Burnout and masculine organizational culture : Stress and gender-based obstacles of women in management positions

Abstract

A conservative, male-oriented company culture makes the corporate ladder more slippery for women than their male counterparts. The lessons drawn from the experience of women who have achieved unusual success as top directors in their organizations are important guidelines for improving management by controlling stress-load and employing coping techniques against burnout. This paper reports the primary findings of an Icelandic study on the characteristics of exemplary Icelandic female managers and their leadership styles. Data was collected through qualitative, semi-structured interviews (from October 2019 to February 2020) with nine women who had reached the top of their organizations. Participants provided various narratives on their experiences of gender-based obstacles (placed mainly in their way by men in management positions). The more experienced interviewees had felt pressured at times during their careers to assimilate themselves to the male culture in their corporations, saying that the glass ceiling was indeed manifest when they tried to break through it by pushing for positions of power. A majority of the interviewees had experienced tunnel vision, narrow-mindedness, and resistance to change among their male counterparts; they had seen tendencies toward old-fashioned, top-down management that were marked by arrogance and pride, and these had resulted in incompetent, old-fashioned modes of communication, weaker, non-professional decision-making, a lack of diversity and open dialog, and ultimately in worse results for the organizations concerned. Findings indicated that unacceptable working conditions, gender obstacles, stress, and much too heavy workloads can increase burnout. There is a need for countermeasures in organizational culture.