Female Leadership in Future Organizations

Abstract Future studies in organizational leadership have shown that in the future world, women will have a significant contribution to managerial and leadership roles. Providing these key human resources and preparing them to accept leadership roles in the future, in the first step, requires identifying the challenges of women's leadership in the future and providing strategies to overcome the challenges. Therefore, the purpose of the current research is to discover the challenges of women's leadership in future Iranian organizations and to identify addressing strategies. In this regard, the current research, in the space of future study, used the exploratory method with a qualitative approach based on the opinion of experts. After interviewing 21 academic and executive experts and analyzing, three categories of findings were identified. The findings include "challenges arising from the characteristics of future organizations" such as facing difficult and conflicting expectations; "strategies for embedding women's leadership" such as a supportive structure and culture; And "women's development strategies" include thinking big and pursuing big goals. Finally, the current research suggests conducting more extensive future research studies in leadership.Introduction The evolution of women's roles in organizations is such that with the passage of time and the entry of more women into the graduate education levels of universities as well as the supervisory and middle management levels of organizations, in the future more female managers will play roles at high organizational levels and leadership positions. This is despite the fact that women work in a much more challenging context than men. On the other hand, the future world and future organizations will present different challenges to women leaders than the present due to the fact that they are becoming more complex, the fluctuating changes and the movement towards chaos. This is despite the fact that the studies of women's leadership in organizations mainly have a present-oriented approach, and there is a lack of studies regarding the future challenges of women leaders and strategies to overcome these challenges.Case study The purpose of the current research is to identify the challenges of women's leadership in future organizations and provide strategies for it. Therefore, it is the subject of study for Iran's future organizations. Because this research deals with the future study of women's leadership in Iranian organizations with a larger organizational-sociological perspective.Materials and Methods This research is done in the space of future research and using exploratory methods. In future research, methods based on expert opinions have a high value because the information obtained in the forecasting process is sometimes more important than the forecasting result. In this way, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 scientific and executive experts who are known in social and organizational issues and are some kinds of reference. Then theoretical saturation was achieved. Data were analyzed with the Maxqda software and concepts and categories were identified.Discussion and Results The findings include three general categories of "women's leadership challenges caused by the characteristics of future organizations", including lack of gender in future organizations and women's alienation from femininity, lack of leadership skills, and facing difficult and contradictory expectations; "Strategies for making suitable context for women's leadership" including growth and empowerment from childhood; And "strategies for women's growth" including categories such as networking and socialization of women for each other's growth, and hope and transformation.ConclusionThe findings of the research in the field of women's leadership in future organizations, the challenges that women leaders will face and the strategies that should be taken from now on to better overcome the future challenges cover part of the theoretical gap. can be a guide for future studies regarding leadership and women in organizations. This research emphasizes that in order to make a better policy in any field, its basic issues and challenges should be extracted first, and in order to manage these issues, strategies should be based on the content of the challenges and specifically, the conditions and context of the Challenges. This research emphasizes on conducting more extensive future research studies in the space of leadership and gender in the organization.