In the twenty first century, women are increasingly attaining gender equality with men in education and in the workforce (The World Bank, 2019). However, these promising figures have not been paralleled with an equal access to positions in the higher echelons of the organizations specially in Arab countries (The World Bank, 2019). Historically, leadership has been considered as a role for men rather than women, as men are deemed to have characteristics necessary for successful leadership such as aggressiveness, forcefulness and objectivity that women lack (Brenner, Tomkiewicz & Schein, 1989). Surprisingly, in the midst of all those challenges that hinder women from attaining leadership positions and from being successful as leaders, a group of women succeeded in leading a school improvement project called TAMAM that aims at developing leadership capacity of members in schools in different countries in the Arab world (Karami-Akkary & Rizk 2011; Karami-Akkary et al., 2012; Karami-Akkary et al., 2013). Such a project that is led by women is worthy of examination since these women who were socialized to be subservient are not only defying an unfavorable environment for women’s leadership but are also empowering and building leadership capacity in others, be it women or men. Hence, it is of added value to investigate what led to the success of this group of women who, without holding any formal leadership position, managed to implement an initiative that was neither popular nor supported by an authority and that consisted of inspiring others to become leaders in their schools. Thus, this research study focuses on the success stories of the project Steering Team (PST) leading TAMAM, and aims at examining the challenges that this team made up of only women faced and the factors that enabled them to overcome these barriers. For the purpose of this study, the following questions will be addressed:
From the perspective of the TAMAM project Steering Team:
- How does TAMAM view and lead change?
- What triggered the PST members to perceive themselves as leaders of change?
- What were the enabling conditions that allowed the PST to lead change successfully?
- What were some strategies the PST members used to overcome the challenges they faced?
The study will employ the narrative inquiry methodology for its data collection and grounded theory for its data analysis. The participants in the study will comprise all the eleven members of the project Steering Team. Individual interviews as well as focus group interviews will be the sources of data. The expected findings of the study add to the scarce literature and empirical data on the success stories of women leading school improvement, and would add to the understanding of how leadership is affected by gender. Also, it can provide strategies for women who aim at being leaders or who are in leadership positions to overcome the challenges that they will face.