Near The Top: Glass Cliffs and Labrynths in Local Government Career Paths

Women have long been thought to bring unique leadership skills to organizations (Eagly and Johnson 1990), particularly in the public sector (Duerst-Lahti and Kelly 1995). Whether through inclusive leadership (Burke and Collins... [ view full abstract ]

Women have long been thought to bring unique leadership skills to organizations (Eagly and Johnson 1990), particularly in the public sector (Duerst-Lahti and Kelly 1995). Whether through inclusive leadership (Burke and Collins 2001), high-capacity emotional labor (Guy and Newman 2004) or a steel-strong community focus (Fox and Schumann 1999), women offer leadership thought to spark intellectual energy and organizational effectiveness.

By all accounts, local government organizations in the United States – those that run cities and counties -- are in dire need of spark. Whether in bustling metropolitan cities or quiet rural counties, women occupy fewer than 15% of top management positions, a statistic unchanged since the 1980s (ICMA Report on the Status of Women in Local Government 2016). This percentage triggers several questions: why are women better represented near, but not at, the top of local government organizations? What factors lead women to decline pursuing top positions? Or pursue those top positions unsuccessfully?

This paper is part of a larger project that seeks to diagnose the paucity of women in top local government management positions. The project has two goals: (1) to explain gender differences in local government executive career paths and (2) to craft recommendations for increasing the proportion of women in local government executive positions. Three conceptual frameworks guide the research: representative bureaucracy (Mosher 1982); glass cliff theory, which contends that women are disproportionately represented in risky organizational leadership positions (Ryan and Haslam 2005); and career labyrinths, a concept about the non-linear career paths that characterize women in leadership positions (Eagly and Carli 2007).

The U.S. state of North Carolina offers an ideal laboratory for studying local government because of the high degree of professionalism among its local government managers. This paper is based on qualitative data collected through interviews and focus groups of women and men working as NC local government managers and assistant managers. The interview questions foucs on the nature and drivers of career aspirations of top and secondary local government executives, along with their career experiences.
 
References
Burke, Sarah and Karen M. Collins. 2001. "Gender Differences in Leadership Styles and Management Skills." Women in Management Review 16 (5): 244-257.

Duerst-Lahti, Georgia and Rita Mae Kelly. 1995. Gender Power, Leadership, and Governance University of Michigan Press.

Eagly, Alice H. and Blair T. Johnson. 1990. "Gender and Leadership Style: A Meta-Analysis." Psychological Bulletin 108 (2): 233.

Eagly, Alice Hendrickson and Linda Lorene Carli. 2007. Through the Labyrinth: The Truth about how Women Become Leaders Harvard Business Press.

Fox, Richard L. and Robert A. Schuhmann. 1999. "Gender and Local Government: A Comparison of Women and Men City Managers." Public Administration Review: 231-242.

Guy, Mary Ellen and Meredith A. Newman. 2004. "Women's Jobs, Men's Jobs: Sex Segregation and Emotional Labor." Public Administration Review 64 (3): 289-298.

Mosher, Frederick Camp. 1968. Democracy and the Public Service. Vol. 53 New York.

Ryan, Michelle K. and S. Alexander Haslam. 2005. "The Glass Cliff: Evidence that Women are Over‐represented in Precarious Leadership Positions." British Journal of Management 16 (2): 81-90.