have changed as the workforce has moved further from an industrial-manufacturing model and toward service and knowledge-based roles (Duff, 2013; Hogue, 2016). The overarching premise has been that as more communal leadership approaches such as authentic, servant, and transformational leadership have become the norm, women have had increased opportunities to enter leadership positions because the newer leadership expectations are more in line with the anticipated or perceived societal expectations of women. From this perspective, servant leadership has already been part of a more significant shift in increasing the potential for women in leadership because the perception exists that women are more inclined to use and be accepted by a communal approach to leadership.
The very term servant leader can also include gender implications, making it a sympathetic approach for assisting women in leadership positions. Drawing on the notion of agentic behaviors as masculine and communal as feminine, arguments have been made to align servant as feminine and leader as masculine (Politis & Politis, 2018). For example, Barbuto and Gifford (2010), as well as Politis and Politis (2018), divided the Servant Leadership Questionnaire (SQL) into communal behaviors: altruistic calling, emotional healing, and organizational stewardship and agentic behaviors: wisdom and persuasive mapping (pp. 10-11). Sims and Morris (2018) also distinguished between agentic and communal behaviors, focusing on how women business founders enacted compassionate love and authenticity. Researchers have used these agentic and communal behaviors to examine whether women would have a greater perceived fit (Hogue, 2016) inclination (Duff, 2011) authenticity (Sims & Morris, 2018) and overall be more positively suited (Politis & Politis, 2018) toward servant leadership. The results have been mixed. Hogue (2016) found women were expected to demonstrate more servant leadership behaviors than men when leadership was defined in communal terms. Although both Barbuto & Gifford (2010) and Politis and Politis (2018) distinguished the same agentic and communal behaviors, they came up with differing conclusions. Barbuto & Gifford (2010) found no significant difference in followers’ satisfaction with how men and women employed either agentic or communal behaviors. They concluded that “the altruistic nature of servant leadership that sets it apart from other leadership models allows leaders to step out of gender role norms and provide the most appropriate leadership for followers” (p. 16).
In contrast and a little surprisingly, Politis and Politis (2018) concluded “servant leadership might not be a gender-neutral ethical construct when organizations operate in a turbulent financial environment” and “the mangers’ and supervisors’ gender should be considered in the decision-making process of risky investments” (p. 181). Furthermore, Sims and Morris (2018) still considered servant leadership research as having minimally addressed women directly or gender differences in meaningful ways (p. 406). Since true service ought to be genderless and true leadership gender blind (Politis & Politis, 2018, p. 173), an idealized servant leadership approach would resonate well with realizing solutions for workplace equality.Finally, Barbuto & Gifford (2010) raised a significant point regarding servant leadership’s altruistic nature. Greenleaf (2002), in defining who is the servant leader, stressed the value of being a servant first, and then making a conscious choice to lead. His explanation of the difference is critical in how a servant leadership approach has the potential to counteract this fear-driven risk management mentality towards women in the workplace.
The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant -first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is this: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived? (loc. 344)
As has been shown, organizations’ overarching response to the #MeToo movement has been to lead from a risk-management, fear-driven mentality. In contrast, servant leaders may be more prone to genuine virtues such as humility, gratitude, forgiveness, and altruism (Dierendonck & Patterson, 2015), which, according to Campbell (2015), are “an indispensable part of any meaningful long-term ethical leadership process” (p. 116). Furthermore, a model of servant leadership whereby compassionate love serves as the cornerstone has the potential to diffuse the knee-jerk reaction to respond in fear, which, according to Dierendonck and Patterson (2015) “produce organizational cultures where followers will feel powerless” (p. 123).
Interestingly, other hashtags preceded #MeToo (#WhyIStayed, #NotAllMen, #YesAllWomen, #BeenRapedNeverReported, #SayHerName). These served primarily to promote community and healing for sexual harassment victims. Even the original incarnation of #MeToo stressed healing and community promoting “empowerment through empathy” (Burke, 2013). In contrast, Lang (2019) demonstrated how the second incarnation felt like mourning. The symbols, text, images, and emojis used prevented people from generalizing women’s disclosures and elicited a visceral response across social media (p. 8). For example, Wright (1992) articulated that stories, in contrast to propositions and statements, were more capable of embodying and challenging worldviews. “Stories thus provide a vital framework for experiencing the world” (p. 38). Engaging in solutions related to the #MeToo movement will inevitably be emotional, complex, and personal. For these reasons, virtues found in servant leadership, like humility and disciplines such as listening, will be of profound importance. Owens and Hekman (as cited in Dierendonck & Patterson, 2015, p. 124) defined the core of leader humility as “…leaders catalyzing and reinforcing mutual leader-follower development by eagerly and publicly … engaging in the messy process of learning and growing [emphasis added]” (p. 124). Recognizing one’s abilities while also refraining from elevating oneself (or devaluing others) and listening with the intent to understand (Sendjaya, 2015, p. 47) could be two of servant leadership’s most influential and important tools for discerning a response to the #MeToo movement.
References
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