21ST-CENTURY LEADERSHIP: THE ISSUE OF GENDER IN THE MALE-DOMINATED ARCHITECT INDUSTRY IN THE UK
Introduction
Architect Industry in the UK is playing a significant role in the development of the economy. The revenue generated by this industry is expected to increase at an annual rate of 2.5% (IBIS World, 2018). In the architect industry, gender equity is one of the most prevailing topics. The leadership management in architect industry is facing a gender issue because it is a sad fact that in this sector the number of women is dropping on a regular basis. According to the report of Royal Institute of British Architects, there are total 27,000 architectures are working in the UK, but the number of women architects is only 4000. Leadership has the responsibility to manage the challenges associated with the gender issue in the architect industry of the UK. The employment rate of women is increasing with the time that has increased the interest of women to work in male-dominated industries like architect industry of the UK. The architect industry of the UK is famous all over the world because of their increasingly futuristic, versatile and experimental technologies and techniques. There is a certain level of challenges facing by the leadership, management because of the gender gap in the architect industry. It is a fact that women have a smaller number in the architecture profession in the UK (Construct UK Ltd, 2018).
According to Flynn et al. (2013) Gender inequality is a great challenge for leadership management because it is directly linked to stereotypes and biases. Gender inequality is a well-known challenge for leadership, and there is a lot of discussions have made regarding gender inequality as a huge challenge for leadership. In the 21st century, power and women are progressing and developing together. In comparison to past time, women have rights of social development, and they also gained influence. Leadership is one of the important areas regarding which women are still facing some challenges. The theory used in this research essay is the Leader-Member Exchange to not only evaluates the challenges of leadership, but also to assess the response and reaction of followers. Gender inequality is a greater challenge for the leadership because the wrong decisions regarding the gender pay distribution could lead to the direct impact the relationship between the leaders and the followers (Flynn et al., 2013).
Identifying and Detailing Challenge
Leadership Challenge
Vartika (2017) has mentioned that the number of women in architect industry is increasing that eventually creating a need for the leaders to manage the gender issues in the workplace. There are different levels of the challenges are facing by the leaders in the architect industry of UK for example, in architect industry in the context of leadership roles the men typically dominate the architectural practices. The main reason is that central involvement of women in juggling careers, raising children and managing households gives women a capacity of prioritisation in the role of leadership, but it is not possessed in the men leaders (Vartika, 2017).
Morris (2018) has recommended that it should be obligatory for the leadership to open the door to diversity. The gender pay gap and inequality is creating an overall impact on productivity of architect industry because the lack of diversity could be costly in the form of the loss of high skilled leadership. Although according to the Benchmarking survey, the increase incurred from 16% to 19% in the proportion of women into the role of leadership positions within the architect industry in the UK (Morris, 2018).
According to World Economic Forum, the key skills that are needed for leadership positions within the architect industry included the emotional intelligence, coordinating capability with others, skills of creativity, critical thinking and complex problem-solving skills. Leadership performance should need to evaluate between both the gender by these skills and abilities rather than to evaluate the performance on gender factor (World Economic Forum, 2018).
For example, in most cases in Architect industry, when the CEO or senior manager is a woman, then the response of the men followers and employees create diverse challenges for that woman. Although a woman CEO has all the experience in her relative field in case, she is leading a team on a project that required certain specific skills and those always attract men followers and employees to think that if she will be able to achieve the goals or not. In the architecture industry, prejudice and biased comments are commonly used by the followers and employees. That specific project under her leadership requires sitting in the office for a long time that eventually impacts family relationships. Because women are entitled to a lot of responsibilities, a conflict has created that generates gender differences in leadership roles in Architect Industry between the man and women (Mark, 2014).
Leadership Theories to Mitigate the Challenge of the Gender Issue
Leadership-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory is considered as the best theory to manage gender issues facing at the leadership level. It is a common thing that the actions of leaders towards every member and employees are not similar. Graen’s leader-member exchange model focused on the consideration of gender issues and potential differences in the workplace. In Architect Industry, leaders form a different level and types of relationships with the followers and employees. Some followers and employees take benefit of favouritism of leaders, and they get more attention from the leader, but those employees who are not favoured by leaders fall into the category of out-group (Gipson et al., 2017). According to Bauer & Erdogan (2015) The most common issues in Architect Industry are gender discrimination in different contexts. This Leadership-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory would be helpful in addressing gender issues because the main focus of this theory is to develop the relationship between the employees and leaders.
Juneja (2018) has a point of view that the main theme of this theory is that the leaders have the responsibility to develop and create diverse exchange relationships with the employees and followers to ensure that every employee in the organisation has access to all the resources and opportunities on an equal basis. Leadership is a process in which different factors are included, for example the ability and capability to influence the people in the firm of the creation of motivation in them to achieve the set targets and goals. This theory would be important in the context of addressing the gender issues and giving equal opportunities to both the male and female (Juneja, 2018).
Transformational leadership theory is also very important for addressing gender issues in the Architect Industry of UK. The most important thing regarding this theory is that it helps in the development of the good relationship between male and female subordinates working on architectural project. . The gender issues in Architect Industry of UK could be addressed by this leadership theory because in this theory, the main focus of the leader is to identify the values and needs of women working in the UK architectural organisation (Penn State, 2013). With the use of the transformational theory, the key skills that are needed for leadership positions within the architect industry including the emotional intelligence, coordinating capability with others, skills of creativity, critical thinking and complex problem-solving skills can be induced in the women leaders in order to make them better equipped with their forthcoming leadership roles in the organization in the architect industry.
Partners (2004) described that the conscious and shared behaviour of the architectural leaders creates an opportunity for the women to develop in them the leadership skills. The leader under this leadership style distributes the power on an equal basis among the men and women architects. The gender issues in architect industry could be the architect transformational leadership based on selecting different behavioural components. These components include individualised consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspiration, and charisma. The charisma behaviour component is based on the ability of the leader with the help of which the emotions are aroused in followers, which eventually develop very strong identification of both the gender with the leader in architect industry (Partners, 2004).
According to Edwards and Gill (2012) this component of the transformational theory helps the architectural leader to give respect to the women architects, and it builds trust in the women that they have equal architectural career opportunities. Inspiration component of the theory helps in encouraging both the gender that they have the chance to achieve professional and personal goals by modelling appropriate behaviour. Intellectual stimulation is that component with the help of which the rationality and intelligence are promoted in the followers and architects that eventually considered as very helpful in making both the male and female architects as creative problem solvers (Edwards & Gill, 2012).
Individualise consideration is one of the most important components of this transformational leadership in architect industry because under this component the main focus of the leader is given both the man and women architects on an individual basis. Proper support is provided by the leader to every architect professional on an equal basis that develops self-confidence in the architects. In the context of making a comparison between women and men, the women architects are tending to be more transformational in contrast to men architects because the men are considered as more tended to be transactional. The women have more attraction towards the participation of information and power to enhance the status of architects. In this way, it is very important that women are also given equal opportunities of getting the leadership positions in that organisation of Architect industry in which transformational leadership style is used (Ely et al., 2011). This shows that proper guidance and training of women employees who are going to be taking managerial position in future in the coming can enhance their needed transformational leadership skills in the architect company.
General Suggestions
To achieve parity within eh Architect industry, it is recommended to hire the pipeline because it helps in developing equality and diversity. The organisations in this industry need to extend beyond the traditional network to ensure that there are diverse people are working and both the men and women are treated similarly.
Another important aspect that should be considered by the leadership is to encourage and equip the employees to make them able to check their implicit biases. It should be the responsibility of every person working in the organization of architect industry to recognise and respond to both the explicit and implicit gender biases regarding recruitment and promotions.
Huang et al. (2018) suggested that to develop the culture of respect, a peer review process should need to be launched by the leadership management. The promotion and awareness of gender equality are geared by the standards, certifications and programmatic training.
Limitations of Approaches
Although the transformational leadership style is a good option to mitigate the gender issues in architect industry important point to note is that this theory is considered as very difficult to be taught or trained because of the comprehensive nature of the components of this theory. Another important aspect to be considered regarding the transformational theory is that in case the leaders focus on only male employees then it creates discrimination, and it also leads to the power abusing (Lee, 2014).
According to Becker (2015) there are certain limitations also attached to the LMX theory, for example, the particulars regarding the way by which the creation of high-quality exchanges occursis not explained by this theory. Another limiting factor regarding this LMX theory is that it is based on justice and fairness, but there are some of the followers who required and want more special attention of leaders in the workplace.
Conclusion
It is concluded that the architect industry in the UK is facing different levels of gender issues, especially smaller percentage of women are concluded on leadership or senior level managerial positions within the organisations. The number of women in leadership positions is increasing that creates a certain level of issues and problems for the leadership management. Gender inequality is concluded as one of the key issues facing the leadership in the Architect Industry UK. Diversity in the workplaceis concluded as a very important way of addressing gender issues. It is concluded that the women in architect industry are facing the issue of discrimination and gender pay gap. The managers and leaders of a similar level of strength and competencies are taking a different level of pay and salaries that proved that the gender issues are common in the architect industry of the UK. Leadership-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory and transformational leadership theory are two important theories of leadership that are concluded as important for addressing gender issues. The leadership management should focus on the development of proper strategies for creating sound and fair systems in the organisation regarding recruitment, training, and pay. The provision of equal opportunities of promotion of both the men and women is a key responsibility of leaders.
References
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