Leadership styles deployed by women project managers at Eskom Enterprise Division.
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Date
2011
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Abstract
Leadership styles have been shown to have an impact on the success or failure of projects in
organizations. Effective leadership is therefore required by organizations to ensure the
successful delivery of projects. The study aimed at investigating the leadership styles utilized
by women project managers in the Eskom Enterprise Division and possible barriers that
prevent them from reaching top positions. The study utilized leadership theories as the
theoretical framework and used the qualitative research approach. In-depth, semi-structured
interviews were conducted with 15 female project managers in Eskom Enterprise Division and
thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Certain leadership styles and characteristics
were identified as being critical for successful project managers. The characteristics that these
women project managers exhibit described qualities of transformational, democratic and
people oriented leadership styles. The women project managers seem to be successful and
there were a number of factors that contributed to their success. The female project managers
did not believe that gender should determine their leadership style, but they believed that
working as a project manager required certain leadership skills and competencies to meet the
project’s objectives and the leadership style was not influenced by gender. Some of the
barriers identified were: gender stereotyping, lack of qualifications, fear of not succeeding,
family responsibilities and lack of networking skills and time. Most of the women believe that
breaking some of the barriers requires that they should work twice as hard as their male
counterparts, and that they should prove wrong the stereotype that men are better project
managers. Furthermore, the findings show that Eskom has few women occupying top
management positions. Eskom is still a male dominated environment even though initiatives
for gender transformation exist.
Description
Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2011.
Keywords
Eskom (Firm), Leadership., Women executives--South Africa., Theses--Leadership and management.