The Managerial Skills and Leadership Styles of Women Administrators in SUCs in the NCR: Bases for a Proposed Leadership and Management Capacity Enhancement Program for Women Educators

Abstract

The main thrust of this study is to determine the managerial skills and leadership styles of the women administrator-educators in state universities and colleges at the National Capital Region (NCR) and use them as bases for a proposed capability enhancement program. The significant findings are the following: Most of the women administrator-educators are in their 50’s-60’s, married, have earned their doctoral degrees, have an Associate Professor as academic rank or Administrative Officer as admin rank, are chairpersons of their own departments and have served in various positions or designations for at least 26 years; The women administrator-educators rated themselves as having very high degree of adeptness in their interpersonal skills and with only high degree of adeptness in their technical, conceptual and decision-making skills. The respondents’ dominant leadership style is democratic, although they frequently exercise both the democratic and the delegation styles. The least practiced by the respondents is the authoritarian style. Based on the findings, the areas that need consideration concerning the formulation of the proposed capability enhancement program for women administrators and educators should include those related to certain aspects of their technical, decision-making and conceptual skills. This observation was based on the significant differences in the level of adeptness in managerial skills as shown by the respondents when grouped according to their age, civil status and experience like positions handled and length of service. Another aspect was the respondents’ leadership styles. Although they rated higher in their democratic style practice of leadership, they also ranked high in their exercise of delegation-based leadership style and low in the authoritative form which indicates their tendency to be “overly democratic” as leaders. The program should focus on the following to enhance the managerial skills of the women administrator-educators: Coaching and Mentoring Experiences, Training Workshop on Performance Review and Evaluation, Workshops on techniques on How to Cope with Stress in the Workplace, Programs on Writing and Speaking, Retooling Seminars to improve their creative and critical thinking, Seminar-Workshops in Technological Literacy, Team-Building Exercises, Lectures on How to become Flexible Leaders in the Workplace, Encounters with former women administrators. Women administrators should be empowered in all ways possible.