Experiences of women in middle leadership – barriers and enablers

ABSTRACT

This article reports on research regarding the leadership experience of women middle leaders in secondary schools. Previous research has focused on women in senior leadership in schools. Internationally, the teaching profession tends to be dominated by women, and yet in most countries, women do not occupy a commensurate proportion of senior leadership roles. Therefore, given middle leadership is a steppingstone to senior leadership, we need to further identify and understand the barriers and enablers for women navigating this layer of leadership. This qualitative study answers the following questions: Are there barriers for women to access middle leadership? If so, what? What enables women to access middle leadership? The data for this study was collected through 65 interviews with leaders undertaken in 33 non-government Australian secondary schools. A thematic analysis of the transcripts of interviews, revealed several barriers and enablers for women accessing middle leadership. The identified barriers included family and caring responsibilities, informal networking that excluded women and assumptions made by others. Enablers included structural and strategic actions by senior leaders to promote women, mentoring and relevant leadership programmes.

KEYWORDS:

• Women in middle leadership
• middle leadership
• barriers to leadership
• enablers to leadership
• career pathways for women

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pauline Thompson

Dr Pauline Thompson is a senior lecturer in educational leadership at the Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne. Pauline has worked in schools as a teacher, assistant principal and as an educational advisor. Her research interests include middle leadership, women in leadership and teacher professional learning.

Helen Stokes

Helen Stokes is a professor of education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne. She leads the Melbourne Teacher Education Group. She works on projects with a focus on equity and social justice. Over the last 8 years, she has conducted research into Trauma-informed education and leadership in low-SES schools in Victoria.