Dynamics and dilemmas of women leading women

• 成果类型: Article; Proceedings Paper
• 署名作者: Bartunek, JM; Walsh, K; Lacey, CA
• 署名单位: Boston College; Cornell University
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.11.6.589.12531
• 发表日期: 2000
• 页码: 589-610
• 关键词: empowerment; WORK GROUPS; leadership; women's leadership; women's groups

摘要

While empowerment is an issue of our time, it has been particularly important in the feminist movement. This paper reports a longitudinal study of leadership successions in six-year evolution of a group designed to empower women. It particularly focuses on the polar tension between initiation and support on the part of the group leader. Over time this tension becomes a difficult challenge. In the end we learn that the very objective of an empowerment group tends to call forth ambivalence about leadership. Empowerment itself seems to require a simultaneous enactment of both sides of the polarity. When leaders attempt to reduce the tensions around the polarity, they may experience the unintended consequence of reducing the capacity of the group to act. This paper not only furthers our understanding of the dynamics of empowerment in feminist efforts but it calls our attention to the paradoxical issues of leadership and empowerment in all groups.