Come hear the ladies of women who wine in education, a monthly live on air video hangout with a twitter backchannel (#3wedu), discuss their recommended strategies for creating a culture to embrace women leading after almost of year of broadcasting and discussing these challenges amongst themselves and with invited guests.
Every individual has a responsibility in an organization to enhance the understanding of the value of women leading, create structures to help women overcome gender barriers they may experience, and identify strategies to support women’s progress along their leadership path. Women bring heterogeneity that can benefit the institution. As the management literature has shown us for years, let's avoid groupthink and bring more diversity to our groups and organizations to improve performance and productivity. Each of our higher education institutions has an organization culture that can empower or limit women's ability to lead at various levels. These cultures consist of assumptions and values (see Schein's model of organizational culture) that are sometimes decades old. Many times organizational structures have been developed by men and their actions potentially inhibiting women leading in various ways. Through changing our behaviors, activities, communication, and environments, we can potentially alter the culture with these microlevel modifications. Implementing practices to facilitate the growth of women leaders while creating an embracing culture is pertinent for leadership development. Let's talk about it. This isn't a women's issue; this is everyone's issue.