Challenges and motivations of being an effective female leader in organization.

Abstract

The objective of this thematic paper is to learn about challenges that female leaders in organization have faced and learn what motivational factors they used to overcome those challenges. The Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, women’s leadership development framework and effective leadership definition will be used as the guidance throughout this research. All information is gained from in-depth interviews with eight women leaders who work in various type of organization. The result of this research demonstrates that Challenges and motivations in each female leader are different. However, they face some similar challenging factors which are organizational context, career goal and age limitation, and skills and experiences. For motivations that female leaders use to overcome the challenges depend on their career goals. Furthermore organizational context can be a motivational factor to drive female employee to succeed in their careers. Recommendations for female employee who passion to be a leader and also organizations that interest to enhance female leadership capabilities have been provide in the conclusion part.