Empirical evidence on gender differences in leadership styles

Gender Differences in Leadersdhip

Gender Differences in Leadership

Is it possible to have different women and men leaders? This is a question surrounded with substantial controversy. However, the notion that there is a difference in the way men and women lead is dominant in management literature, which provides information for practicing managers. Some scholars who support this difference suggest that women have a "female voice" overlooked in theory and research. On the contrary, a significant percentage of the social science literature support the similarity stand, suggesting that, considering all things, men and women lead in the same manner (Eagly and Johnson, 1990). In addition, most of the empirical evidence for both positions accumulated through the years further contributes to confusion.

Currently, women are assuming a number of leadership responsibilities in various organizations owing to some "gender equality is gradually becoming a belief." Although there is a popular concept that men make better leaders compared to women who utilize "soft tactics" for work completion, is not always correct. Additionally, gender does not determine leadership styles, but by the identity of the individual leader (Lynda and Joanne, 2003). Therefore, organizations should include women in order to prosper. Those that fail to include women will fail in two ways. First, they lose a chance to utilize the potential of female leaders, and secondly, the organizations receive poor returns on investment.

In many organizational studies, it is apparent that men and women leaders did not vary in interpersonally related style and task oriented style. However, in laboratory and evaluation studies, it is apparent that men are task oriented and women are interpersonally oriented. Concerning the leadership style, women espoused a democratic or participative style; while men adopted an autocratic style. This paper utilizes the most current empirical evidence on similarities and variations in female and male leadership styles to reveal the difference in gender leadership styles (Stelter, 2002).

Gender and Leadership

Various variables such as race, gender and culture influence effective leadership. Gender is a social element specifying the socially and culturally prescribed tasks that female and male follow. According to the social theory, gender differences are central to division of labor between the genders, which enhances development of gender tasks. This means that the genders will equip themselves for the different tasks (Lynda and Joanne, 2003). In other words, gender roles refer to guidelines about how males and females should behave. In addition, the roles are central to gender centered theory of leadership, which aims at personal differences.

Traits such as aggression, ambition, dominance, force, independence and confidence have a link to male leadership (Cares, Wearing and Mann, 2000). On the other hand, traits such as affection, kindness, sympathy, sensitivity and helpfulness have a connection with female leadership. Prior studies suggest that men and women had personality attributes that matched with effective leadership skills. However, the social role expectations offered a plausible explanation that accounted for gender variation in leadership (Stelter, 2002). Additionally, emphasis on gender variations, some scholars argue, aimed at excluding females from secular and non-secular leadership ranks.

Difference does exist

Generally, the notion of leadership style includes a number of behaviors. At times, gender is confounded with variables including status, type of organization, attributes of the employees and hierarchal level in an organization. In addition, various categories of leadership styles, patterns of leadership traits often have a correlation with gender and might elaborate variations between female and male leadership (Eagly, Johannesen-Schimdt and VanEngen, 2003). The approach of autocratic to democratic leadership varies from the leader not allowing obstruction of employees in decision-making and leading in an autocratic manner, to the leader behaving democratically and allows employees to take part in making decisions.

Although leading in a democratic manner excludes autocratic leadership, leaders may utilize both styles according to the situational contingency of both the role design and subordinate attributes. On the other hand, interpersonally oriented leaderships consist of behaviors such as assisting and doing favors for employees, minding their welfare, elaborating procedures, friendliness and availability. Additionally, some scholar argues that task oriented, and interpersonal leadership is separate, whereas others view the orientations as a single continuum (Eagly and Johnson, 1990). However, the extensive research has found out leadership styles referred to as visionary, charismatic, transformational and inspirational.

Transformational and transactional leadership vary independently and often differentiated with the deficiency of leadership. Although there is an apparent use of charismatic and transformational leadership as synonyms, there is a consideration that charisma is a sub-dimension of transformational leadership including inspiration, intellectual and personal considerations (Stelter, 2002). Charismatic leaders often attract their followers into obedience, loyalty and adoration. However, some habitual characteristics of charismatic leadership are central to transformational leadership.

Gendered Leadership Styles

The mentioned leadership styles such as autocratic, task oriented, transactional styles emphasize on upholding roles while democratic, interpersonally oriented, transformational uphold the nurturing of interpersonal relationships. Additionally, the styles correlate to gender as they portray the masculinity of available sex stereotypes (Lynda and Joanne, 2003). Conversely, people consider men as instrumental, competent, rational and assertive, and females are sensitive, warm, tactful and expressive. Additionally, task oriented and interpersonally oriented approaches are similar to elements like communion and agency, intimacy or independence that respectively refer to feminine and masculine approaches of relating to others (Stelter, 2002). Strivings for intimacy characterize feminine approaches, whereas striving for mastery and dominance characterize masculine approaches.

Other studies suggest that consideration habits reflected feminine behaviors, whereas structuring behaviors reflected masculine behaviors. This means that it is correct to suggest that task oriented leadership is a stereotypically masculine approach and interpersonally oriented leadership is a stereotypically feminine approach. Although there is evidence of varied leadership styles based on gender, none is bad. Transformational leadership was a feminine leadership approach, but various studies suggested that feminine and masculine attributes, suggesting that the leadership approach is a gender-balance leadership approach.

In addition, the instrumental, task oriented, autocratic approaches are masculine leadership styles, whereas the interpersonally oriented, charismatic, and democratic approaches are feminine based. The term "stereotypically" is common to differentiate the dichotomies of leadership approaches from the biological sex. Owing to the correspondence of the stereotypic gender models and leadership approaches, it is possible to have gender differences in the leadership approaches (Eagly and Johnson, 1990).

Possible Cause of Differences in Gender Leadership

The most significant cause of the gender differences was confidence. This is because there is a conception that men are more confident as compared to men. In addition, men are shown as willing to bluff translating to greater confidence, which causes optimistic judgments (Hall and Matsumoto, 2004). Although women are considered as more risk averse, there is an exception, social risk. This is because men are not likely to take social risks. Owing to this, women have social sensitivity, and have the capacity to handle social ambiguity. This is because women have the capacity to identify facial expressions (Hall and Matsumoto, 2004). Additionally, when reacting to situations, women will more likely involve emotions than men.

Therefore, this suggests that women cannot lead subordinates in the same way as men. This also translates and explains why women are likely to adopt a democratic leadership style. On the other hand, there is a likelihood of gender bias. Unfortunately, women experience this bias, and there is a perception that women do not have the capacity to lead an organization full of men (Hall and Matsumoto, 2004). This will significantly influence the type of leadership the female would apply if they get a chance to lead an organization.

Conclusion

It is apparent that there are gender differences in leadership styles. However, there is no difference in the manner which female and male managers lead their organizations. It is possible that the gender differences will not vanish. In this paper, many studies suggested that women adopted a democratic leadership style. It is also important to note that democratic vs. autocratic approach has a close connection with the transformational leadership approach. There were significant gender variations in the laboratory studies as compared to organizational studies. The identified variations in gender leadership may arise from the fact that women often lead their fellow women, and men often lead their fellow men. However, the confusion arises from the scholar's persistence in the utilization simple approaches while leadership is a sophisticated practice.