Liderar na Contemporaneidade na Perspectiva de Mulheres Brasileiras

Abstract

The world's transformations indicate the need for organizational leaders who are increasingly committed to the environment, human rights, diversity, social issues and technology. The responsibilities of this leadership have a local and global impact in a context of technological advancement, increasingly digitally connected corporate environments and people of different generations and expectations. In this context, female leadership also faces the challenges and barriers already known in the search for equity, such as salary differences, sexual division of labor, lack of transparency and trust in corporate diversity and inclusion policies, double and triple shifts, prejudice and difficulties in reconciling balance with personal life, especially motherhood. In this set of circumstances, the research's guiding question can be summarized as follows: How have women overcome (or not) the challenges and barriers to female leadership in contemporary organizations? Thus, the aim of this research was to analyze the challenges and barriers of female leadership in contemporary organizations in Brazil. The theoretical framework used was studies on contemporary leadership, aspects of female leadership and the challenges and barriers for women in the labor market. The research followed the interpretivist paradigm, with a qualitative, descriptive approach and the narrative research method. Some of the main results found were: facing sexism, double or triple working hours, female competition, the difficulty in gaining the trust of stakeholders, undervaluing one's own work, reconciling motherhood and career, prejudice, questioning skills, lack of training for first leadership, moral and sexual harassment, as well as issues linked to appearance (lookism). The main contributions of this study are the implications of the relationship between contemporary elements and the overcoming (or not) of challenges and barriers to female leadership, based on the trajectory of these women in the leadership process and the need for organizations to prepare new leaders, since it was evident that there was a lack of structured training for the transition to leadership positions. As a practical contribution, a Technical-Technological Product was drawn up for a formal program to train new leaders in contemporary times, which can be adapted to the different sectors of activity and size of each organization. The transformation of female leadership requires structural and cultural changes within organizations, and this study reinforces the need for concrete actions to reduce barriers, expand opportunities and strengthen a more inclusive and equitable environment for women.