Tactics adopted by female managers in Kenya’s energy sector to deal with unique challenges they face by virtue of their gender

Abstract

The objectives of study were to establish the tactics used by female managers in Kenya's energy sector to deal with the unique challenges they face by virtue of their gender and to establish the extent to which women managers in Kenya's Energy sector use these tactics. Women in the Third word work under very difficult conditions. The higher up the ladder one climbs, the harder it gets. Adler and Izraeli (1998) decry the paucity of women in management worldwide and posit that the reasons are similar internationally. These reasons include cultural sanctions, educational barriers, legal restrictions, corporate obstacles and women's disinterest in pursuing traditional masculine career. Davidson and Cooper (1990) have identified some challenges facing women managers, which are internal to the woman herself (Carr-Ruffino 1987) such the conflict between socialized values of caring for the family, self limiting beliefs, possessing conflicting beliefs, combating negative beliefs and stereotypes and not being aggressive, and the harder values found in male dominated competitive organizational cultures or external from the work environment, where the role expectations of an executive are still largely male and mobile, possible sexual harassment, heavy executive role expectations, patron male bosses, threatened male colleagues, blocked promotions, pay disparity, the glass ceiling, queen bee syndrome and the wonder woman syndrome from the home environment where the woman may still be responsible for most of the domestic chores and child/elder care. The study established tactics, which were used and were effective to a great extent by the female managers to deal with the unique challenges they face by virtue of their gender at work place were assertiveness, development of good relationships with other women employees and development of favorable leadership styles. However, use "of artificial make up products and joining the male club were less effective and were used to a small extent by the female managers. The use of artificial make up products and joining the male club should be encouraged among women managers in Kenya, as they have proved effective in the western world. Women managers as well as women employees in general should be enlightened on the tactics to use to deal with unique problems they face by virtue of their gender