Obstacles and Opportunities in Women School Leadership: A Literature Study Vuyisile Msila PO Box 392, University of South Africa, College of Education, UNISA 0003, South Africa E-mail: msilavt@unisa.ac.za KEYWORDS Women Leadership. Glass Ceiling. Gender Stereotypes. Leadership Styles ABSTRACT This article examines what literature says about women leadership in schools. A number of researchers opine that the teaching profession has many women in its fold. However, there are few women leaders in educational institutions. In South Africa there has been a conscious effort to address the past imbalances by (among others), ensuring that women are employed in positions of educational leadership and management. This article looks at literature that discusses the various aspects of gender and school leadership. Although the researcher focuses on South Africa, arguments here are of a universal nature. The claims show that generally, the women in leadership theme, is becoming topical in many countries. There are many women who are beginning to overcome the social stereotypes that underscore that women cannot succeed in leading organisations. Many well-run schools in South Africa today have women at the helm. Exploring theories like Simone de Beauvoir’s, the article also examines aspects such as the glass-ceiling effect as well as various leadership styles. It concludes by showing that leadership differences between men and women are very minimal despite the society’s stereotypes and often misguided pronouncements. INTRODUCTION Generally, the quantity of women employees has been increasing in many countries around the world although their numbers in manage- ment positions remain disproportionately low (Adler 1993). Coleman (2005: 3) concurs when she pronounces, “internationally, the teaching profession tends to be numerically dominated by women, but in most countries, women do not occupy a commensurate proportion of senior leadership and management roles”. There are several reasons for this and among these is that for many decades people have associated lead- ership traits to maleness. Over the years studies have been showing that the society in general, expected effective leaders to be male. Powell and Graves (2003) cite Schein who hypothesized that because a huge number of managers have been males, the managerial job would be regarded as requiring attributes thought to be more charac- teristic of men than women. Furthermore, to support her thesis, she discovered that both male and female middle managers believed that a successful middle manager possessed traits of men than women. Whilst many will argue that the status of women in workplace is gradually changing, it is doing so at a sluggish pace: some- times even women have internalised that they are not ready for leadership and management jobs. In a recent study, Msila (2010) asked 70 male teachers and 70 female teachers whether they would take up school principalship if they were offered. Fifty- three male teachers felt they would while only 29 females out of the 70 maintained that they would. This might have nothing to do with the women’s ability to lead, but more to do with the way society views them. Arguably, the societal gender experiences have made women to internalise that they are not made for leader- ship; that leadership belongs to a man’s world. Maybe some have seen how the male world has “plotted” the demise of a few women leaders. Therefore, while there is a gradual change to- day, women leaders are still far from achieving equality in the workplace (Stead and Elliott 2009). This conceptual paper utilises a review of literature as it explores the complexities of women in school leadership. The literature re- viewed sheds light on aspects such as De Beauvoir’s theory, the glass ceiling effect, lead- ership styles and other barriers to women lead- ership. This topic is universal although the au- thor frequently refers to the South African situ- ation. As a starting point, the focus below is on what research says about women and school leadership in South Africa. FEMALE SCHOOL LEADERS: A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN SITUATION Current research in South Africa still reflects that there are many women in teaching although the adage that declares, “Women teach and men © Kamla-Raj 2013 Int J Edu Sci, 5(4): 463-470 (2013)