The Influence of Human Agency on the Professional Path of Women in Executive Leadership Positions

This study covers new ground in the discipline of leadership by exploring the phenomenon of leadership as demonstrated through the cultivation and actualization of human agency in the professional path of women in executive leadership positions. The baseline rationale of this study is that expanding the awareness and understanding of human agency and highly agentic characteristics of women in executive leadership is essential in addressing the need for increasing the number of women in executive leadership positions. Based on (a) the theoretical findings for the discipline of leadership and its associated theories including women in leadership and (b) the discipline of psychology and its corresponding social cognitive theory with a focus on human agency, this study presents a conceptual framework for the study of human agency, specifically for the purpose of answering the research question: In the life stories of women, how was human agency cultivated and then actualized in their path to executive leadership? A model of agentic leadership in women is presented that is useful for subsequent research, theory construction, and design and application of human agency in the discipline of leadership. A qualitative, narrative research methodology was employed to interview five women serving in executive leadership positions in order to gather data about and learn from their experiences. The findings of this study indicate that the participants demonstrated highly agentic and self-efficacious characteristics, as the participants frequently articulated their beliefs in their personal capabilities concerning each of the four core features of human agency (intentionality, forethought, self-reactiveness, and self-reflectiveness), demonstrating how they were cultivated and then actualized in their lives. These overall findings contribute to the study of women in leadership because understanding the importance of cultivating and actualizing agency in one's life can help other women prepare for a professional path leading to executive leadership.