Women, Leadership and the “Internal glass mirror” Article Swipe

MAKE IMPACT

Sidiropolou, Marianna · YOU? · · 2027 · Open Access · · DOI: https://doi.org/10.18743/pub.00056560

Despite progress, women are still underrepresented in positions of leadership and do not advance at the same pace as men. They remain underpaid, consistently exiting leadership pipelines long before the boardroom. This persistent gender disparity in occupying positions of power has been described as the “glass ceiling effect”. Prevailing research has focused on an externalised barrier narrative, attributing women's lack of leadership advancement to gender stereotypes, masculinist corporate cultures, exclusion from elite networks and a dearth of female role models. While these explanations are valid and have merit, they are missing depth. What remains underexplored is female leaders’ internal psychological dimensions that may contribute to this phenomenon. Existing studies suggest that women report lower self-confidence, reduced leadership aspirations, greater risk aversion and opting out to prioritise traditional caregiving roles - dynamics that suggest an internal dimension to the leadership gap. This thesis disrupts the conventional discourse by shifting our gaze inward, drawing on object relations and relational psychoanalysis to explore how unconscious processes may shape women’s lived experience of leadership. It introduces the concept of the internal glass mirror: a psychoanalytic metaphor for those unconscious intrapsychic structures that reflect and refract, shaping a woman leader’s capacity to inhabit and own her leadership. The internal glass mirror may act as a site of both constraint and freedom: it can reinforce the external glass ceiling through unconscious objectification or conversely become a reflective surface of confidence and agency offering a way through and a way out. Employing a qualitative methodology that includes photo elicitation, collage-making and psychoanalytically informed semi-structured interviews with 10 senior female leaders, the study investigates how this internal glass mirror mediates women’s negotiation with external leadership barriers. It challenges the dominant focus on external interventions — such as quotas and mentoring — and contributes to a more nuanced understanding of leadership barriers and pathways for change.

Type

dissertation

Landing Page

https://doi.org/10.18743/pub.00056560

OA Status

green

OpenAlex ID

https://openalex.org/W7106844569

Raw OpenAlex JSON

OpenAlex ID

https://openalex.org/W7106844569

Canonical identifier for this work in OpenAlex

DOI

https://doi.org/10.18743/pub.00056560

Digital Object Identifier

Title

Women, Leadership and the “Internal glass mirror”

Work title

Type

dissertation

OpenAlex work type

Publication year

2027

Year of publication

Publication date

2027-01-01

Full publication date if available

Authors

Sidiropolou, Marianna

List of authors in order

Landing page

https://doi.org/10.18743/pub.00056560

Publisher landing page

Open access

Yes

Whether a free full text is available

OA status

green

Open access status per OpenAlex

OA URL

https://doi.org/10.18743/pub.00056560

Direct OA link when available

Concepts

Unconscious mind, Glass ceiling, Metaphor, Elite, Social psychology, Situational ethics, Psychology, Psychoanalytic theory, Sociology, Leadership style, Power (physics), Mainstream, Object (grammar), Leadership, Agency (philosophy), Objectification, Narrative, Object relations theory, Qualitative research, Pace, Epistemology, Cognitive reframing, Transactional leadership, Subjectivity, Power structure, Conformity, Self, Charismatic authority, Ambivalence

Top concepts (fields/topics) attached by OpenAlex

Cited by

0

Total citation count in OpenAlex

Full payload