<<<Go to Part I of International Education Men vs. Women
This is Part II of the article and survey results on perceived effectiveness, strengths, and transformational leadership differences between men and women in senior international officer (SIO) or equivalent international education positions.
SIO Representation
Half of the SIO Men represented by the survey were from doctoral universities, while the majority of SIO Women were from both doctoral universities (37.4%) and liberal arts colleges (23.2%) combined. More details are included in the chart below.
| |
Men |
Women |
| International Education Organization |
11.8% |
7.1% |
| Agricultural, Technical, or Specialized College |
0.8% |
— |
| Community or Junior College |
0.8% |
4% |
| Liberal Arts College |
9.4% |
23.2% |
| Third-Party Provider |
6.3% |
8.1% |
| University – Bachelor’s level |
6.3% |
6.1% |
| University – Master’s level |
14.2% |
14.1% |
| University – Doctoral level |
50.4% |
37.4% |
Final Question (optional): How has this leader made a difference at your company or institution?
There were 46 responses for SIO Men and 42 responses for SIO Women. For the purposes of this article, I grouped them by perceived effectiveness and drew out comments and descriptors. Now, let’s take a look, starting from the bottom and working up.
Not Effective at all
No SIO women were labeled as not being effective, and there were only two comments about the nine SIO men that fell into this category.
“Brought a budget consciousness that hadn’t been in place before, which senior staff (the majority of whom are male) appreciate at this time. However, he does not have a study abroad background of the caliber that our institution needed.”
“If anything he has had a negative impact due to his inability to manage people, money or himself.”
Somewhat Effective
| Men |
Women |
|
Ambitious
Builds Reputation
Competent
Creates a good image
Decisions all made by him
Business-minded
Consolidated (two offices under one roof)
Developed (programming)
Entrepreneurial
Focuses Up, too much
Forward thinking
Hinders us & Plays favorites
Improved (the program)
Knowledgeable
Political (seeks the upper echelons of business and government, rewards mediocrity, stifles creativity and motivation)
Visionary |
Decisions made w/o consultation
Disregard for IE as a field, since her field is different (tenured faculty appointment)
Gained respect and trust
Lack of Experience in IE
Lack of Understanding of IE
Less than desired commitment to field of IE & to students (tenured, appointed faculty)
No background in IE (appointed faculty)
Raised profile of IE
Rapid Expansion
Selfish (this person’s professional development and opportunities take priority)
Smart
Solid Management Skills
Supportive
Too early to tell |
Effective
| Men |
Women |
|
Brings the needs of the office to the attention of higher administration
Brought media attention/publicity to the university and department
Created a centralized office
Created an office where there was none.
Created programs that would otherwise not exist on campus
Developed and maintained several overseas partnerships
Developing new programs for internationalizing across our campuses
Encouraging to those of us who are here wanting to make a difference
Formed a great team of people around himself
Offers the “backbone” to any of our decisions
Shared a vision for international education
Single-handedly grown the IE efforts
Started the Centers
Supports and enables the international agenda of the president
Tries hard to keep the international agenda out there
Worked with other university areas to develop policy |
Brave enough to deal with difficult personalities
Brings in her positive personality
Brought in grant funding to support international initiatives
Brought international issues to the forefront of the university’s agenda, with support from senior administration
Brought together units that never communicated
Created a strategic plan and encouraged others to do the same
Created various ways for the entire academic community to become involved
Demanded that the university ask deeper questions
Embraces understanding of international education as encompassing full array of teaching, research and outreach functions
Enhanced international opportunities
Expanded the IE Program in a slow motion
Fosters connections across international education subfields
Increased awareness of off-campus study options
Increased our international connections
Increased institution’s international profile
Fosters the team approach among the staff
Garners greater support for the office among the faculty
Implemented measures to significantly increase off-campus enrollments
Make us a strong resource on campus
Led the campus in developing a clear, forward-looking philosophy
Led reorganization of international offices into a single center
Organized and shaped the office of international programs
Organized the intensive English program
Outreach with public schools
Persistence, networking and creativity pays off
Provided extended services
Provides the vision, the new ideas
Stresses every day that “OUR” students are indeed BOTH domestic and international
Supported faculty and students in studying and teaching abroad
Swimming upstream as there is little institutional support
Worked to carry out directives issued from a changing leadership
Working with colleges and departments on internationalizing the campus |
Very Effective
| Men |
Women |
|
All the right pieces—worked abroad extensively and foreign language
Broad and deep knowledge
Brought a new dimension of strategic thinking and global commitment
Consistent and imaginative leadership
Constantly proposing new ideas and approaches
Created an extremely positive work environment (non-competitive, empathetic, and forward-looking)
Created an effective, financially solvent, better focused entity
Creative and forward-thinking
Demands high quality academics
Focused and keeps the focus on quality
Full of useful ideas
Hands off management style
Hard-working
Honest
Internationalizes the campus
Positive Leadership
Re-energized our international programs initiative from the ground up
Role Model
Shapes the culture of the organization
Significantly transformed the landscape for international education
Single-handedly (created study abroad program)
Smart
Strives to diversify programs and funding sources
Strong Vision & Leadership
Supportive (verbally and financially)
Team Concept
Voice for comprehensive internationalization |
Brought about major changes that greatly increased the overall quality of the program
Champion for professional development of staff
Contributes to the field
Created faculty consulting committees
Creative
Creates Community
Developed a comprehensive, centralized international center
Encourages others to seek professional development
Elevated the profile of international education
Empathetic
Engaged leaders
Integrated study abroad with curriculum and teaching
Fostered a global environment of caring
Hard-working
Keeps it growing
Grew the program
Open to Feedback
Provided emergency management guidance as well as policies and practices to create and improve our programs
Makes the company successful
Mentored many staff and students
Moved forward the institution’s agenda
Positioned IE as being on the front lines of innovation, excellence, and offering many best practices to others to model
Provides Vision
Raised Visibility
Seeks Input
Significantly improved organization
Supports her staff
Supports and communicates the college mission and needs of senior management
Supports faculty
Thoroughly organized a very disorganized office and program
Took a bright idea from the minds of the founders and developed it into reality
Transformed a small international programs office into a professional, full-functioning part of a campus-wide initiative that prepares students (and faculty) for global citizenship
Visionary |
Summary
Obviously, both men and women can embody all of the qualities above, regardless of their sex, and so it’s difficult to identify patterns. What I found interesting are the different perceptions of effectiveness, as they relate to descriptors, and the choice of words for the different sexes. For example, “decisions are made by him” (for a man) vs. “decisions made w/o consultation” (for a woman). It’s acceptable for a male to be described as someone who “demands high quality academics” and for a female as having “integrated study abroad with curriculum and teaching.”
More than anything, this data makes me wonder how powerful gender really is in defining people’s expectations and perceptions? One very effective man “brought a new dimension of strategic thinking and global commitment” while a woman “brought about major changes that greatly increased the overall quality of the program.” A very effective man showed “positive leadership” while an equally effective woman “engaged leaders.” Words like grow, foster, encourage, and support were used more often to describe women. One very effective male SIO was described as a “role model” while an equally effective female SIO was a described as a “mentor” (different connotation).
These results do not suggest that one sex is better than the other, as we all know there are good leaders and bad leaders among both. What they do tell us is both men and women are necessary and valuable to leadership, especially in higher education. Perhaps the SIO women in this survey have higher effectiveness ratings and more descriptors because the road to their position was narrower and longer than it was for the SIO men. Perhaps more research should be conducted to determine why women are overrepresented within certain International Education institutional categories but underrepresented in others.
Last week, I forgot to mention the 30% Solution, a brilliant strategy which gained traction at the UN
Beijing
Conference in 1995. The
30% Solution is the critical
tipping
point
where enough
women
at
power tables
can
be
heard and
heeded,
positively affecting
policy
decisions,
changing
the
terms
of
the
agenda,
and
impacting
the
style
of
achieving
goals. According to Linda Tarr-Whelan, business and government does better when there is thirty percent women in leadership, and she has plenty of examples to back this up. I’m a believer…are you?
Submitted by Wendy Williamson, Director of Study Abroad, Eastern Illinois University
I have greatly enjoyed your survey findings, thank you for undertaking this project and sharing the results.
Comment by pamelaruiz8@hotmail.com — May 6, 2010 @ 01:12