Paper Example on Women's Leadership: Can They Reach The Top?

Introduction

Women have made significant progress in leadership, but still, they have not made it to the apex of the pyramid. They face many barriers and obstacles in their attempt to rise to the top. The study assesses women’s suitability to occupy the highest leadership positions in the corporate and political world. The study shall, therefore, interrogate the innate abilities of women to make logical decisions and think strategically. The objective results of this interrogation shall then be used to challenge the societal perceptions that women leadership is laden with emotions and lack of objectivity.

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Statement of Research Questions

Every research study is guided by a set of research questions. For this study exploring women’s leadership abilities, the following two questions will be guiding the study direction.

1. From the research findings, do women show a significant difference from their male counterparts in the challenges they face while in leadership positions?
2. Do family roles play a part as barriers rational and objective decision making in women’s leadership?

Description of Research Design

The research shall be conducted using a mixed-methods approach. It shall pick on the best of qualitative research and quantitative research to arrive at the best results and make the most formidable recommendations. The quantitative research design shall borrow from the elements of descriptive research, answering the ‘what’ question of the study. The qualitative study shall collate information from past studies on women’s leadership and saturate the information pool to make informed decisions.

Description of Materials and Instruments

The research shall employ different materials and instruments to collect data. Some of the tools include; search of research reports in databases like EBSCOHost, Google Scholar, Elsevier, among others. Quantitative data shall be collected through surveys and questionnaires. The search shall be tailored using the best search terms for the study. In contrast, the questionnaires shall be tailored to fit the scope of the information that the study wishes to collect. A sample questionnaire shall be provided in the Appendix.

Selection of Participants of Subjects

For the quantitative study, the researcher shall target at least forty women in leadership positions in different organizations and sectors and a similar number of men in similar positions of responsibility. The study shall also sample at least 10 past studies on the topic to make findings’ comparison.

Procedures

After the instructor approves of the approach and the questionnaire, it shall be disbursed to the participating leaders. They shall fill within a period and send back their filled questionnaires via email. The researcher shall be, at the same time, searching for relevant articles to use for the study. The selected research articles shall be submitted to the supervisor for assessment and approval.

Discussion of Data Processing

After gathering all the data, it cannot help when it is raw. Therefore, it must be processed and analyzed to develop trends and make conclusions from the trends formed by the data. By use of electronic tools, the data shall be analyzed to find the mean, standard deviation, median actions and reactions of women, and the modal behavior to make conclusive assessments. The results from the research articles shall be compared to draw out the differences and similarities relevant to the research questions.

Methodological Assumptions, Limitations, and Delimitations

One assumption is that the respondents shall give correct information and not alter their actual experiences to fit within the research. Another assumption is that the mixed methods approach is the most optimized one to handle this project. The main limitation of this study is the ability to put together a sizeable respondents’ pool that can justify the conclusions and recommendations made from the study.

Ethical Assurances

The most common challenge that faces researchers is ethics and morals emanating from a study. In this case, the confidentiality and privacy of the respondents must be assured. They must be assured that their identity shall remain anonymous, and the information they share shall not be shared with third parties.