Challenges of the Female Gender
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Challenges of the Female Gender
Female Leader That Faced Challenges Based On Gender
Meg Whiteman is an American businessperson and the previous Chief Executive Officer of the Hewlett Packard Enterprise (Burgelman, McKinney, & Meza, 2016). She is one of the most influential women across the globe. Her predecessor was a male person and taking this position brought challenges for Meg Whiteman. Meg Whiteman was named the most underperforming Chief Executive Officer in the computer business (Burgelman, McKinney, & Meza, 2016). This contributed to her announcement of stepping down where a male Chief Executive Officer, President Antonio Neri took over. Meg Whiteman has also tried politics where she vied for the Governor’s seat in the State of California in 2009 where she lost to a male governor Jerry Brown. Most of the challenges that she faced was because of her gender and this would be different if she had been male (Northouse, 2013).

What Challenges Did This Female Leader Face In The Business World?
Meg Whiteman had a challenge in reviving the HP enterprise that had issues. After her efforts bore no fruits, she decided to split the company into two where there were HPE selling servers, software, and HP selling personal computers and printers (Burgelman, McKinney, ; Meza, 2016). Meg Whiteman had a challenge of proving herself as a female Chief Executive Officer as most of the previous Chief Executive Officers were male leaders (Northouse, 2013). Most organizations across the globe are lead by males and Meg Whiteman had to apply different leadership style and skills to overcome this challenge (Burgelman, McKinney, ; Meza, 2016). As a candidate in the State of California vying for the governor’s seat using a Republican party, it was a challenge for Meg Whiteman since males dominate the Republic party. Meg Whiteman also faced corporate bias against women in the business world (Burgelman, McKinney, & Meza, 2016).
How Did The Female Leader You Selected Overcome Those Challenges?
Meg Whiteman had equipped herself with educational and training skills with an MBA from Harvard Business School. This has helped her in overcoming educational challenges that assumes that most women do not have the required skills and experience (Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson, 2014). Meg Whiteman is also an experienced woman who makes bold decisions making her one of the most transformational leaders in the United States. She transformed Hewlett Packard Company as she had done to eBay, which was her previous company (Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson, 2014).

Although HP had problems at the time she joined and the need to prove herself at hand, she made bold decisions to split the HP Enterprise which enabled the company to regain its business position in the business world (Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson, 2014). She also broke down the barriers, which tore the management team and the workforce increasing their interaction, which in result improved their trust, and working environment (Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson, 2014).

References
Burgelman, R. A., McKinney, W., & Meza, P. E. (2016). Becoming Hewlett Packard: Why strategic leadership matters. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Hitt, M. A., Ireland, R. D., & Hoskisson, R. E. (2014). Strategic management: Competitiveness & globalization. Australia: Cengage Learning.

Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and practice. Los Angeles: Sage.