There’s a new book out about former British Prime Minister Theresa May* She is described as a dutiful and devoted public servant. But the book’s main argument is that as a leader she was a disaster. “She lacked the strategy, political acumen, communication skills and negotiating abilities demanded of a prime minister, particularly one called upon to deliver Brexit.”**
The depiction of her tenure as an abject failure recalls the three women who, since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, have became symbols of dismal leadership on many of America’s college campuses. They are: 1) Elizabeth Magill, former president of the University of Pennsylvania who in effect was forced to resign her presidency last December; 2) Claudine Gay, former president of Harvard University who in effect was forced to resign her presidency last January; and 3) Nemat Shafik, president of Columbia University who, while still in office, has become emblematic of a leader in higher education unable to control her followers. Columbia is the epicenter of the student protests to which we currently bear witness.
Which raises the question: Is it sheer coincidence that the three leaders who are synonymous with choas on campus are all women? Maybe, maybe not. Whatever the answer, the following points are relevant.
First, women leaders more than men generally feel a need to be ingratiating. They want to be because they believe it’s in their interest to be, liked. Their experience is that confrontation works less well for them than accommodation. Shafik exemplified this phenomenon when a day after she became president, she told a campus publication that she preferred to lead from behind. “Most of the time,” she said, “you can allow your colleagues … to take things where they need to go.”
Second, women leaders who are confrontational are quicker than men to be labeled by others, by their followers, as aggressive. Hence, they are more disposed than men to negotiate – to try to find a middle ground – than to hang tough.
Third, students and faculty are much less familiar with women leaders than they are with men. The history of leadership on American campuses – is dominated by men. It is they who historically have been in positions of power and authority. When Claudine Gay become president of Harvard, she had exactly one female predecessor, Drew Gilpin Faust. Otherwise, in the long history of Harvard – the school was founded in 1636 – was not a single woman at the top.
Fourth, in part because higher education has changed only in the recent past – with many more women deans, provosts, and presidents now than even a decade ago – women at the top tend to be new in their posts. This certainly applies to Magill, Gay, and Shafik, each of whom was inexperienced at being president. Magill was quite new even to the Penn campus, having moved there from the University of Virginia, when she became president, just 18 months before she resigned. Gay had been president of Harvard for only six months when she resigned. And as of this writing Shafik has been president of Columbia for all of ten months.
Finally, there is the larger context, the larger context that is the United States of America in the third decade of the 21st century. Americans are still unfamiliar with women in top posts. We still have never had a woman president. We still have only ten percent of Fortune 500 companies whose chief executive officers are females. And out of 50 governors only 12 are women.
No wonder female presidents of colleges and universities might be more vulnerable to activist followers than their male counterparts. No wonder women find it hard to navigate between being sufficiently proactive and seen as excessively assertive, even aggressive. No wonder Magill and Gay were so quickly on the chopping block. No wonder Shafik has been so rapidly besieged.
Could this all be happenstance? A coincidence that these three presidents, these three women, were so personally, politically, and professionally endangered in such short order? Of course, it could. But is it?
——————————————————————————————-
*Tim Shipman, No Way Out: Brexit, from the Backstop to Boris.
**The quote is from a review by Nick Pearce in the Financial Times.