Towards Enhancing Leadership Capacity of Women in Agriculture

Increasingly complex societal problems require the collective efforts of all genders to solve. However, women seldom receive the social support necessary to develop leadership identity and capacity despite inherent leadership potential (Ely et al., 2011; Shollen, 2015). Leadership is instrumental in promoting community efforts (Igalla et al., 2020). Hence, women’s leadership capacity should be developed to encourage collective efforts to solve problems, especially in a sector where they are the majority of workers, such as agriculture. The agricultural sector is faced with diverse problems affecting the sector’s productivity. Women are needed to facilitate collective efforts toward solving agricultural problems. Hence, there is a need to increase efforts targeted at women’s leadership capacity development. This roundtable discussion will ask participants to share their views on the importance of developing women’s leadership capacity, the current state of women’s leadership capacity development, challenges to women’s leadership capacity development, and diverse methods for developing capacity through leadership education. Emerging scholars with research interests in women’s leadership development will facilitate the round table discussion. The overall goal of the discussion is to consider the methods through which women’s leadership capacity can be enhanced.