Utah Women & Leadership Podcast
The mission of the Utah Women & Leadership Project is to strengthen the impact of Utah girls, women, and families. We serve Utah and its residents by 1) producing relevant, trustworthy, and applicable research; 2) creating and gathering valuable research-based resources; and 3) convening trainings and events that inform, inspire, and ignite growth and change for all Utahns. We are moving mountains for Utah women! Hosted by Utah State University.
Utah Women & Leadership Podcast
The Status of Women Leaders in Government – Utah Counties: A 2024 Update
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Organizations increasingly thrive when both men and women hold leadership roles and work together. This is true not only in Utah’s businesses, but also its government organizations, such as state legislatures, city councils, and state and local bureaucracies.
American democracy is based on the concept of representation. Governments mirror this idea by encouraging agencies to employ a workforce that shares the demographic characteristics of the community it serves. In fact, the presence of a diverse public workforce “implies equal access to government positions promoting empowerment and connection with government in diverse communities, [and] can also signal the inclusion of group interests, attitudes, and experiences in government decision making and build government legitimacy.” This is true at all levels of government in Utah, including the municipal, county, and state levels.
The Utah Women & Leadership Project (UWLP) recently published a research and policy brief "The Status of Women Leaders in Government – Utah Counties: A 2024 Update" which is the topic of this episode.
Dr. Susan Madsen, Founding Director of the UWLP, is joined by Dr. April Townsend, a UWLP Research Fellow and owner of Townsend Consulting.