The Lived Experiences of Female Educational Leaders in Higher Education in the UK: Academic Resilience and Gender

Background

The literature indicates that women often face informal rejection, devaluation, and marginalization in HEI (O’Connor, 2020). Senior management teams in HEI are usually male dominated and new members come from their professional networks (Kahle et al., 2018). Men claim that few women choose to be there or have the skills and qualifications to reach higher levels of leadership. However, women confess that they face multiple barriers on their journey to the top. Hannum et al. (2015) indicate that male leaders are still considered as ‘default leaders’ and female as ‘atypical leaders,’ since they are perceived to violate accepted norms of leadership, irrespective of the leadership behavior.

Moreover, female leaders face considerable difficulties in finding a female colleague as mentor as they progress in their careers, as senior leadership positions are still dominated by men. Women who are assertive are seen as too tough and neither likable nor feminine, while women who are compassionate are seen as too soft and not true leaders. Women must, therefore, abide by the socially constructed roles because, otherwise, this could be harmful to the perceived competence of any female leader (Mira et al., 2020). Female employees in HEI are usually assigned more ‘academic housework’, that is pastoral care, mentoring and coaching, when compared to their male colleagues. Moreover, they face multiple challenges related to identity and stereotypes which prevent them from reaching meaningful leadership roles (Breeze & Taylor, 2020). Not pursuing leadership roles early in their careers creates an experience gap that increases and becomes even more prominent as they progress to more senior roles.