From domination to partnership: The hidden subtext for organization change

The call for new forms of organization, leadership, and management can be better understood in the larger context of the powerful contemporary push toward a partnership rather than a dominator form of organization. From this perspective, it becomes possible to see that fundamental changes are necessary because, at the current level of technological development, a dominator model of organization is not sustainable. It also becomes possible to see that a major paradigm shift requires attention to factors still generally ignored in most organizational and environmental analyses: how relations between the female and male halves of humanity are structured, and how stereotypes of masculinity and femininity have affected the way we conceptualize and exercise power. Organizational development specialists can play an important role in this paradigm shift, but only if they focus on the gender-related subtext beneath the shift to new forms of organizational leadership and structures.