The Being and Becoming of a Leader in STEM

Abstract

Careers in STEM professions offer significant opportunities for career growth whilst placing significant pressure on the professional. Drawing from the lived experiences of a women STEM professional, the incidents and the contexts presented are based on the true-life experiences of a software professional, Manjoti, who starts at the bottom rung and weaves her way upwards to leadership roles. It explores the journey to leadership whose climb to the top of the corporate ladder is both self-determined and replete with perseverance. The professional pursuits contrast with the personal sacrifices that she makes at each stage in her career. The consistent spiral of hard work and passion stimulated by a deep urge to constantly learn and excel, emerge as key ingredients for a successful STEM career.

Appendices

Annexure I: Exhibit

Career Timeline Map: Manjoti.

Appendix: Teaching Note

1.1 Case Synopsis

Manjoti is a small-town girl whose leadership career commences with a humble beginning in a mid-sized private engineering consulting firm and takes her onwards to scale to leadership roles in one of the world's largest blue-chip technology companies and beyond. As a science graduate she gambles by doing her Master's in Computer Application (MCA) when it was first introduced, and many were sceptical about the value of such a course. She banked on the pedigree of the institution to make it worth the while. She spends the initial five years of her career in a 3rd party project consulting company and learns the ropes. She learns by dirtying her hands on the job and is acknowledged for her strong character and career commitment. As her skills and confidence build up Manjoti moves to deeper waters to try her luck and establish her career in the software services industry. She then boldly ventures out into the ocean of opportunities provided by the software technology industry and moves to Bangalore from small-town Jamshedpur.

Manjoti keeps upgrading her skills constantly to keep pace with the needs of the new roles she takes up and with industry trends to ensure relevance in the fast-paced IT industry. She moves from one job to another, constantly building newer skills, exploring new learning opportunities, and nurturing a diversity of experiences which is essential for nurturing a STEM career. Manjoti takes on bigger challenges and draws on her skills and experiences to obtain a job at one of the world's largest software blue-chip service MNCs. Here she spends a good 14 years of her career steadily climbing the corporate ladder one step at a time. She moves across locations, projects, and positions putting in the needed stretch to meet work deadlines and quality standards. She builds versatile expertise across software service delivery business verticals that enrich/strengthen her professional profile making her a suitable candidate for ongoing career progression. She demonstrates both commitment and tact in ensuring her work is recognized and acknowledged. She works on her debilitating communication skills and enlists mentorship to overcome limitations. Manjoti is rewarded by the blue-chip company with a fast-track career and is identified as high-potential (HiPo) talent. She enjoys the privilege of being given even more challenging assignments and opportunities to learn and grow, and remains a top performer, consistently retaining the status of a hi-po (high potential) employee. She wins the responsibility of championing innovative diversity initiatives and as a leadership member takes on mentoring initiatives for young women professionals within the organization.

On the personal front Manjoti battles with a troubled marriage that she attempts to hold on to until finally, they decide to part ways. As he perceives it, her husband, who was in the same industry found that she was progressing faster than he did. As a high achiever, while her career soars, she has to deal with the challenges of a relationship that is falling apart. She moves forward with resilience to rebuild her personal life finding a partner of her choice to re-establish a secure home for herself and her family. She takes a career break of two years to be there for her daughter and quickly returns to a leadership role with a start-up. Eager to once again engage with the novel opportunity to hone her skills in the technology space, she takes on an institution-building role setting up operations for the UK-based MNC in India, calling to fore the multifaceted skills she has amassed over the years. Manjoti continues to look forward to a rewarding corporate career, welcoming new opportunities and being willing to give it her all.

Learning Objectives

• To enable students to understand and compare and contrast the theories of leadership and workplace implications for STEM professions.

• Gain insights into personality attributes, attitudes, and perceptions that determine leadership success and career progression.

• Demystify gender-role stereotypes that commonly exist and question how far gender matters for STEM professionals aspiring for leadership positions.

• Understand the workplace application of the constructs of the psychological contract of employability (Baruch, 2001) and psychological capital (Luthans et al., 2015).

Case Questions and Suggested Time-Frame

Instructors may want to present the following questions to students in advance of class, based on the objectives for the class:

• 1. What makes Manjoti a leader? Identify the leadership characteristics that emerge from Manjoti’s story.

• 2. What are the beliefs, emotions, and behaviour that determine Manjoti’s attitude toward becoming a leader? Point out two incidents from the case to defend the point you wish to make.

• 3. What gender-role stereotypes and/or the absence of stereotypes do you observe in the case? Does gender matter for STEM professionals?

• 4. What is the psychological contract you see being played out by Manjoti and by the organizations that she has been part of? What more can be done?

3.1 Option 1 to Be Taught as a Case on Leadership (1 X 90 min)

Teaching plan	Class discussion points	Duration
Leadership in action—group work	Group work to List the leadership characteristics. See detailed instructions below Groups to debrief, reassign 1–2 attributes to a team Groups to discuss attribute and identify evidence from case Groups to present to the class	15 min 10 min 15 min 20 min
Gender stereotypes in STEM leadership	Instructor-led class discussion—based on suggested Questions provided in the plan below	15 min
	Wrap-up concluding comments by Instructor differentiating transformational leadership from transactional leadership style	15 min

Research Methods

An interview with Manjoti along with supplementary secondary research.

Case-Wise Analysis/ Responses by Authors Along with Relevant References

Topic 1: Leadership in action in STEM professions:

This is an ideal case for group work. Case and supporting references are to be read and discussed by the groups in advance prior to the class. Students can be asked to form circles and sit in their respective groups. Groups spend the first 15 min preparing an exhaustive list of leadership characteristics that the case throws up. The group leaders step up and list them on the board, or place them on a chart using post-it notes that can be easily moved around and grouped. The entire class led by the instructor synthesize the points across the groups to arrive at a comprehensive list of attributes. The final agreed set of attributes is split across the groups and 2–3 attributes are assigned to each group. The 2nd group discussion involves the identification of beliefs, emotions and behaviour related to the assigned attribute, that influence Manjoti’s leadership career trajectory. Groups need to pick out at least two incidents from the case to defend each point they make.

The instructor concludes by categorizing the leadership attributes as transformational vs. transactional leadership styles that meet the work demands of the STEM profession. A brief discussion on how much of each style is best suited for managing work in such organizations can follow.

A transformational leader supports an agile work environment: Evidence from the case shows that Manjoti appears to practice a balance between transformational and transactional leadership styles. A few excerpts from the case are provided for guidance below.

Manjoti shows characteristics of a transformational leader in the instances from the case that are cited below.

(1) Nurtures positive development of followers and enables motivation;	“They had been at it for 60 + hours at a stretch and the client was happy. She knew that it was possible only because the team had respect for her, that she knew the application, the code, the data and had sat it out with them to fix the issue.”
(2) Demonstrates and maintains high moral standards, with ethical standards supported by clearly established values and work priorities;	“Without thinking twice, she stopped them telling them that they could not enter the premises without permission, and asked them to leave the office at once. The people who entered the office left but her colleagues warned her that those intruders were local goons, and they visited all offices in this intimidating manner, and it was best to turn a blind eye. Manjoti disagreed and stood her ground and reported the incident to the senior officers.”
(3) Promotes a cultural environment of working for the common good;	“While it was tough to fight the men-women, male–female stigma and move forward, ignoring it was a strategy that had worked for her. “Being ‘me’ and my natural self in all situations” had been her motto. It served her like blinders, keeping her focused totally on work and work deliverables and ignoring any ‘noise’ that might distract her.”
(4) Emphasizes authenticity, cooperation, and open communication;	“She asked her manager for mentoring and he assigned a senior lady colleague to spend time with her and for them to work on projects together so that she could learn on-the-job.”
(5) Encourages high ownership for tasks assigned, and provides coaching and mentoring to facilitate decision making	“She encouraged senior members in the team to lead specific quality improvement initiatives, and to become mentors for newcomers in the team.”

A transactional leader on the other hand ensures routine and structure intending to reduce chaos or inefficiency:

(1) Motivates through traditional methods of rewards and punishments	“All along Manjoti ran her team like a close-knit family, celebrating birthdays and anniversaries, hosting lunches, encouraging picnics with the family members, having career conversations with team members, coaching and advising them.”
(2) Drive task-focused efforts through oversight, organizing, and steady performance monitoring;	“Finally, it had been 8 of them, 3 women and 5 men as a team working through the night on Saturday and all day through Sunday to move the corrected codebase to production by 5 AM on Monday (US time). The reports generated were all in order. They had been at it for 60 + hours at a stretch and the client were happy
(3) Work environments are maintained by keeping things consistent and predictable over time with limited opportunity for innovating;	“Manjoti became well known for her commitment—“if she said she will do it—it will be done”, that was the trust level she had established with her clients.”
(4) Supervisors focuses on identifying errors and faults to closely investigate the cause and create efficient, routine procedures;	“Manjoti logged into the server and ran through the codes to analyse the problem with the reports along with the other developers, reviewing the key coding logic for every module to identify issues. To add to the stress the client kept calling every 30 min to check on the progress.”

Concerning gender stereotypes, if any, in-class discussions could deliberate on—Does it matter that Manjoti is a woman? What might have been different if Manjoti was a man and how might it have changed things, if at all?

It appears that in STEM professions career experiences do not differentiate between genders. As long as technical mastery and managerial skills are exhibited, career progression and job opportunities are many. In the case, Manjoti shares no evidence of discrimination, even though during the early part of her career she shares concerns. Her subsequent ascent to leadership roles appears to provide her the space to demonstrate her expertise and skills and to learn and grow consistently. Manjoti does not share any concerns about exiting the workplace to take care of her daughter, nor does she share anxiety in finding a job when she wanted to re-enter the workplace after a career break. Her career aspirations continue to soar, and she nurtures a positive outlook about her future.

Topic 2: Psychological contract and Psychological Capital.

This topic is best done as an in-class discussion session. Students are advised to read the case and supporting references and come to class. Having covered the theoretical concept of the psychological contract, the session is led by the instructor guiding the discussion first on the psychological contract. Students are encouraged to identify the explicit and implicit elements of the psychological contract that exists between the employee (Manjoti) and employers (as per the information shared in the case) and per hint 2 below.

Subsequently, once the concept of psychological capital is covered by the instructor the discussion on the role played by the four subconstructs of ‘psycap’—hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism can be opened for in-class discussion. The students can be split into four large groups each for the 4 subconstructs. Manjoti exhibits the four sub-constructs of psychological capital i.e. hope, work efficacy, resilience, and optimism as proposed by Luthans. Hope includes the positive feelings of agency from goal-focused determination, and figuring out ways to achieve goals. This capacity of psycap is visible in Manjoti’s career-focused activities. She takes the risk to leave a secure job and shift to a new unfamiliar city to search for her aspired job in the software services industry all on her own, filled with hope that she too can make a career in the rapidly growing software services industry in Bangalore. Self-efficacy is confidence in Manjoti’s ability to achieve a specific goal in a specific situation. She seeks job changes aligned with her interests and applies herself wholeheartedly to excel at them and to move on to a new career opportunity. Optimism is observed in Manjoti all through her career as she confronts the challenges at work, taking them on with a positive attitude to realistically align her actions by being aspirational with her career goals. Resilience is defined as successfully coping with adversity or stress. This case carries many examples of how Manjoti demonstrates the ability to “bounce back” from the many challenges she faces both professionally and personally.

A psychological contract on the other hand is a type of deal struck between an employer and the employee which is more implicit than explicit. It involves the perceptions that the two parties, employer, and employee, carry out their mutual obligations towards each other, which is implied rather than explicitly stated. In this case, Manjoti while at MDDPL objects to the local goons who enter the workplace unauthorized. She could have ignored them as her colleagues did, instead she exhibits concern for workplace security and safety and confronts the intruders. Similarly, Manjoti’s work commitment towards organization's clients is something she takes pride in and stretches to meet them. The organization in turn fulfils its part of the psychological contract by providing her with challenging job opportunities, recognizing her as high-potential talent, and providing her with career progression, work recognition awards, and leading and contributing to organizational diversity initiatives.

Additional Assignments for Enhancing Learning

• 1. Ask students to interview one STEM professional from their network and bring a key point of workplace management style that enables the smooth flow of work in such professions. Students can discuss in groups and present in class to increase their understanding of what it takes to practice leadership in such professions.

• 2. If the instructor would like to delve deeper into gender issues, she/he can ask students to interview two STEM professionals from their network, one man and one woman, and do the assignment as listed in item 1 above. This could help ascertain gender stereotypes that prevail and what organizations are doing to prevent this.

• 3. Ask students to identify one professional they admire. It could be a person they know or someone in the public domain about whom sufficient information is available.

  • a. Ask them to identify leadership attributes they exhibit and the probable leadership style they practice.

  • b. What attitude is practiced by these individuals—provide one example

  • c. Apply the ABC model of attitude to explain some incident in the life of this person.

  • d. What kinds of instrumental and terminal values are evidenced through this person’s interactions?

  • e. Are there any implications for the psychological contract that is shared?

  • f. Is it possible to identify the presence of the four components of Psychological Capital—H.E.R.O. in these individuals?

Conclusion

The key theme, in this case, is about becoming a leader in the STEM profession. STEM professions offer one of the most challenging opportunities for career growth through the practice of both transformational as well as transactional leadership styles. This case study explores the leadership journey of a successful woman professional in the STEM discipline. Manjoti is a small-town girl whose career starts at the bottom and thereon traces a global path as she successfully climbs the corporate ladder in one of the world’s largest blue-chip company in the technology space. While passion for her work emerges as the critical success factor, consistently nurturing new knowledge and skills keeps her relevant and committed to consistently ensuring superior technical skills. She leverages opportunities that sometimes knocked on the door and more often needed to be sought out, to grow and succeed. Further, this case is used to examine gender stereotypes and perceptions related to the STEM profession.

The second theme this case highlights is the psychological contract of employability (Baruch, 2001) which is evident in Manjoti’s life story, and the construct of psychological capital (Luthans et al., 2015) resources of Hope, Efficacy, Resilience, and Optimism (HERO) which are observed in Manjoti’s approach towards confronting personal and work-related concerns.

The case can be used in postgraduate classes of management and organizational behaviour related to leadership. It can also be used in executive education programs to discuss leadership issues and strategies for success as a leader.