The women had values and beliefs which impacted their view of leadership. Their values and beliefs were derived from two underlying factors. First, a commonality in the women‟s values held towards leadership was constituted on Christian beliefs and principles. These results were consistent with recent studies in Melanesia by Akao (2008) and Warsal (2009) through their account of how the
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women participants perceived leadership. For example, women in this study valued the Christian principle of honesty. For some of the women, fearing God meant practising honesty in how they dealt with issues as leaders, and also believed it was morally a right to do. Begley (2002) confirms that it is important to understand that values are held in response to a range of motivations. He draws on the example on honesty by stating:
A person might subscribe to honesty as a value to avoid the pain of sanction for dishonesty, or because this is a shared community orientation, or because the consequences of widespread dishonesty is social chaos, or because it is the right thing to do at an ethical level. (p.53)
In the context of this study one possible explanation may be that being immersed and rooted in a strong Christian society influenced women‟s values which were seen as important features in their leadership decision making process and overall work life. The women viewed that upholding the Christian values in their leadership practice was important part of exercising their Christian beliefs. Similarly, Warsal (2009) found that the Christian values of forgiveness enabled women to forgive discriminatory behaviour and attitude towards of others. However, the downside is that this value can be taken advantage of by others who can use it to manipulate the women with continuous ill treatment towards them if they observe that based on this Christian principle, women endure the challenges without much course of actions taken against the perpetrators.
The second commonality this study revealed is that family upbringing instilled certain values based on cultural value systems such as respect and caring for nuclear and extended family (cousins, aunts, uncles & grandparents) by sharing resources with them, which signified the importance of family/clan unity, and also collaborating to support each other for everyone‟s success and wellbeing. One possible explanation for such societal function is that it is fundamentally based on the kinship system (Sanga et al, 2005) which prescribes how people in Melanesian societies live together and defines their social interactions. Nongkas and Tivinarlik (2005) have elaborated that “the governance of the community reflects communal values in particular, „sharing‟ for the common good” (p. 3) of the
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people. So the women in this study blended Christian and Melanesian cultural values that influenced their perception about leadership.
It is worth noting that the cultural values and Christian values are inseparable; the values of caring, honesty, respect, sharing, commitment and collaboration all correlate and are interwoven, and form the foundations for family values in PNG. The social contexts of the women such as the family, the church and the community (village) which they associated with, impacted on their values of leadership. Such a finding extends the work of Begley (2002) who argued that there are various sources whereby values are encountered, learned, or adopted. He referred to the sources of values as from a group (e.g. family), organisation (work place), community (society) and culture. Although common, nevertheless, these sources sometimes provide value conflict. He exemplifies such by stating that “personal values may conflict with those of a community, or professional values may conflict with those of the organisations with which people associate with” (p. 54-55).
In PNG higher education institutions, women‟s values and beliefs about educational leadership have not been shared in detail in the organisations. Instead, the dominant masculine organisational culture invokes a hierarchal view of leadership which fails to acknowledge „women centred‟ approaches (Blackmore, 1998). In other words, the personal values women hold towards leadership are not accommodated within the leadership structures of the institution, and therefore, the voices of the women are frequently silenced.
The study revealed that most of the women valued role modeling to female students and other women academics. This finding is in with agreement with a recent study by Kezar and Lester‟s (2009) in the US, that role modelling fosters leadership skills in the academia. In the context of this study, because women‟s representation in leadership positions was scarce it was important that women educational leaders encouraged and inspired female students and women academia to increase their representations in leadership roles. As suggested, due to the patriarchal nature of the PNG society where leadership is more associated with men, it was significant to demonstrate that women were capable as men in
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their leadership roles and responsibilities in higher education, and also for the wider community such as their provinces and villages to recognise the value of education for young girls. The women in this study showed that their values and beliefs engrained in Christian and Melanesian principles through family upbringing acted as a compass in setting the direction for their leadership practice. As Strachan, Akao, Kilavanwa and Warsal (2010) highlighted “the influence of family in developing values that are carried through into leadership actions is central to the process of learning leadership in Pacific contexts” (p. 71). The next section addresses the challenges women academics encountered which contributes to the under representation of women in formal leadership positions in the higher education.