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Women remain under-represented in leadership positions in both clinical medicine and medical education, despite a rapid increase in the proportion of women in the medical profession. This chapter explores potential reasons for this under-representation and how it can be ameliorated, drawing on a range of international literatures, theories and practices. We consider both the ‘demand’ for and ‘supply’ of women as leaders, by examining: how evolving theories of leadership help to explain women’s’ leadership roles and opportunities, how employment patterns theory and gender schemas help to explain women’s career choices, how women aspiring to leadership can be affected by the ‘glass ceiling’ and the ‘glass cliff’ and the importance of professional development and mentoring initiatives. We conclude that high-level national strategies will need to be reinforced by real shifts in culture and structures before women and men are equally valued for their leadership and followership contributions in medicine and medical education.

The implications arising from the underrepresentation of women and inequality of female participation in leadership and senior management positions continues to challenge many sectors of the economy and transportation, including commercial aviation. Although concerted efforts have been made to introduce initiatives encouraging women into senior leadership roles, change is slow and women remain underrepresented on Senior Management Teams (SMTs) and the Executive Committees of commercial airlines and airports. Globally, and prior to the COVID pandemic, only 3 per cent of airline CEOs were women whilst women held 8 per cent of airline CFO posts and 3 per cent of COO posts (Silk, 2019).

Air transport’s apparent inability to recruit and retain women in top leadership positions poses a serious challenge to the sector and the global economy as a whole. This chapter argues that lack of gender diversity will inevitably hinder the expansion of the sector and pose a significant challenge by failing to capitalise on the skill set of women. The aim of this chapter is to examine women’s representation and progression within the UK aviation sector with a particular focus on airports.

Women who are the primary caretaker of the home, as a choice or as a necessity, have to negotiate an effective work-life balance and many times, the need to take care of their home results in lost opportunities for career development and advancement (Maki, 2015). For most, the opportunity to capitalize on the missed opportunities will occur after childbearing years (Maki, 2015). This study reconstructed the advancement to executive leadership of women who were employed at four-year, public universities using narrative inquiry and guided by the conceptual framework of social cognitive theory (Andrews, Squire, & Tamboukou, 2013; Bandura, 1989). In this study, six women in higher education were interviewed to discuss work-life balance as it pertains to being an executive leader of a four-year public institution. The participants of this study pinpointed family and work-life balance as important factors for their decision-making process. Balancing work and life can be challenging when you are a person in a leadership position and the degree of difficulty increases when children and family are included. Many women believe that they must choose between their careers and their family. Women postponing their careers for their spouses may not seem abnormal because there tends to be an expectation that male's advancement is prioritized over the woman's (Parker, 2015). As more women are taking on leadership roles, the idea and evolution of establishing and maintaining a strategy for work-life balance becomes a very integral topic and one that needs continuous exploration.

Identification of dominant approaches and applied practices in the field of diversity and diversity management (DM) in Polish companies in the context of trends on labor market. Although there is not much diversity in Poland now, it is expected that there will be more age related and ethnic diversity in future.

Semi-structured interviews with HR specialist in 50 innovative companies (medium and large companies) were conducted. A synthesis of the current achievements of Polish research in this area was also carried out.

The concept of DM is not popular yet in Polish organizations. There are mostly observed declarative activities concentrating on image-related benefits and focusing on the equal employment opportunity. Findings are consistent with the results of other authors.

The study was limited by research methodology which presented one-sided, HR managers, view of the problem. Further studies examining other perspectives are required.

Observed trends on labor market require changes in attitudes toward diversity on organizations. A major challenge is to overcome the traditional approach. Potential benefits and threats ought to be documented, legal regulations adjusted to changes on labor market developed. The regulations ought to take the growing number of immigrants and problems associated with retirement age being lowered into consideration. Further studies are required.

The assessment of the state of DM implementation in Polish organizations in the context of labor market changes and associated challenges constitutes an original character of the present study.

There has been a continuous growth in the number of women leaders in higher education globally. Since 2005, there has been close to 50% growth in women with doctoral degrees. However, this has not resulted in similar growth of women is leadership positions in higher education. Women in turn have struggled a lot due to assumptions about the male and female characteristics such as gender stereotypes. This chapter explores the various stereotypical barriers experienced by women in leadership positions in higher education. The aim of the chapter is to highlight these barriers and how it has impacted women in her growth. An attempt has been made to explore these stereotypical barriers experienced by women leaders in higher education such as occupational sexism, exclusion of informal networks, tokenism, lack of mentoring, abuse at the workplace, and wage inequality. Despite these stereotypical barriers some countries primarily in the European Union have been leading with some positive examples such as Sweden with 43% of women as Vice Chancellors of universities. Another positive example is that the first authorship of women authors in medical journals has increase from 27% to 37% in two decades precisely from 1994 to 2014.

This chapter explores the linkage between the careers of women over the lifespan and their experience of stress. Traditional models of career stages were developed by studying men's careers and do not fit the complexities of women's careers. Several newer models of careers have appeared in the literature but none of these models adequately address the issues women face as they juggle work responsibilities and their family lives. We discuss the Kaleidoscope Career Model (KCM) as a means of understanding the parameters that may affect women's decision making about their careers and the relationship between these parameters and the experience of stress. Testable propositions based on this model using the Kaleidoscope Careers Self-assessment Inventory (KCSI) are included as ideas for future research. Recommendations for organizational programs and policies are also detailed.