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A network's gender composition and communication pattern predict women's leadership success.

ABSTRACT: Many leaders today do not rise through the ranks but are recruited directly out of graduate programs into leadership positions. We use a quasi-experiment and instrumental-variable regression to understand the link between students' graduate school social networks and placement into leadership positions of varying levels of authority. Our data measure students' personal characteristics and academic performance, as well as their social network information drawn from 4.5 million email correspondences among hundreds of students who were placed directly into leadership positions. After controlling for students' personal characteristics, work experience, and academic performance, we find that students' social networks strongly predict placement into leadership positions. For males, the higher a male student's centrality in the school-wide network, the higher his leadership-job placement will be. Men with network centrality in the top quartile have an expected job placement level that is 1.5 times greater than men in the bottom quartile of centrality. While centrality also predicts women's placement, high-placing women students have one thing more: an inner circle of predominantly female contacts who are connected to many nonoverlapping third-party contacts. Women with a network centrality in the top quartile and a female-dominated inner circle have an expected job placement level that is 2.5 times greater than women with low centrality and a male-dominated inner circle. Women who have networks that resemble those of high-placing men are low-placing, despite having leadership qualifications comparable to high-placing women.

SUBMITTER: Yang Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6369753 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A network's gender composition and communication pattern predict women's leadership success.

Yang Yang Y Chawla Nitesh V NV Uzzi Brian B

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20190122 6

Many leaders today do not rise through the ranks but are recruited directly out of graduate programs into leadership positions. We use a quasi-experiment and instrumental-variable regression to understand the link between students' graduate school social networks and placement into leadership positions of varying levels of authority. Our data measure students' personal characteristics and academic performance, as well as their social network information drawn from 4.5 million email correspondenc ...[more]

PMID: 30670641

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Project description:OBJECTIVES:Mifepristone was approved for use in medical abortion by Health Canada in 2015. Approval was accompanied by regulations that prohibited pharmacist dispensing of the medication. Reproductive health advocates in Canada recognized this regulation would limit access to medical abortion and successfully worked to have this regulation removed in 2017. The purpose of this study was to assess the leadership involved in changing these regulations so that the success may be replicated by other groups advocating for health policy change. METHODS:This study involved a mixed methods instrumental design in the context of British Columbia, Canada. Our data collection included: a) interviews with seven key individuals, representing the organizations that worked in concert for change to Canadian mifepristone regulations, and b) document analysis of press articles, correspondence, briefing notes, and meeting minutes. We conducted a thematic analysis of transcripts of audio-recorded interviews. We identified strengths and weaknesses of the team dynamic using the Develop Coalitions, Achieve Results and Systems Transformation domains of the LEADS Framework. RESULTS:Our analysis of participant interviews indicates that autonomy, shared values, and clarity in communication were integral to the success of the group's work. Analysis using the LEADS Framework showed that individuals possessed many of the capabilities identified as being necessary for successful health policy leadership. A lack of post-project assessment was identified as a possible limitation and could be incorporated in future work to strengthen dynamics especially when a desired outcome is not achieved. Document analysis provided a clear time-line of the work completed and suggested that strong communication between team members was another key to success. CONCLUSIONS:The results of our analysis of the interviews and documents provide valuable insight into the workings of a successful group committed to a common goal. The existing collegial and trusting relationships between key stakeholders allowed for interdisciplinary collaboration, rapid mobilization, and identification of issues that facilitated successful Canadian global-first deregulation of mifepristone dispensing.

Dataset Information

A network's gender composition and communication pattern predict women's leadership success.

Publications

A network's gender composition and communication pattern predict women's leadership success.

Similar Datasets

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