Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders
By Alice Eagly
and Linda Carli
Now, more than ever, women have gained access to high-level leadership positions. The “glass ceiling,” that perplexing barrier that once excluded women from the top, has finally shattered. But women in powerful roles are still rare, and in Through the Labyrinth, Alice Eagly and Linda Carli explain why. They also describe what needs to be done to give women better access to authority in the workplace. The book explores such questions as: Are men simply better, more natural leaders? Are women’s careers compromised by their responsibilities at home? Does discrimination against women still exist in the workplace? Do organizational traditions and practices create obstacles to women’s leadership? And do women have leadership styles that work for or against them? At the heart of the analysis is the metaphor they propose to replace the outdated idea of the glass ceiling: the labyrinth. This new concept better captures the varied challenges that women face as they navigate indirect, complex, and often discontinuous paths toward leadership. Eagly and Carli ground their conclusions in scientific research from psychology, economics, sociology, and management. Steadfastly resisting the temptation to provide simplistic boilerplate assessments and advice, Through the Labyrinth is also packed with engaging case studies and personal anecdotes drawn from media accounts and memoirs to illustrate the principles emerging from that research.
Sample Chapter
Chapter 9: Do Organizations Compromise Women's Leadership
Most Leaders are Men. Predictably, people think about leadership mainly in masculine terms. These mental associations about leadership not only shape stereotypes about leaders but also influence organizational norms and practices. As managers follow precedents set by their colleagues, informal norms develop, consensus emerges about what is appropriate, and guidelines become hardened into bureaucratic rules. Over time, organizational leadership inevitably has come to embody the preferences, lifestyles, and responsibilities of the men who usually have held these leadership roles.1 In this chapter, we demonstrate that many of these organizational traditions disadvantage women.
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Alice Eagly is Professor
and Department
Chair of Psychology
at Northwestern
University. Eagly has
published widely on
the psychology of attitudes,
especially attitude
change, attitude
structure, and attitudinal
selectivity in information processing.
She is equally devoted to the study of
gender, with a focus on the social behavior
of women and men and a special emphasis
on the study of leadership and on
evolutionary issues. She has authored or
edited several books and is also the author
of over 130 journal articles and chapters in
edited volumes. Eagly has received numerous
distinguished awards for her work
and has held several leadership positions
in psychology including, among others,
President of the Midwestern Psychological
Association, and President of the Society of
Personality and Social Psychology. Eagly
received her M.A. in Psychology in 1963
and Ph.D. in Social Psychology in 1965,
both from the University of Michigan.
Linda Carli received
her Ph.D. in social
psychology from the
University of Massachusetts
at Amherst,
where she studied
gender differences in
interaction and influence.
She has published and presented
papers on the effects of gender on group
interaction, communication and influence;
leadership; and reactions to adversity and
victimization. She joined the faculty at
Wellesley in 1991 and teaches a variety of
courses, including organizational psychology,
the psychology of law, and research in
applied psychology. Active in professional
organizations in psychology and management,
she serves on the Executive Board of
the Association of Women in Psychology.
In addition to her teaching and research,
she has developed and conducted diversity
training workshops and negotiation and
conflict resolution workshops for women
leaders and has lectured on gender and
diversity for business, academic, and other
organizations.
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