ABSTRACT
A paradox arises for those studying the persistence of the under-representation of women in senior areas of management and leadership. On the one hand it seems advantageous to present the many qualities and talents women can bring to the workforce as highly desirable. However, this promotion of women’s qualities has led to a process of quarantining women as ‘special’ or ‘different’ that in turn may have led to a hierarchical layering of these very talents. The recent academic focus on wisdom as a desirable characteristic for a leader and decision-maker (Mumford 2011, Rooney, McKenna and Liesch 2010) raises a number of salient questions regarding women’s under-representation. Does the underrepresentation of women in senior management mean that women lack wisdom or do women bring a different form of wisdom, which remains undervalued and underutilized? In this chapter, we examine these questions.
