Through the labyrinth: women in the public universities of Pakistan

Abstract

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to find out how women negotiate their path to leadership; the barriers and facilitators and how they navigated them to reach the top. An inductive, qualitative approach has been used to systematically analyze the in-depth open-ended responses of female leaders in public higher education institutions and note emergent themes. Women face various endogenous and exogenous challenges in their journey to the top. The major emergent themes turned out to be personal cognizance, individual development, breaking gender stereotypes, and embracing and translating gynandrous leadership by women leaders. Familial support and women-friendly organizational policies were regarded as the most significant enablers. The major barriers turned out to be a lack of institutional support and grit among women. The metaphor of the labyrinth turned out to be an apt metaphor for studying the journeys of women. This research is limited by survivor bias as it only studies women who successfully navigated the labyrinth to the top but not those who got lost in the labyrinth. This study examines the leadership journeys of women leaders in public higher education in Pakistan by extending the metaphor of a labyrinth in the public sector in academia. It also proposes a conceptual model of how women navigate the labyrinth.