Leadership Perceptions: Dominance, Gender, and Organizational Bias

Introduction: What Makes a Leader?

Possessing leadership qualities entails more than simply holding a leadership position with a title. In fact, some of the most effective organizational leaders may have no official designation as a leader at all; rather, their authority arises from the personal qualities they radiate and their willingness to take effective action to realize organizational goals. Leadership is essential for the organization to function and to define its future path, so most firms engage in leadership training and cultivation. However, the characteristics that define leadership can be extremely controversial and organization-specific. Leadership can be elusive and subjective in quality. Although all organizations ultimately want leaders to help achieve their goals, factors such as perceived dominance, the gender of the leader, and organizational culture can all significantly impact leadership perceptions.

Dominance and Perceived Competence

One common conception of a leader is that the leader inevitably dominates group settings by force of personality. According to Anderson & Kilduff (2009), there are indications that simply having a dominant personality can increase one's perceived competence, in contrast to other group theorists who suggest that more subtle and intangible qualities are needed, including higher levels of competence and commitment. Dominance is defined as "the tendency to behave in assertive, forceful, self-assured ways" and "to be more active in groups, speak assertively, and make direct eye contact" (Anderson & Kilduff, 2009, p. 491).

Although groups are more likely to succeed if the most competent individuals rise to leadership, in practice individuals with dominant traits — regardless of their level of expertise — "speak more, gain more control over group processes, and hold disproportionate sway over group decisions" (Anderson & Kilduff, 2009, p. 491). Task competency is still necessary to motivate individuals to perform above and beyond their capabilities and to unify as a group, but leaders with dominant traits are perceived as being more task competent regardless of whether this is actually the case.

Perceptual bias versus actual demonstrated competence can have a powerful effect. Individuals who want to be perceived as leaders may need to cultivate more dominant traits to ensure their competence is acknowledged and visible to others. Leadership qualities are increasingly viewed in most organizations as something to be cultivated rather than something innate to the individual. It is important to remember that dominance does not necessarily mean being bullying or aggressive. In fact, these traits can make someone appear weak, since they can be read as social anxiety about one's status rather than genuine competence. Dominant types ascend "group hierarchies by appearing helpful to the group's overall success as opposed to aggressively grabbing power. Indeed, it seems that dominance leads to influence at least in part because it entails more confident and initiative-taking behaviors, such as putting forth answers to problems before others do" (Anderson & Kilduff, 2009, p. 500).

On the other hand, studies have found "high positive correlations between dominance and hostility and negative outcomes, and between dominance and narcissism," which suggests that in the long term, dominance may not serve the common organizational interest as a whole (Luria & Berson, 2013, p. 997). A reluctance to assume leadership can cause group members to turn to dominant personalities to fill the void. Organizations may therefore need to identify hidden leaders and encourage members to be less impressed by dominant characteristics and more attentive to actual competence.

Even dominant personalities may benefit from learning to channel their dominance constructively. "Individuals who are highly motivated to lead will seek to influence peer members in order to establish their status as leaders," but this requires cooperation from others, particularly when leadership is exercised on an informal basis (Luria & Berson, 2013, p. 999). Motivation to lead may also arise from multiple sources, including "affective-identity motivation" or a personal need for power, "social-normative motivation" arising from a sense of duty, and "non-calculative motivation, where individuals are motivated to lead not as a result of cost-benefit calculations" (Luria & Berson, 2013, p. 997). Non-calculative motivation may derive from a sincere belief in one's purpose or an innate drive toward excellence.

Social Context and Leadership Emergence

The degree to which dominant personality traits versus task competency are valued may vary depending on the personality and perceived needs of the group. Engineers are more likely to view task competency as an essential component of success, while individuals in other professions are more likely to prioritize less tangible skills and attributes (Anderson & Kilduff, 2009, p. 491). This is not entirely surprising given the need for specific technological competencies to succeed in a scientific discipline such as engineering versus a more subjectively assessed arena such as advertising.

One study of Israeli military leadership recruits examined the degree to which informal leadership shaped their experiences and found that social skills were extremely important in fostering camaraderie among soldiers. "Whereas in some situations, in order to emerge as leaders, individuals would need to rely on their technical skills, in others, like ours, social skills are more crucial" (Luria & Berson, 2013, p. 1009). Homogeneity of background, age, and motivation may also have emphasized the social bonding component of conveying leadership authority in that context.

In one study of small group dynamics, Anderson & Kilduff (2009) found that "group members would perceive individuals higher in trait dominance as more competent along task and social dimensions and that these perceptions would mediate the link between trait dominance and influence" (p. 491). Although few people would openly assert that dominance itself is a desired quality intrinsic to competence, perceived competence and dominance are nonetheless linked. Organizational attitudes have a strong influence on the degree to which certain behaviors are accepted from potential leaders. In highly competitive organizations, aggressiveness may be rewarded and would-be leaders are likely to mimic such behaviors. In organizations where collaboration is genuinely embraced and teams rather than individuals are evaluated on performance, members may be more willing to follow leaders who exhibit stronger interpersonal skills and higher degrees of emotional intelligence rather than pure aggressiveness.

Leadership is thus a mix of being competent and knowing what to do and "selling" that competence to others in a preferably positive fashion, rather than motivating individuals through fear and intimidation. Ideally, the organization wants to support those who can command the attention of others and motivate them while still justifying their leadership positions with actual knowledge and demonstrated ability.

References

Anderson, C. & Kilduff, G. (2009). Why do dominant personalities attain influence in face-to-face groups? The competence-signaling effects of trait dominance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(2), 491–503.

Dries, N. & Pepermans, R. (2012). How to identify leadership potential: Development and testing of a consensus model. Human Resource Management, 51(3), 361–385.

Luria, G. & Berson, Y. (2013). How do leadership motives affect informal and formal leadership emergence? Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34, 995–1015.

Neubert, M. & Taggar, S. (2004). Pathways to informal leadership: The moderating role of gender on the relationship of individual differences and team member network centrality to informal leadership emergence. The Leadership Quarterly, 15, 175–194.