Northouse, Leadership 9e
SAGE Publications, 2021
Case 14.2: Pregnancy as a Barrier to Job
Status
Case Synopsis and Analysis
Marina Soslow is a successful senior managing director at a manufacturing company. She
has been there for 10 years and hopes to thrive at the company and become an executive.
She recently learned that she was pregnant and was reluctant to tell her boss, Roy Bond. In
the past, several women had been eased out of their positions upon sharing pregnancy news.
When Marina does share the information with Roy, he seems very frustrated and says that
Learning Objectives:
• Students will recognize gender prejudice and understand how it influences a woman’s
ability to excel.
• Students will learn methods to help resolve gender prejudice related to pregnancy.
Answers to questions in the text:
1. What advancement barriers is Marina encountering?
2. What should Roy have said when Marina told him she was pregnant?
3. What could Roy do to ensure that Marina’s work will be covered during her absence
and that taking this time off will not hurt her advancement?
4. What type of organizational changes could be made to benefit Marina and other
pregnant women in this organization?
The organization should adopt policies and procedures that support work-life balance
and flexibility. People need to take leaves for any number of reasons, and a strong
Potential Teaching Approaches:
Below is a way to structure a class based on Gender and Leadership and Case Study 14.2:
• Hold a lecture on gender and leadership.
• Ask students to read Case 14.2 and answer the questions.
Exercises for This Case Study:
1. Students should assume that Roy realizes the error of his ways, after being scolded by
others at the company. Students will draft a written apology on behalf of Roy to
2. Thankfully, overt discrimination like Roy’s is becoming less frequent. However,
covert discrimination of women, particularly mothers, is still a threat to women in the
workforce. Students should discuss covert discrimination. How might it “show up” at
work realistically in 2015–2021? What might it look like now? Students should
3. Using this case study as a model, ask students to find three to four news stories that
are related. Using the lens of the case, have students compile the outcomes from the