Women as leaders: the glass ceiling effect on women’s leadership success in public bureaucracies

Abstract

Purpose

Much research has been conducted regarding leadership success challenges. However, few are practically oriented on whether the success of women's leadership aligns to organisational, personal and societal contexts as glass cliffs. Thus, this study aims to examine these factors and introduce how they inhibit women from leadership success.

Design/methodology/approach

This research examined the glass ceiling effects Ethiopian women leaders face. This research focused on adjusted clusters and a survey of 446 female employees from zones, woreda and kebeles. The data was processed through SPSS 25.0 to regress the values.

Findings

Breaking the glass ceiling, the glass cliffs effects on women’s income levels, the lack of an arena for self-improvement, the nature of organisation policies and challenges in teamwork were found to contribute to women’s under-representation in top leadership positions.

Research limitations/implications

The results focused only on the 94 public organisations in Ethiopia that were selected by adjusted cluster sampling.

Practical implications

Realizations of substantial change and refocusing on bringing a significant number of women to the boardrooms in the public bureaucracy, besides glass cliffs.

Social implications

Enhancing the importance of accepting women leaders.

Originality/value

To add value to the stock of literature in gender equality, this research brings a strategic focus on factors that inhibit women from top leadership positions.

Citation

Zhang, C. and Basha, D. (2023), "Women as leaders: the glass ceiling effect on women’s leadership success in public bureaucracies", Gender in Management, Vol. 38 No. 4, pp. 489-503. https://doi.org/10.1108/GM-09-2021-0283