Running head: REFLECTION PAPER TWO

Mark E. Campbell II
Reflection Paper Two
Western Michigan University

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2
Reflection Paper Two

For this reflection paper, I will focus my thoughts and responses to the following
readings: Leadership in a World of Divided Feminism, Factors that Enable Women of South
Asian and African Descent To Succeed in Leadership Positions in Higher Education, and An
Overview of the Social Change Model of Leadership Development. From these titles alone there
is a theme of leadership, women, and higher education I will expound upon my thoughts of the
following topics and how I can be an advocate from women in leadership in higher education.
To continue, I will confront my own privilege and personal thoughts about leadership
being male centered. I will discuss how I previously viewed leadership positions to inherently be
a male profession regardless of profession. Furthermore, I will discuss the experience of having
my first female supervisor and how that experience re-shaped my view on females in leadership
positions. I learned more about the difference of women leaders.
There will be a brief section about the difficulties women leaders must face to be
validated as leaders instead of their positional power. For example, students learning to accept a
female President of a University as a leader with or without the title and positional power of
President of the University. Seeing the University President as a leader without her title is
essential in equalizing having women in leadership. Lastly, I will provide my thoughts on the
many facets of feminism and how they relate to the various leadership methods within our
society. The purpose being that the myriad views of leadership can help the diverse definitions
of feminism achieve their goals of defeating the patriarchy and helping women succeed in our
society. Thus, the more leaders that subscribe to feminism the higher the chances will be of
achieving the ultimate goal of defeating the patriarchy and implementing more women into
leadership positions.

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Leadership
I shall start off this section with the clich question: What is leadership? That simple
questions has an abundance of meanings to a variety of people. For example, for some reason
when I think of leadership and leaders I envision a man being a leader. This is regardless of the
man being the majority in his profession or in the minority in his profession. For instance, if I see
a male nurse at the hospital I usually assume that he is the shift leader nurse or that he is the
doctor. When I think of famous scientists I instantly think of Albert Einstein, George
Washington Carver, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Robert Oppenheimer. My mind does not
instinctively go to great women scientists such as Rachel Carson, Mae Jemison, and Madame CJ
Walker. This revelation is a sad conclusion that I must acknowledge that I have been socialized
to think that leadership should be male centered. This male centeredness viewpoint of leadership
started when I was a child, and I say that the leaders on television where mostly males such as
superheroes, political figures, and even some childrens show were solely focused on the male
child instead of the whole family.
In fact, it was not until my senior year of undergraduate that I had the experience of
having my first female supervisor. This was a new experience for me, even though I know that
my that there should not be a difference between the sex of my supervisors and how they lead an
organization. During that time, I could not think about the possibility of differences between my
new supervisor due to her gender, such as when
Social Change Model
The Social Change Model is a leadership model based on the premise that every college
student has the ability to be a leader; and that leadership is not a quality that only the great
leaders possess leadership can be learned by everyone (Cilente 2006). Additionally, all leaders

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have the ability to enact social change on their campus. Cilente (2006) defines social change as,
the hope of helping to make a difference-is the goal of the leadership process (p.51).
Furthermore, this change must not be enacted on purely individualistic I strongly believe that
leadership is a skill that can be harnessed by a variety people and that there is not a monopoly on
leadership that can only be obtained from great leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Hillary
Clinton, Winston Churchill, and many other great leaders throughout the ages. The Social
Change Model provides an atmosphere in which all races, genders, sexual orientations, mental
capabilities, religious beliefs, and physical capabilities are equal to each other. This equality is
essential in building a myriad and vast collision of leaders that will practice feminism and
increase the huge disparities between men and women throughout our society.
This vision is equality as it relates to feminism is a new thought for me because I
innocently thought that my female peers have the same leadership capabilities as I do being a
male. However, I began to realize that even though there were equal opportunities for my female
peers to be involved in leadership, they could have been looked over for leadership roles due to
their gender and sex identities. This is difficult to acknowledge that I have been granted male
privilege in this situation. For instance, it is more social acceptable to have a male leader of an
organization than it is to have a female leader of an organization. This analysis is due to the
socialized belief that men are far better leaders than women. The Social Change Model seems to
rectify this belief that men can be better leaders because in the Social Change Model anyone has
the ability to be a leader. For that reason, the Social Change Model is slowly recoding the way
that our society views leadership in a masculine scope and because of this reason I will support
the Social Change Model because it empowers everyone to become a leader regardless of their
gender and sex identities. This equality of leadership is essential and normalizing women in

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leadership positions instead of the awkwardness of women being in leadership positions that I
have talked about in the introduction. Lastly, a Social Change Model of leadership is effective in
validating women as leaders because they truly are leaders instead of obligatory characteristics
of leadership that accompany a position. For instance, a female student is a leader simply
because she is the President of a student organization, the positional power grants her leadership
power. On the contrary, in the Social Change Model the female student has learned the skills
necessary to be a leader with or without her position.
Women in Leadership
In this section, I will explore the characteristics of women in leadership in comparison to
my own thoughts about males in leadership. As stated by Kamassah (2010) student women
leaders needed the following characteristics in order to be successful leaders, inherent drive, the
need for change, relationships and support, passion for education, values, trust and honesty,
respect, motivating, and inspiring others (p.4-10). I find these characteristics for women of
South-Asian and African Descent to be successful leaders very similar to characteristics of any
leader to be successful. Reading this article truly broke the stereotypes and preconceived notions
that I once held, that women leaders are somehow foreign to male leaders in their characteristics
in being successful leaders. This article highlighted to me that there really are not huge
differences to between highly successful male and female leaders.
In Kezar & Lester (2008) I gained insight about the complications women leaders must
face when they start to have their careers. However, I will first add that these complications are
not new but this is the first time I have come to fully realization that women in leadership have
multiple roles that they must fulfill. These roles are mother, daughter, wife, and employee. As a
boy, I saw my mother due all these roles because she was my mom and I did not think that her

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situation was common among women. To continue, I thought women just adjusted to being the
full-time mom, full-time employee, and being a wife. This assumption was based on my own
perception since women were used to having multiple roles they adjusted to going in and out of
these roles on a daily basis. This article shattered by nave thoughts about women balancing all
the roles that are required of them. Women in leadership must be able to sacrifice family in order
to advance their careers to enter into the higher elite positions in their organizations (Kezar &
Lezar 2008).
Conclusion
At this time, I am pleased that this class has been challenging my view on feminism. As I
have previously stated in my earlier reflection, conversations about feminism and feminists are a
novel area for me. These reflection papers provide me with an outlet discuss these experiences
that have come to fruition solely due to this class and the accompanying readings that help brings
these thoughts to fruition.
Second, I will talk about my advocacy of taking an active role in bringing women into
more leadership positions at my graduate assistant institution, Kalamazoo College. This active
role will be standing up and making sure that we examine the women leaders at our institution.
Personally, I will try to bring more student and women of color leaders into your leadership roles
on campus. In reality, this will take time because I only have less than nine months left in my
graduate assistantship; yet I am fully able to combat the challenge of having more women
student leaders in positions. Additionally, this will men examining my own privilege of deciding
to let a women become a leader and this is a new feeling for me but I am willing to grow in
becoming an even more vocal advocate for women student leaders on my colleges campus.

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Lastly, thus far I have learned that women in leadership is still a polemical topic in our
society today. After examining my own male privilege and the socialization of leadership I have
learned that what I was taught t to believe that leadership is male is an invalid belief.
Additionally, our society needs more women in leadership positions in all organizations and in
higher educational institutions across this country. When there are more women leaders at
institutions and organizations it only enhances the voices of the leadership chorus. Only when
there are a sufficient number of women leaders will there be a chance to defeat the patriarchy.

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References

Cilente, K. (2009). Chapter 2: An overview of the social change model of leadership

development, pp. 43-78. In Leadership for a Better World: Understanding the Social
Change Model of Leadership Development. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Kamassah, S. (2010). Factors that enable women of South Asian and African descent to
succeed in leadership positions in higher education. College Quarterly, 13(3).
Kezar, A. & Lester, J. (2008). Leadership in a world of divided feminism. Women in Higher
Education, 1, pp. 49-73.