An Examination of Factors that Influence a Female Wardens’ Effectiveness as a Leader

Authors

Wendy Dressler, Florida International UniversityFollow

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Major/Program

International Crime and Justice

First Advisor's Name

Tim Goddard

First Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Chair

Second Advisor's Name

Kristen Zgoba

Second Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Member

Third Advisor's Name

Rosa Chang

Third Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Member

Fourth Advisor's Name

Zoran Bursac

Fourth Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Member

Fifth Advisor's Name

Derrick Schofield

Fifth Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Member

Keywords

leadership, leadership styles, corrections, transformational leadership, female wardens, wardens, importation differential theory, criminal justice policy

Date of Defense

6-12-2023

Abstract

Women employed in prisons have continued to evolve into a more significant proportion of the overall institutional workforce while growing exponentially from ten percent in 1970 to almost forty percent by 2010. However, even with the substantial increase, the shift towards promoting a gender-diverse correctional workforce has remained challenging as female staff continues to encounter numerous obstacles, including stereotypes, harassment, and opposition from male colleagues. Nevertheless, as the correctional workforce becomes increasingly diverse and the number of female executives is steadily rising, it becomes essential to examine the effectiveness of women in institutional leadership roles.

There are mixed findings on whether women are regarded as capable and effective as their male counterparts. Researchers have argued that physical strength and verbal aggressiveness continue to predominate the skills needed to succeed in a prison system. Further, evidence suggests that gender plays a significant role in the perceptions of how women carry out their jobs. Male characteristics are commonly associated with effectiveness and embedded throughout initial and subsequent training, resulting in further challenges for females.

To interrogate this common perception, the present study explored the effectiveness of female wardens compared to male wardens as leaders throughout the United States penal system and attempted to identify the factors that influence their effectiveness. The purpose was to determine if US wardens who perceive themselves as possessing higher levels of transformational leadership characteristics also experience a positive professional orientation, lower levels of stress at work, and a higher level of job satisfaction, as well as whether these differences differ based on gender.

A questionnaire was created to obtain the respondent's perceptions. US wardens were targeted through a non-probability convenience sampling method. 71 wardens from city, county, state, and federal adult prisons completed the survey from ten US states. The findings from the regression analyses and a Mann-Whitney Wilcoxon Test indicated differences in perception based on gender and ethnicity. Taken together, this study contributes to scholarly literature by examining the influence of gender and leadership style and provides insight into those factors helping to advance correctional administration policies.

Identifier

FIDC011163

ORCID

0000-0001-8494-3142

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Dressler, Wendy, "An Examination of Factors that Influence a Female Wardens’ Effectiveness as a Leader" (2023). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 5412.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/5412