Prominent leaders in previous centuries included Cleopatra; Joan of Arc; Eleanor of Aquitaine; Margaret of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden; Isabella of Spain; Elizabeth I of En gland; Catherine the Great of Russia; Sacajawea of the Lewis and Clark expedition; Harriet Tubman of the Underground Railroad; Susan B. Anthony of the women’s suffrage movement; and Carrie Nation of the temperance movement. Earlier in the twentieth century, prominent female leaders included Jane Addams, Emily Pankhurst, Marie Curie, Rosa Luxemburg, Aimee Semple McPherson, and Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mrs. Roosevelt acted as an extension of FDR at times when it was politically difficult for him to operate directly. For example, among her many assignments by the president was her role as unofficial adviser, investigator, and publicist for the National Youth Administration (Abramowitz, 1984). After her husband’s death, she became an early ambassador to the United Nations, which she helped shape.
The most prominent modern British woman leader was Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who assumed office in 1979 when the British economy, dominated by nationalized industries, was in poor shape. She turned it around. She had strong convictions. She inspired her middle-class constituents and opposed nationalization of industry and strong unions, promising fair wages for a fair day’s work, reduction of taxes, privatization of national industries, support for the police, and reduction in the size of government. Her determined effort to turn Britain back to a market-driven economy succeeded. She followed three principles that seeped into the national consciousness; you can only spend what you earn; keep your guard up—it’s a dangerous world; actions have consequences. She had a commanding presence in Parliament. The “Iron Lady” and her party were reelected three times, and she remained in office until 1991, a record in modern times. Britain’s economy in the 1980s became the fastest-growing among the industrialized nations. Unlike her predecessors, she made a dent in the British class system, coming as she did from the lower middle class. She showed her resolve in the national coal strike and the Falklands War, when a more ordinary prime minister might have continued to negotiate a settlement with Argentina rather than strive for total victory (Elliot, 1990). She helped in the liberalization of the Soviet Union when she established good relations with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1984, before he became that country’s head. She restored the power of the upper and middle classes at the expense of the labor unions, gave Britons a greater sense of purpose, and was willing to make unpopular decisions such as instituting a poll tax. Just as her father had set high standards for her, she set high standards for herself and her country. For her, leaders did not have to be popular, but they did have to be respected for what they stood for and what they could accomplish. Leadership provided direction and purpose. Decisions were based on principles, supported by the majority who empower the leader to carry out decisions. She was willing to compromise, but only up to a certain point (Holmes, 1993).
In the early twenty-first century, the most prominent woman political leader in the United States is Senator Hillary Clinton, the wife of former president Bill Clinton. Currently a senator from New York, she had the potential in 2008 to be nominated by the Democrats for election as the first woman president. She has already sought and wielded power as first lady in the Clinton administration. Although generally liberal in outlook, she endorses elements of a conservative outlook. She comes from an activist religious background. And she thinks the public good would be best served by marrying the best of liberalism with the best of conservatism. For instance, she sees room for compromise on abortion, between women’s right to choose and the right to life position. For Clinton, politics is about how people should behave, as well as how the government should behave. Hers is a message combining values from the nineteenth-century social gospel and from women reformers like Jane Ad-dams; the Methodism of the early twentieth century; liberation theology; and “multiculturally correct” religious leftism (Kelly, 1993). Clinton has an international reputation for speaking out on the rights of minorities and women, religious values, and democratic approaches to solving the problems of health, poverty, and ethnic and national conflicts.
Accompanying the rise of women leaders, owners, and managers in the last quarter of the twentieth century was the expansion of research, studies, and commentary on the gender1 and biological sex of leaders. Gender was hardly discussed in Stogdill’s (1948) review and in the first edition of this handbook (Stogdill, 1974). Many popular books that first appeared during this period argued that women leaders were different from their male counterparts but that to succeed as managers they had to behave like men. Brenner (1982) could report that women managers adopted a masculine orientation. Likewise, McBroom (1987) reported that women learned to act like men as they advanced their careers in management. Without such adjustment, women managers and leaders were seen as more nurturing, considerate, cooperative, and participative. Male managers and leaders were seen as more competitive, controlling, impersonal, and analytic. The traditional hierarchical organization required both female and male managers to act like men. But the accumulated research evidence suggests some merit for a distinct woman’s leadership style in the less hierarchical twenty-first-century organization.
Men and women are two clearly different biological types, distinguished by a variety of physical and physiological differences. They are the two—the only two—different sexes. Their social and behavioral similarities and differences are looked at in terms of their membership in one sex rather than the other.
Until it was incorrectly applied by social scientists, “gender” was only a grammatical term. In En glish, there are three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Nonetheless, by the 1980s, “gender differences,” a term that probably originated as a Victorian euphemism, had supplanted “sex differences” in the social sciences. Although differences between the two sexes are now most often relabeled differences between two genders and the social and behavioral blends are androgynous, not neuter, I have chosen to remain in the minority and continue to call male-female differences differences between the sexes rather than differences between the genders.
In 1972, women held 17% of managerial positions; in 1995, nearly 43% (U.S. Department of Labor, 1996). In 2005, the numbers reflected the proportion of women in the workforce (46%). Nonetheless, women managers remain concentrated in lower and middle management. A female university vice president who had recently attended several executive management sessions afterward wrote that she “was amused to discover that much of what they were teaching were things that women automatically pay attention to” (Swain, 1993). In education, women dominate positions as schoolteachers and school principals, although not superintendents of schools. In the U.S. military, leadership positions have opened for women at all levels from corporal to general. Fifteen percent of all U.S. military officers are women (Kantrowitz & Juarez, 2005). Women have been appointed chiefs of police, a role traditionally reserved for men, in the cities of Detroit, Milwaukee, San Francisco, and Boston (Paul, 2004). Currently, in San Francisco, the three most senior police officials are women (Breslau, 2005a). In the 50 states, women make up approximately 23% of state legislators and 26% of executive officers. In 1999, they were serving as 18 lieutenant governors, 14 secretaries of state, 10 attorneys general, 10 treasurers, and 10 chief state education officers (Anonymous, 1999). In 2005, in Washington state, the governor, the state’s two U.S. senators, and four of its nine State Supreme Court justices were women (Breslau, 2005b). In 2000, Mississippi had a state low in the proportion of women elected to political office: 22 women were in the state legislature, 32 were justice court judges, 44 were mayors, and 339 were elected members of city councils (Kimmel, 2002). Significant numbers of women now play important leadership roles in U.S. business, health care, and government agencies. In the mid-1980s, two of the 100 members of the U.S. Senate were women. But by 2005, 14 were women and 81 of the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives were women. In 1999, women held at least one statewide office in 42 of the 50 states. In future we should expect to see more women in chief political roles in the United States, as we now see in the parliamentary democracies abroad. Elizabeth Dole was a candidate for president in 2000, and Senator Hillary Clinton was campaigning to become the Democratic candidate in 2008. The gender distribution among office holders has become more equitable in local governments. Women city mayors, county council members, and judges at all levels are now commonplace. One effect of the increasing numbers of women in political office has been the increasing advocacy of and consideration for the welfare of women, family, and children. “Women in Congress have different priorities, raise different issues, and operate differently than their male colleagues” (Walsh, 2002, p. 6).
As of 2007, even larger percentages of women are serving in many other countries as heads of state, prime ministers, and other positions of government leadership. By the mid-1990s, women prime ministers or presidents had been chosen in Britain, France, Ireland, Canada, Portugal, Iceland, Norway, Argentina, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Haiti, Dominica, the Dutch Antilles, Turkey, Israel, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines (Harwood & Brooks, 1993). In 2005, Germany joined the many countries abroad by electing its first women chancellor, Angela Merkel, as head of government.
Women who rose to the top of their political systems in developing countries tended to have a close attachment to their fathers and did not challenge their patriarchical society. They came from elite political families and were widows, sisters, or daughters of male political leaders. But the best-known women who led democracies in the developed world were Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher, who came from more humble beginnings. They shared deep convictions about their causes. They were known for their determination and self-confidence and were driven by ideology. They had a low tolerance for disagreement (Genovese, 1995). Women are serving in increasing numbers in the cabinets and ministries of the world’s democracies. The first to do so in the United States was Frances Perkins, who served in F. D. Roosevelt’s cabinet starting in 1933. Thirteen women served in Bill Clinton’s cabinet between 1992 and 2000. By 2002, 37% of the Norwegian Parliament and 42% in ministerial posts were women (Goldsmith, 2002). Women leaders of sociopolitical movements, such as Margaret Sanger, Emma Goldman, Simone de Beauvoir, and Betty Friedan have been but a small number in comparison with the men who have sparked and organized social revolutions and reforms (Apfelbaum & Hadley, 1986). Nonetheless, a substantial number of leaders of nonprofit and volunteer organizations are women.
Early on, women worked as supervisors mainly of other women in offices, in hospitals, or in the telephone industry (Northouse, 2001). However, these women were only a small percentage of all the women in the population and a small percentage in contrast to men in leadership positions in general. There was a marked increase in the proportion of women in managerial and leadership positions after 1970. Although women made up less than 5% of middle managers and less than 2% of executives in business in the early 1970s (M. W. Meyer, 1975), between 1970 and 1980, gains for women in top leadership roles were apparent, especially in the mass media, universities, private foundations, and cultural institutions (Dye & Strickland, 1982). Between 1970 and 1980, the total number of women managers and administrators in the U.S. workforce increased by more than 100%. Between 1972 and 1986, the percentage of women in managerial positions rose from 19% to over 30% (Hymowitz & Schellhardt, 1986). In the military, 10% of the U.S. naval officers by 1987 were women, and by 1980, a woman was serving as the commanding general of a large U.S. army post (Beck, 1980). But by and large, more women in proportion to men were concentrated in the lower levels of management. No women entered AT&T in 1960, for instance, as first-level managers. But by 1985—while only −.7% of the top executives and directors of AT&T were women, and 8.3% and 15% were division and district managers, respectively—22% were second-level supervisors and 38.7% were first-level supervisors (Hymowitz & Schellhardt, 1986). Proportionately more women than men had attained management jobs in service firms, such as AT&T, rather than in industrial firms, such as DuPont, Exxon, and General Motors, where the percentage hovered around 8%.
The percentages were generally much higher in re-tail and trade. For instance, in 1985, the proportion of women managers reached 61% in Federated Stores and 64% in Bank of America. Nonetheless, overall Northouse (2001) estimated that in 1998, in the Fortune 1000 firms, women occupied only 11% of managerial and administrative positions, 6% of line positions, and approximately 11% as corporate officers and members of the boards of directors.
By 1981, firms in consumer-related industries were most likely (5 of 10) to have a woman on the board of directors, while holding companies and firms in the extraction industries had none. Also, women had more opportunities to become insider directors (managers elevated to the board of directors in the same firm) in small than in large firms (Harrigan, 1981). By 1990, women managers had reached parity in numbers with men in finance, insurance, real estate, and services but were much less present in manufacturing, mining, and construction (Women’s Bureau, 1991). Women CEOs like Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard were still rare in 2004 in America’s largest firms. In 2002 only 9% of CEOs, 14% of board members, and 16% of corporate officers of Fortune 500 firms were women (Kantrowitz & Juarez, 2005). But there was a sharp increase in the number of women who owned their own business. In the United States by 1992, 6.4 million women were business owners, mainly of small businesses. During the preceding five years, nationally, 43% of firms were owned by women; and there was an almost 95% increase in women owners of construction companies and an almost 78% increase in women owners of transportation firms (Department of Commerce, 1996). Between 1990 and 2000, women started businesses at twice the rate of men (Northouse, 2001).
In 1964, the first woman enrolled in the MBA program at the University of Pittsburgh. In 1974, Michigan State University reported twice the proportion of women students in business as it had had in 1969. Stanford University noted a similar doubling in the three-year period 1971–1974 (Chambers, 1974). From 1971 to 1976, the number of women enrolled in MBA programs in American universities tripled (L. Werner, 1979). There was a sharp rise in the absolute and proportional numbers of women who received MBA degrees or the equivalent between 1956 and 2000. By the 1990s, parity of the sexes had been reached in many business schools. Today, many programs contain more women than men. The same trend has occurred for undergraduate business majors as well as in law schools, whose graduates ultimately become business, government, and political leaders.
A law degree is a route into political leadership and another preparation for organizational management. Women increased from 10% of first-year law students in 1970 to 49.4% in 2000. Woman now form the majority in many law schools. By 2005, 65% of law school deans and administrators were women.
Except when such male-favored characteristics as upper body strength are required, the roles of women in society are primarily culturally determined. Biology has some effects; women live longer. And childbearing has its obvious universal effects; but most of what women can do is culture-based. In a survey of 224 mainly subsistence-level societies, Murdock (1937) showed that although men generally hunted and trapped and women usually gathered and prepared food, few occupations were entirely relegated anywhere to only one sex. (An exception was hunting sea mammals, which would be hard on pregnant women.) More than 99% of positions in the U.S. Air Force can be filled by women, who by 2000 made up 18% of its personnel.
We are in a period of transition. Much cultural support for maintaining sex differences in leadership and, more important, different attitudes, beliefs, and values about women leaders is diminishing. The need for a family to have two wage earners to maintain a desired standard of living, as well as equal employment legislation and U.S. Supreme Court decisions, have had dramatic effects. Almost all adult women have been moved to seek part-or full-time employment. Women today constitute 48% of the U.S. workforce. More women than men are applying to, entering, and graduating from college. But some jobs are still seen as more male-relevant and others as more female-relevant, and in many firms the sexes are still segregated according to their positions. Nonetheless, by 1977, more than 75% of women disagreed that some work is meant for men and other work is meant for women—an increase of 21 percentage points from 1962. Younger women in 1977 were even more likely to disagree, which suggests that even more extreme rejection by women of the duality of work roles is becoming the norm (Thornton & Freedman, 1979). In a 1950 Gallup poll, the top recommendations for young women seeking to prepare for careers were nursing, teaching, secretarial or clerical work or the roles of dietician, home economist, and social worker. In 2001, the Gallup poll response to the same question was that women were preparing for careers in the field of computers or medicine (Gallup Tuesday Briefing, 2001).
Early research by Hall and Locke (1938) and E. Livingstone (1953) found that women, particularly in industry, were often reluctant to assume supervisory responsibilities. The times, indeed, are “a-changing.” The rise to parity came after years of social turbulence, the women’s liberation movement, cultural changes, and legislation prohibiting sex discrimination in employment practices (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the affirmative action program of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). Along with the increase in the proportion of women in the work world, the issue of women as leaders now looms large in research and policy considerations. One indication of the change in attitudes toward women has been steadily increasing percentage of people between 1937 and 1978 in Gallup polls who were willing to vote for a woman for president—in 1937, 31%; in 1949, 48%; in 1958, 52%; in 1967, 57%; and in 1978, 76% (Anonymous, 1983). The upward trend continues.
Attitudes and sex-related stereotypes about women as managers among both women (Kravetz, 1976) and men (Tavris, 1977) have changed. M. M. Wood’s (1976) survey of approximately 100 male and female managers found that most managers thought that women were winning increased acceptance in the business environment. A comparison of 1965 and 1985 studies of executives’ attitudes about women in business showed that executives’ perceptions had changed greatly. In the 1985 survey, executives were more likely to think that women wanted positions of authority and felt more comfortable about working for a female boss (Sutton & Moore, 1985). Many commentators saw the need for more women managers as a consequence of the need for organizations to adapt to new technologies. Women managers were seen as more cooperative and participatory in leading efforts to make changes (Morris, 1988). By 2001, Vinkenbut, Johannesen-Schmidt, and Eagley (2001) could report that, compared to behavioral norms for transformational leadership—usually found at slightly higher levels in women and correlated with successful and effective leadership (Bass, 1998)—effects were exaggerated when participants estimated how frequently male and female managers displayed transformational leadership.
Data from Powell, Posner, and Schmidt (1984) illustrate the changes that have occurred. In contrast to stereotypic expectations, they found that the 130 women managers in their sample placed a greater emphasis on their careers than on their family life and had a greater concern for production than for social relationships. Furthermore, the women managers rated ambition, ability, and skill as more important than did the 130 male managers in the sample. Nevertheless, in many instances, women still face disadvantages in opportunities for managerial and leadership positions.
Leadership opportunities for women in the past tended to be limited to women’s issues and jobs in particular institutions such as sororities, convents, all-girl schools, and telephone operations. Even presidents of women’s colleges were often men. Although the vast majority of public school teachers were women, they remained a minority among top-level school administrators (Estler, 1975). According to Sutton and Moore’s (1985) survey of executives’ attitudes about women as leaders in business, most respondents in 1985, male or female, still believed that women had to be exceptional to succeed in business. Moreover, the women in the poll were less optimistic about their opportunities than were the men queried. The women thought they still had to struggle more to rise in the business world and were likely to earn less than their male counterparts. Nevertheless, despite Litterer’s (1976) finding that in almost all samples, women executives reported that they had suffered from discrimination, women who were managers (as well as men who were managers) had a higher degree of job satisfaction than their nonsupervisory counterparts (Keaveny, Jackson, & Fossum, 1976). These women appeared to enjoy their positions and to hold the same job expectations as male supervisors (Brief & Oliver, 1976). Many other studies have found little or no difference in the job satisfaction of female vs. male leaders.2
Even when women are promoted to managerial positions, they continue to face a variety of barriers to their upward mobility. Almost half of respondents to a Gallup poll said they would prefer to work for a man, compared to 22% who preferred to work for a woman (Gallup Poll, 2001, January 11). Salaries for women tended to be less than those for men in comparable positions. In 2001, women executives earned a median of $188,000; men, $257,000. Affirmative action laws calling for equity in hiring men and women have had both positive and negative effects. The numbers of women in leadership positions have increased as women have had to be considered for selection and promotion instead of being excluded. But even if their merit justifies their selection and promotion, their merit may be questioned by others in the organization. They may be seen as having gained their positions as a consequence of legally required preferences for women over men to correct past injustices (Singer, 1994). When 150 undergraduate women were asked whether they had benefited because of legal preference rather than merit, they felt they would be seen as less competent and would produce timid, performance-limiting task decisions. Their self-regard would be lowered. Nevertheless, if they knew they were highly competent and wanted to make a good impression, they would make the best possible task decision (Heilman & Alcott, 2001). The obstacle of discrimination is greater in male-dominated industries, according to an Australian study (Gardiner & Tiggemann, 1999). In some jobs, the obstacle may be the reluctance to send women on businesstrips with men (Donnelly, 1976). The rotation of jobs for managerial development may require a woman and her family to relocate, which means that either her husband must also relocate or the couple must live apart in a “commuter marriage.” Family relocation may be less necessary when husbands are rotated.
Work/Family Balance. Carroll (1987) argued that the biggest obstacle married women leaders face is coping with the conflict between career and family. It is not surprising that among the few sex differences found by Morrison, White, and Van Velsor (1987), women executives felt less equal than did their male counterparts to the demands placed on their time and energy in their daily lives. In 1989, 83% of working women reported conflicts between their job and the well-being of their children. One of the fastest-growing segments in the workforce is mothers with preschool-age children (Hewlett, 1998).
Many companies and agencies have developed family support policies. When the directors of a large hospital discovered that the primary reason for employees’ absenteeism was to take care of ill children, they created an infirmary to care for the children. Supportive husbands may be especially important. Husbands now share homemaking duties. Househusbands and working wives are no longer rare. Among 657 Israeli managers and human service professionals, 57% of whom were women, the burn-out and exhaustion from stress at work for the women were ameliorated by the amount of support they received in their lives in general; but for the men, it was support at work that helped prevent burnout from stress. (Etzioni, 1984). Compared to their male counterparts, women professionals in a Swedish insurance company were equally satisfied with their work situations but not their life situations. They reported spending twice as much time on household chores as their spouses and were less able to relax after work. Children added to the work overload and impeded career opportunities. Both men and women at work showed physiological symptoms of stress, yet at home, only the women, especially those with children, continued to show elevated stress levels of epinephrine and norepinephrine (Lundberg & Frankenhaeuser, 1999). A majority of Hollywood TV women executives have eliminated work/family conflict by rejecting the norm of typical family life, marriage, and children (Ensher, Murphy, & Sullivan, 2002).
The success of married managers in foreign assignments depends strongly on the support and satisfaction of the manager’s spouse, who is usually female (Brett & Stroh, 1995). Her adjustment to the foreign culture is critical (Black & Gregersen, 1991). A survey of 427 international managers and their 167 spouses found in multiple regression analysis that a manager’s willingness to assume a foreign assignment long-term correlated .55 with the spouse’s willingness. This, in turn, correlated .44 with the spouse’s adventurousness and correlated negatively (–.22) with lack of career support for the spouse (Konopaske, Robie, & Ivancevich, undated).
Comparable Pay. Even in Norway, a country with a high degree of political equality and an egalitarian culture (Goldsmith, 2002), women earned 75% to 76.6% of men doing the same work in investment, banking, insurance, and business services. In central government and municipal government, women working in the same jobs earned 88% and 89%, respectively, of their male counterparts (Moen, 1995).
Fewer Opportunities for Necessary Experience and Contacts. In 2000, only 13% of men and 30% of women said in a representative sample that women who do the same job were paid less than their male counterparts (Gallup, 2000) But Lyness and Thompson (1997) found that even when 51 women made the same pay and bonuses as their male counterparts in similar executive positions, the women managed fewer people and received fewer overseas assignments. Women’s lesser experience with team sports in the past limited their ability to participate effectively in management teams (Hennig & Jardim, 1977). Women did not know the rules (Harragan, 1977). “Old boy” networks made it more difficult for women executives to obtain the information necessary to fulfill the manager’s monitoring role effectively.
Women do not frequent men’s athletic clubs, they may be excluded from some social clubs, and they may be unable to entertain visitors there. These are all situations in which important information may be gathered and important decisions may be made. In Finland, for example, male executives may gather in a sauna to negotiate with male union leaders. Above and beyond this social exclusion, women may remain outsiders in a male-dominated organization. In a survey of 76 men and 64 women in a newspaper publishing firm, Brass (1985) found that on the average, women were rated as less influential than the men, though they did not differ in the number of others whom they had to contact at work or in their centrality to the formal networks. However, they were not well integrated into the men’s networks, including the organization’s dominant coalition. According to Symons (1986), who interviewed 67 women professionals and managers in France and Canada, gaining entry, establishing credibility, and managing sex identification in the “corporate tribe” is a process of being continuously retested. (The situation is different for men, who need to pass their test of admission and acceptance only once.) Such testing is particularly salient for the token woman middle manager when feminist issues surface in the organization (Rose, 1980).
Fraker (1984) noted a number of other more subtle obstacles for women trying to move up the corporate ladder. Women may be seen as unable to “fit in” with the small informal, all-male group that constitutes upper management. In addition, they may be delegated less authority than are their male counterparts for assigned responsibilities, according to a survey by Sherman, Ezell, and Odewahn (1987). They may not receive the same constructive feedback from their male superiors as their male counterparts. And they may feel uncomfortable and reluctant to discuss personal matters. Furthermore, Bayes and Newton (1978) observed that a woman leader and her subordinates ordinarily have little social experience regarding a woman’s possession of the legitimate power to control and protect the boundaries of an adult group, to stand alone as a figure of authority, and to evaluate the output of other adults.
Naiveté. A survey by Radin (1980) of 100 women in upper-, middle-, and entry-level positions in state and local government agencies found that the women over-rated education and hard work as prerequisites for advancement and underestimated political awareness. The women tended to be ignorant of the political games played within an organization. Yet a woman’s success as a manager, argued Hermig and Jardim (1977) and Trahey (1977), requires competing with men in a system that the men understand better and in which they are more familiar and comfortable.
Sixty-eight percent of a representative sample of Americans in a 2001 Gallup poll viewed men as more aggressive than women; 90% viewed women as more emotional than men. Women were seen as more affectionate, talkative, patient, and creative; men were regarded as more courageous (Gallup, 2001, February 21). The men’s traits better fit those of the traditional manager and leader. Among 101 male bank managers in India, satisfaction with their interaction with women managers depended on their attitude toward women as managers (Bhatnagar & Swamy, 1995).
Seifert (1984) illustrated the pervasive stereotyping of the inadequacy of females for leadership. Seifert led male and female participants to believe they were working with male and female leaders, when they were all receiving the same standardized communications from the experimenter. The male and female participants who received the notes from the supposed male leaders rated the notes as clearer than did participants who received notes from the supposed female leaders. Carpeno (1976) found that for 100 professional staff members of a regional high school system, statements about female leaders indicated doubt and uneasiness about their future. Frank and Katcher (1977) concluded, from a survey of 104 male and 44 female medical students, that the men tended to stereotype the women’s behavior and to exclude them from positions of leadership in dissection groups in anatomy courses. Among 1,000 male executives who were surveyed by Bowman, Worthy, and Greyser (1965), 44% expressed mildly unfavorable to strongly unfavorable attitudes toward women in management. In general, these men believed that women were temperamentally ill-suited for leadership positions. In the same way, a survey of 2,000 executive readers of the Harvard Business Review (Bowman, Worthy, & Greyser, 1965) reported that 41% of the men were opposed to women in executive roles. Many readers thought that women were not suitable. Both men and women in the sample believed that women’s opportunities for advancement were limited. Similarly, a 1971 Louis Harris poll of representative working women showed a strong preference for a male boss over a female boss (White, 1981). Brenner (1970) found, in a nationwide survey of managers, that the four traits regarded as most important for an upper-management position were deemed more likely to be found in men than in women. Consistent with both these results, in a study of German students, Kruse and Wintermantel (1986) found that in describing male leaders, the students took it for granted that the leaders would be dominant and competitive, take risks, and be able to make decisions on their own; but for women leaders, these traits had to be stated explicitly. The male leader was the normative one; the female leader had to fit the male schematic. In a second study, Kruse and Wintermantel (1986) found that for male students, the concept of man correlated .9 with the concept of manager and .8 with the concept of leadership. The concept of woman correlated –.4 with the concept of manager and –.5 with the concept of leadership. The results for the female students were similar.
When they completed self-reports, both male and female managers showed a preference for stereotypic male (task-oriented) management behaviors (Brenner & Bromer, 1981). Similarly, 1,161 students, using the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (Bem, 1970), chose masculine rather than feminine traits to be sought in the good manager, the good president, and even the female political activist. There was a lack of stereotype fit between the stereotypical feminine role and the steretypical role of leader. It is suggested that male leaders are “in role” and women leaders are “out of role” and therefore, compared to men, women are likely to receive lower leadership ratings from those susceptible to stereotypical thinking (Atwater & Roush, 1994).3
A survey of 320 college students found that the successful leader was perceived to have a masculine orientation (Linimon, Barron, & Falbo, 1984). Four beliefs that reinforce unfavorable attitudes toward women as prospects for managerial positions were revealed in a factor analysis of 176 male managers’ responses to a survey of their attitudes toward women in the world of work. The factors extracted about women were: (1) lack of career orientation, (2) lack of leadership potential, (3) lack of dependability, and (4) lack of emotional stability (Bass, Krusell, & Alexander, 1971). The perceived lack of career orientation is linked to the stereotype that women are less concerned about their jobs. The other stereotypes are built around a mixture of fact and fancy. According to Heilman, Block, Simon, et al. (1989), men perceive the successful manager as a man. Male cadets regarded their own success as leaders as due to their own abilities, but they attributed the successful leadership of women cadets to the efforts of their followers (Rice, Instone, & Adams, 1984). Male stereotyping of women was singled out by 52% of 461 women executives as an important reason for blocking women’s advancement in corporate leadership (Catalyst, 1996).
Although women may benefit from some positive stereotyping, such as being expected to be more considerate than their male counterparts (Pearson & Serafini, 1984), Heller (1982) found that female leaders are stereotyped negatively at two ends of a continuum. At one extreme, as mother, pet, or sex object, women are considered too submissive or emotional to be effective leaders. At the other extreme, women violate what is expected of them as women and are seen as “iron maidens,” aggressive workaholics, and domineering and manipulative.
Women are likely to have more difficulty than men in obtaining the same role legitimacy as leaders. For instance, unlike their male counterparts, new female professors have to establish their legitimacy among students (Richardson & Cook, 1980). Women are faced with the conflict between the stereotypic expectations of them as women and the stereotypic expectations of them as leaders—the latter identified more with maleness. Maleness is associated with the initiation of structure (Pearson & Serafini, 1984).
The female sex-role stereotype labels women as less competent but emotionally warmer than men. The stereotype of the effective manager matches the masculine stereotype of the effective manager: competent, tough, and emotionally cold. Miner (1965) reflected the accepted stereotype that there are parallel role requirements for being a manager and being a man.4 Both a manager and a man need to be able to take charge, make decisions, be assertive, and take disciplinary action, but women managers in hierarchical organizations must follow masculine behavior patterns. During the early years of their managerial experience, women tend to identify with the masculine stereotype of a successful manager to overcome their perceived female inadequacies (Hennig, 1971).
The stereotypic concepts of being a woman and of being a leader were viewed as incompatible (V. E. Schein, 1973, 1975). Surveys tended to report large differences in the traits attributed to women and to successful middle managers. Survey data also indicated the popular belief that women make inferior leaders (Bowman, Worthy, & Greyser, 1965). Women themselves tended to subscribe early on to the different stereotypes of managers and of women. O’Leary (1974) and McClelland (1965b) both found that women as a group described themselves as different from or even opposite to men as a group on traits that are supposedly required for management. As confirmation, Frantzve (1979) found a positive relation between masculinity scores on the Bem Sex-Role Inventory and the tendency to emerge as a leader in 49 initially leaderless discussions in groups of men and women. Again, Brenner and Bromer (1981) found, in self-reports by 66 male and 66 female managers in metropolitan New York, that both sexes had a significant preference for behaviors reflecting the male stereotype. By 1989, however, female managers’, but not male managers’, views had changed. Thus, 420 male middle managers surveyed by Brenner, Tomkiewicz, and Schein (1989) still clung to the male managerial stereotype reported 15 years earlier by Schein (1973, 1975), while 173 female counterparts no longer equated management with masculine traits.
Broverman, Vogel, Broverman, et al. (1972) asked 100 college students to indicate the characteristics, attitudes, and behaviors in which men and women differed. A second group then rated the extent to which the traits mentioned most frequently by the first group were typical of adult men or women. The female role stereotype that emerged did not fit with what is usually deemed important for effective leadership and management. A woman was regarded as less aggressive, more dependent, and more emotional. She did not hide her emotions and was subjective, easily influenced, and submissive. She enjoyed art and literature, but not mathematics and science. She was excitable in minor crises, passive, uncompetitive, illogical, home-oriented, unskilled in business, sneaky, and unfamiliar with the ways of the world. Her feelings were easily hurt. She was unadventurous and indecisive, cried easily, rarely acted like a leader, and lacked self-confidence. She was uncomfortable about being aggressive, unambitious, unable to separate feelings from ideas, conceited about her appearance, talkative, tactful, gentle, aware of others’ feelings, religious, interested in her own appearance, neat, and quiet and had a strong need for security. She also easily expressed tender feelings.
Such stereotypes resulted in self-imposed attitudinal barriers to women’s entrance into positions of leadership. They also caused women to be reluctant to: (1) assert themselves out of fear of being seen as aggressive; or (2) to display their ambition to achieve out of fear of failure (Heller, 1982). Stereotype threats also affected women, who felt that the evaluation of their behavior might be used to confirm the negative stereotypes of women as a whole (Steele & Aronson, 1995).
Female leaders were supposedly more attentive to upward communications from their subordinates; males were expected to be more effective in downward directiveness. Stereotyped female leaders were expected to be more indirect and nonconfrontational and to use influence tactics such as helplessness, personal reward, and hints, whereas leaders were expected more often to use direct, forthright influence strategies based on expertise, authority, and logic. Generally, these stereotypes did not necessarily reflect reality (Hall & Donnell, 1979; Rice, Instone, & Adams, 1984; Szilagyi, 1980a). Male candidates for managerial positions were rated as more promising than were equally qualified female candidates on such dimensions as acceptability and potential for service (Gutek & Stevens, 1979; Rosen, Jerdee, & Prestwich, 1975). When Ezell, Odewahn, and Sherman (1982) surveyed 360 male and female managers in state public welfare organizations, they found that on their entry into management and their promotion to higher levels, women’s leadership potential was more likely to be judged on their past performance and men’s according to future expectations about them, even though the men’s and women’s competencies and motivation were seen as identical. As a consequence, judgments about the men could be more subjective.
If a woman leader adopted more accommodative, participative leadership behavior, she faced criticism for being too passive. But if she adopted an autocratic or task-oriented leadership behavior or a more directive style, she was seen as too aggressive and masculine. Powell (1982), among others, showed that sex differences, as such, were related not to being a good manager but to differences in sex-role identities—how women and men are supposed to differ in the way they behave. For example, in mixed company, a woman was likely to be inhibited by the attitudes she held about the appropriateness of women attempting to take the initiative in such a situation (O’Leary, 1974). Her inhibitions were likely to be reinforced by the mixed reaction of others if she succeeded (Jacobson & Effertz, 1974). Nevertheless, Hyman (1980) suggested that people still perceived woman managers to be either tough, aggressive, unyielding, and autocratic or unassertive, good workers. As a consequence, women leaders were able to use their power as directly as men could (Johnson, 1976). Nevertheless, although women were expected to display less dominance and competitiveness in mixed-sex groups, Bunker and Bender (1980) suggested that female managers were as competitive as their male counterparts, but they competed in different ways. At the same time, Hollander and Yoder (1980) concluded, from a research review, that observed differences in the leadership behavior of women and men could be attributed mainly to the interrelationship of the role expectations, style, and task demands of particular circumstances.
According to Bayes and Newton (1978), subordinates responded to a woman leader partly as an individual and partly according to the cultural stereotype of women. The responses of many subordinates to a woman leader reflected their socialized expectations about women in general, which were likely to conflict with the more appropriate response to a woman who was a manager, and hence involved in a role that they considered to be primarily masculine.
There was disagreement between men and women as subordinates about the perceived characteristics of the prototypical manager, according to a study of the opinions of 702 undergraduates. For instance, male undergraduates were more likely to perceive the prototypical manager as aggressive and competitive, with feelings that were less easily hurt. (Deal & Stevenson, 1998). Women leaders themselves were in conflict when they faced a divergence in what was expected from them in their roles as managers and as females. But do the stereotypes reflect reality? Do women actually differ from men in traits that are of consequence to leadership even as they differ from the stereotype? A variety of answers emerge. For example, women are supposed to be less task-oriented than men. This was actually found to be true when the Orientation Inventory (Bass, 1967), a direct measure, was used for male and female counterparts from adolescence to middle age and for many student and occupational groups, except for one group of senior women at the University of California, Berkeley. But no sex differences appeared when the Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) score,5 a more disguised measurement, was used by Chapman (1975) and by J. M. Ward (1977) to determine the task and relations orientation of male and female students, and by Schneier (1978) in a study of emerging leaders. Okanes and Murray (1980) found that the scores of 51 female managers on the Mehrabian achievement scale were significantly higher than those of 51 male managers. Furthermore, evidence has accumulated that the need to achieve is a complex of styles and orientations and that men score higher mainly in the competitive aspects of achievement. The differences in men’s and women’s scores for the desire for mastery (a component of achievement)—that is, the higher scores of men than of women—tend to diminish with experience. The same happens to the higher scores of women on orientation to work, another component of achievement (Deaux, 1985). Also, male executives are more comfortable than female executives about achievement when the criteria for excellence are clearly specified and when conformity to authority is desirable (Morrison, White, & Van Velsor, 1987).
Hostile sexism and benevolent sexism are brought into play to justify the stereotyped justification of the inappropriateness and inadequacy for leadership of the “weaker” sex. Hostile sexism sees women as usurping men’s status and power in their traditional role as leader. Benevolent sexism offers chivalrous protection and affection to women who continue in their traditional role. Benevolent sexism also rewards women for conforming to the patriarchical status quo, but inhibits gender equality (Glick & Fiske, 2001).
The voluminous research on sex stereotypes in the twentieth century suggests a continuing perception that management and leadership are masculine attributes. This does not seem to fit with the increasing parity occurring in the rise for women in management and leadership. It will take a replication of much of this research in the twenty-first century to see if the stereotypes remain and have a more subtle influence on the now-common presence of women as managers and leaders.
Describing the good manager in masculine terms, as Miner (1974) did in his conception of the motivation to manage (which Powell and Butterfield [1979] also found among 694 business students), reveals stereotypes that may have worked to a woman manager’s advantage. If women managers are not expected to perform well and are seen as operating under handicaps (Terborg & Ilgen, 1975), then if they do perform well, their performance may be attributed to extra effort and competence and considered more worthy of reward than that of comparable male managers. Kanter (1977b) and Alban and Seashore (1978) argued that the stereotypic female role requirement that women deal effectively with people offsets the disadvantages to a woman of the stereotypic submissive, nurturing role requirements. Similarly, Larwood and Wood (1977) pointed out, in agreement with what was detailed in preceding chapters, that the effective manager can make use of both the supposedly more masculine traits of competence, task orientation, and initiative and the supposedly more feminine concern for people, feelings, and relationships. Since then, as we have already noted, the sterotypical concerns of women for nurturing and consideration have increasingly appeared as requirements for the good manager in the postindustrial organization. For instance, Schmidt and Eagley (2001) found that estimates of the higher transformational leadership of female than male managers (involving concern for followers) were exaggerated in comparison to the norms for actual managers.
Despite its illegality, sexual harassment is experienced by a sizable proportion of women in the workplace (Graham, 1986). For instance, in the U.S. federal government over a period of two years, 44% of women employees reported some form of unwanted sexual attention at work. Sexual harassment is consistently found to contribute to women personnel’s loss of job satisfaction and psychological well-being (Offerman & Malamut, 2001). Based on a nationally representative Swedish sample of 594 male and 430 female medical doctors, Konrad and Cannings (2002) found that women reported more sexual harassment in medical units with large proportions of men.
The severity of sexual harassment ranges from teasing and unwanted touching and jokes to rape. Sexual favors may be demanded for women’s advancement, and sexual threats may force women into resigning their positions. Sexual harassment may be a hostile response, unrelated to the quality of a woman’s job performance, whose goal is to eliminate her as a competitor for advancement. It may be a form of displaced aggression, in which the woman colleague is seen as the weaker and safer target of hostility than the powerful male colleague who has caused the frustration. Both men and women in the workplace have to learn how to relate to each other comfortably without the usually more powerful men misinterpreting women’s friendliness and sociability as readiness for sexual intimacy.
Harassers are typically older, married, and of the same race as the target (Seppa, 1997). In civilian organizations, sexual advances to women are usually made by superiors; sexual advances to men are usually made by subordinates (Zanville, 1997). Leadership makes a difference. Sexual harassment was less in army units where confidence in the leader and support from him or her was high, and where the commanding officer spoke out rather than seemed to encourage it. Sexual harassment may be declining in the military, perhaps because the leadership has been paying more attention to it and punishing the perpetrators instead of the victims (Shenon, 1997) and because women are increasingly being admitted to combat units, facing the same risks as their male counterparts. Offerman and Malamut (2001) analyzed military surveys completed in 1995 of 5,629 women from the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Cost Guard. Women were freer to report harassment incidents when they felt that an adequate complaint process was available and that their hierarchically close superiors and organization were less tolerant of harassment. Both leadership and organizational policy were needed. Using data from 8,093 women in the same 1995 military surveys, Murray, Siva-subramanian, and Jacques (2001) demonstrated that the perceptions of immediate supervisors’ trust, fairness, and support in preventing sexual harassment were enhanced when there were women in higher authority. In all five U.S. military services between 1988 and 1995, there were declines in the percentage of women personnel who experienced unwanted sexual attention, ranging from 49% in the air force to 61% in the army.
Response to Sexual Harassment. In two controlled experiments, when women were asked what they would do when sexually harassed during a job interview, they indicated that they would feel angry and confrontative. But when actually faced with such an interview for a research assistantship, they tended to remain nonconfrontational, polite, and respectful. They did express some concern, but would not jeopardize their opportunity for employment (Woodzicka & LaFrance, 2001).
Real and imagined love affairs between men and women in the same corporation are seen as sexual opportunism and are likely to affect the performance of and the favoritism shown to the junior partner—usually the woman. Collins (1983) noted that love between managers is dangerous because it may challenge formal superior-subordinate and customary peer relationships. The dominant male–submissive female personal relationship may take precedence over formal organizational requirements and affect political alliances. According to a survey of offices by Quinn (1977), two thirds of 130 employees believed office romances to cause much gossip; one third, to provoke complaints and hostilities; and one fifth, to result in distorted communication and threats to the unit’s reputation. They lowered morale and output. While one third of the female supervisors of the men who were involved in these affairs openly discussed the situation, only 6% of the male supervisors of the women who were involved said they did so.
Executives’ Reaction. According to Quinn’s 130 respondents, once executives learned that coworkers were romantically entangled, they were twice as likely to fire the women involved. Female executives were less forgiving in this regard than male executives. Foley and Powell (1999) argued that management intervention was justified if the romance created a conflict of interest and if it interfered with work.
Coser (1980) noted that half of all women at work could be found in just 21 occupations. Many studies showed that it was common to find jobs held either by women only or by men only within firms (Bielby & Baron, 1984; Gutek, 1985). This phenomenon occurred in Portugal, Britain, Russia, Ireland, and elsewhere, as well as in North America. The jobs held exclusively by women were likely to be both lower-paid and less likely to lead to advancement into administrative or executive positions. They were more likely to be transient opportunities and to call for less training and commitment. When women sought to enter or be promoted into a position, such as a managereal one, from which they had previously been excluded, they were likely to be judged to be less suitable for such a position if it had been male-dominated (Gutek, 1988). This likelihood was not necessarily due to a personal bias of the decision maker but rather a result of actual or assumed pressure from higher authority (Larwood, Gutek, & Gattiker, 1984).
The more one sex dominates an occupation, the more that performance in it is expected to conform to stereotypes about the sex of the occupants. As long as most nurses are women, expectations continue about their low pay and the warm, loving care expected from them. As long as management in industries and institutions remains male-dominated, high pay, task orientation, aggressiveness, and competitiveness are expected. Women are seen as better suited for traditional woman’s work, such as nurse, and less well suited for traditional man’s work, such as manager (Konrad & Gutek, 1987). The stereotypes of male competitiveness, adventuresomeness, and assertiveness fit with the stereotypical image of manager, in contrast to the stereotypical feminine qualities of consideration, supportiveness, and affection. What’s reflected are the loving mother and the stern father. Successful managers were expected to be masculine when Powell and Butterfield (1979) asked college students to describe a good manager. The effect was the same a quarter of a century later (Powell, Butterfield, & Parent, 2002). Despite this effect, by 2006, due to affirmative action, fair employment policies, and greater numbers of management-educated women and career women, many more women had joined management, as both supervisors and CEOs, although they were still concentrated at lower levels.
Women in Assistant and Service Roles. The sex segregation of work has accustomed us to see women in auxiliary and service roles. Numerous surveys and observers’ analyses substantiate that being a woman legitimates the performance of a service role as a nurse, secretary, or administrative assistant (O’Leary, 1974; Schein, 1973). R. S. Weiss (1956) noted this linkage of women to service roles in a study of the allocation and acceptance of responsibility in a governmental agency. Reinforcing this linkage is men’s preference for receiving nurturance and emotional support from women rather than other men, according to a survey by Burda and Vaux (1987).
Women tended to be counseled accordingly. Weisman, Morlock, Sack, and Levine (1976) observed that the counseling of women who were denied entry into medical school was different from the counseling of men who were denied entry. Men were encouraged to reapply to other medical schools or to try to obtain a doctorate in a related field. Women were reminded of the obstacles they would continue to face if they tried to continue in medicine. They were encouraged to change to more sex-role-accepted professions such as nursing. Such inadequate career counseling and the lack of successful female role models were seen as key factors in reducing women’s choice of higher-status careers (Heinen, McGlauchin, Legeros, & Freeman, 1975; Lannon, 1977).
Women in Solo Roles. Women often find themselves the only member of their sex in a group or organization of men. This solo status further handicaps their integration into networks of consequence. A female senior vice president commented about serving solo with 13 men on a management committee: “It was very awkward at first. (After two years) what I have found is that they are never truly comfortable. … And it is not because they don’t like me. … It’s that certain guard, that what they might say in a roomful of men will be taken wrong when a woman is there” (Ragins, Townsend, & Mattis, 1998, p. 31).
Tokenism. The effects of being a token woman or man were observed by Berle, Biscone, Katz, et al. (1981) in 26 leaderless group discussions in which one member was of one sex and the rest of the members were of the other. Often, the woman in the solo role is a token of simulated enlightenment. She is at a considerable disadvantage in trying to succeed (Izraell, 1983; Spangler, Gordon, & Pipkin, 1978). Her performance is under closer scrutiny. She is under more pressure to conform to stereotypic expectations about women. Differences between men and women are exaggerated. The token woman is fitted into preexisting stereotypes of what is expected from her (Kanter, 1977b).
As a token, a woman may be thought to have been hired because of affirmative action guidelines rather than her qualifications (Northcraft & Martin, 1982). In blue-collar jobs, a token woman may experience considerable hostility (O’Farrell & Harlan, 1982). Furthermore, token women are more likely to be sexually harassed (Gutek & Morasch, 1982). Nevertheless, only 23% of 400 women executives agree that an obstacle to success for women in their firm was putting women in token positions without real power or operating authority (Segal & Zellner, 1992). In all, tokenism generates many questions about the solo woman leader in a male-dominated organization. How much does the visibility and pressure to perform result in more insecurity and resentment in the token woman? How often do the token woman’s attempts to lead meet with resistance from the dominant males because of her token status (Adams & Yoder, 1985)?
Stereotyped Expectations of the Solo Woman. Men are likely to attribute a solo woman’s success to her sexuality (Lockheed, 1975). When many men and few women are available, the women are expected to fall into their service and assisting roles (Guttentag & Secord, 1983). Frantzve’s (1982) analysis of leaderless group discussions found that when men and women were systematically placed in solo roles among members of the opposite sex, the isolation from others of the same sex particularly inhibited a woman in an otherwise male group, but not vice versa. Solo females, but not solo males, were least likely to initiate proposals, were interrupted most, and were most often ignored. However, according to a survey by Frantzve (1985), women in solo status learn to cope with their isolation by using humor, “playing the game,” working hard and competently, and relying on outside support systems. And being distinctive may have its advantages at times. If the group’s task appears to be more relevant to the experience of the woman as a woman, she may become the resident expert on the subject for the men who make up the remainder of the group. The choice of task can result in a bias in favor of the woman in the situation (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974).6 As the only woman in her cabinet, Margaret Thatcher enjoyed role flexibility. When necessary, she could enact the role of traditional male manager, mother, nanny, dominatrix, or androgeneous leader. Thatcher chose only men for her cabinet, men who were rarely strong and independent. While her colleagues might have known how to handle a male domineering prime minister, they were at a loss with how to deal with a domineering woman. They took the Iron Lady’s orders and public humiliations (Genovese, 1995, p. 205).
The lower status of women in American society is illustrated by what has usually happened when a large number of women entered an occupation: the occupation’s prestige and desirability were lowered (Touhey, 1974). The high prestige of an occupation was linked to the presence of a large majority of men in it (Bartol & Bartol, 1975). Thus, the prestige of clerical work declined when women replaced men in it during the American Civil War. The prestige of physicians and lawyers may be affected by the large increase of women in those professions.
Lockheed (1975) noted that women’s lack of influence, found in small-group research, has been attributed to sex-role socialization. Yet much of it is really a consequence of women’s lower status. The conflict can be observed in stereotyped expectations of dominant male and subservient female that occur when women are assigned to lead men. Chapter 10 noted the extent to which one’s success as a leader is associated with the status one is accorded. Women in our society remain handicapped in their efforts to become leaders by their lower status. Illustrative of the impact of sex status was Megargee’s (1969) finding that when participants were paired with their own sex, those who scored high in dominant personality tended to assume leadership, but males, when paired with the opposite sex, assumed leadership even when they were submissive personalities. Presumably, as women’s status has increased relative to that of men’s since 1969, much less difference in influence is now likely to be found between the sexes, all else being equal.
Cultural Effects. In most cultures, the male’s position has higher status than the female’s. But considerable variation exists, ranging from societies in which men and women are almost equal in status, as is the case among the Arapesh, to those in which women are higher in status, as, for example, among the Tchambuli. When women are higher in status than men, they were more likely to lead. Higher-status women are dominant; men are less responsible and more dependent. Women make the choice; men are chosen (Mead, 1935). Strodtbeck (1951) contrasted three cultural groups within the United States—Navajo, Mormon, and mainstream American—by arranging discussions between husbands and wives from the three groups. Mormon husbands were most likely to lead discussions, reflecting the higher status of men than women in the patriarchal Mormon culture. Navajo husbands were least likely to lead discussions because women traditionally have more status and are more active and demanding in the Navajo culture. Results for the mainstream American spouses were in between the Mormons and the Navahos. Even among two different geographic regions that presumably have the same general culture, differences in status and leadership appeared. For example, women undergraduates in New York reported “playing dumb” much more frequently when on a date than did women undergraduates from the West Coast (Wallin, 1950). Such regional differences are likely to have decreased, if not disappeared, since 1950. As will be discussed in Chapter 33, the Anglo-American world and the traditional Muslim world differ greatly in status, education, and masculinity, which affects the extent to which Muslim women can participate in management or even work outside their homes.
Women have to cope, more than men, with career handicaps, conflicts, and disadvantageous stereotypes. A longitudinal study by Cooper and Davidson (1982) compared 135 top female executives in Britain with their 500 male counterparts. The women executives revealed more symptoms of stress such as migraine headaches, increased cigarette smoking, use of drugs, excessive drinking, and marital problems. Men benefit more than women from the social support of coworkers and supervisors, which can alleviate stress on the job (Geller & Hobfoll, 1994). Consistent with these findings, Ottaway and Bhatnagar (1988) reported that both U.S. and Indian female managers described themselves as more conflicted and hard-driving than did their male counterparts. Similarly, Greenglass (1988) found, among 114 Canadian first-level supervisors in government social services, that the women were much more likely than the men to describe themselves as stress-prone Type A personalities. In coping with stress, especially if they were Type As, the women engaged in more wishful thinking as well as more effort to change the situation or their own behavior than did the men. Azar (2000) suggests that unlike men, who fight or flee from stressful interactions, women convert them into “tend-and-befriend” caring, which counters the potential fight or flight with nurturing, affiliative behavior. Women in management may experience more stress than their male counterparts, but they also may cope with it better. Reports of disasters have noted that although women are generally more open in revealing their emotions, they appear to survive the stress of prolonged isolation, cold (or heat), and hunger. On occasion, only the women walked out alive from disastrous crossings of the Mojave Desert in the covered wagon days. Again, women fared better when the Donner Pass wagon train was trapped by winter snows in the High Sierras and with the stress of prolonged siege during the bombings of London in World War II.
In our society, we are socialized primarily within the nuclear family in a culture that defines sex roles as total roles that define our sense of self and our behavior. The sex role pertains to all aspects of life and takes precedence over situation-specific work roles if they are incompatible. Dominance and independence are associated with masculine roles. Submissiveness, passivity, and nurturance are associated with feminine roles. Desirable femininity, culturally defined, emphasizes giving and the avoidance of aggressiveness and domination (Broverman, Broverman, Clarkson, et al., 1970). On the basis of a meta-analytic review of 172 social psychology studies, Eagly and Crowley (1986) concluded that the male helping role is to be chivalrous and heroic, whereas the female helping role is to be caring and nurturing. Riger and Galligan (1980) pointed out that socialization may account for the development in females of traits and behaviors, such as an unwillingness to take risks, that are counter to the demands of the management role. Men learn to see risk taking as an opportunity for success as well as failure, whereas women focus more on the failure aspect of risk taking (Henning & Jardim, 1977).
Importance of the Family. Even the exceptions among women seem to be a consequence of the differences in the nuclear family in which the women were raised. Vogel, Broverman, Broverman, et al. (1970) and Alinquist (1974) found that women who chose nontraditional careers—those historically occupied by men—were raised in families in which the mother worked full-time. In the past, the nuclear family was often likely to discourage women from choosing nontraditional careers. In addition, even if high school students of both sexes had similar aspirations for college and the choice of careers, the male students received significantly more parental attention and pressure to pursue their aspirations (Goodale & Hall, 1976).
Family Influences on Daughters. The different socialization of men and women may explain why being firstborn was more helpful to women’s than to men’s subsequent attainment of positions of leadership. For women, but not for men, Sandler and Scalia (1975) found a significantly greater likelihood for firstborn women to serve as presidents or other officers of organizations. Particularly in large families (Bossard & Boll, 1955) and families with working mothers, the eldest daughters were delegated authority and expected to take on many family responsibilities, such as caring for younger siblings (Clausen & Clausen, 1973). Klonsky (1978) found that the eldest daughters in large lower-class families received significantly higher-than-average leadership ratings in high school sports from their coaches. In Puerto Rican families, the eldest daughter was expected to take on the leadership of her siblings. In the same way, Hennig and Jardim (1977) observed in a sample of 25 successful top-level women leaders that being firstborn was a common characteristic.
Other parental practices in rearing daughters were also seen as making a difference in the subsequent leadership of the girls as adolescents and adults. Parental warmth and discipline contributed to the development of a girl’s subsequent performance as a leader, especially if leadership was fostered by the mother as the family’s authority figure (Bronfenbrenner, 1961). However, Hennig and Jardin (1977) found that fathers’ encouragement was important to women who achieved success in management.
Psychosocial Development. For Freud (1922), the sex difference in psychosocial development was the reason for the maleness centering of leadership in the family, culture, art, and civilization. Miller (1976) saw that in addition to biological differences in males, women were delegated—because of the cultural domination of men—not humanity’s higher needs for achievement and success, but its lower needs for affiliation, cooperation, and attachment. Differential psychosocial development was also the cause of the more passive life goals of females. Grant (1988) suggested that women developed a higher value on connectedness than men did. According to Bernardez (1983), differences in socialization between males and females result in some males’ unconscious fear of females’ power. This fear bars such males from submission, passivity, and dependence on women. But other males create fantasies that woman leaders are perfect mothers who are selfless, totally accepting, abnegating, nurturing, and without aggression or criticism. When women do not fulfill these expectations, such men direct irrational anger and criticism toward them. To avoid this reaction, some female leaders unconsciously try to minimize their ability and visibility. Chodorow (1978) argued that girls are socialized with greater relational potential and empathy. They see themselves as less separated from others and more connected to the world. They value intimacy and and closeness more (J. Miller, 1976). Males tend to emerge as leaders more than females, according to numerous studies of mixed-sex groups (Aries, 1976), and females tend to differ from men in their activity and influence in small-group experiments (Lockheed & Hall, 1976). Status and sex-role stereotyping handicap the elevation of women to leadership positions. Moreover, one’s socialization as a female itself contributes to the reduced motivation to lead (Estler, 1975). But which observed differences in traits affect men’s and women’s respective tendencies to attempt to lead and to succeed as leaders? Are the differences observed in adolescent girls retained by adult women, particularly women who have chosen to enter management and have become experienced managers? Do systematic changes in male-female differences in such traits occur that are associated with societal change? These are some of the questions I will now try to answer.
Women and men may differ in general in their leadership potential as a consequence of genetics, socialization, and situational circumstances. The differences may be affected by differences in skills, values, motives, reactions to conflict, sex-role identification, self-confidence, and power and its uses.
There are systematic differences between men’s and women’s styles of conversation and communication, much as a consequence of their different socialization (Gray, 1992). There is a lot of room for misinterpretation when leaders and followers are of opposite sexes (Atwater & Yammarino, 1994). There are also sex differences in cultural stereotypes about communication skills. Women tend to be seen as better communicators (Hyman, 1980). A study of senior executives by Menkes (1999) found that women executives had better communication skills than their male counterparts. Grant (1988) explained this as a matter of women, at an early age, needing to use conciliation instead of confrontation. Their communication networks serve as the foundation for social interaction. In group discussions, men vie to speak, while women take turns. Case (1985) intensively analyzed tapes of mixed-sex meetings of management students and identified speech that was assertive and authoritative as a male style. Such speech featured informal pronunciation, imperative construction, interjections, competitive/aggressive talk, slang, depersonalization, and use of the third person. The female style was personal and facilitative and characterized by intensifiers, conjunctions, passive agreement, tag questions, and proof from personal experience. Speech that combined elements of each style, which was supportive and assertive in language, was most influential. Bligh and Kohles (2003), using a dictionary-based language analysis, found that U.S. women senators differed from political norms. They were significantly less aggressive and more ambivalent. They used less praise and human interest in their public discourse.
In an assessment of 422 AT&T managers reported by Howard and Bray (1988), women were superior in one of their oral presentations and scored still significantly higher than the men on a test of verbal ability. The women assessees also had better written communication skills, but no differences were observed for other oral presentations dealing with solutions to stimulated managerial problems.7 Maccoby and Jacklin (1974) also reported that women were superior to men in communication skills, but subsequent analyses have suggested that this difference was weak (Hyde, 1981). According to a laboratory experiment by Steckler and Rosenthal (1985), the voices of females were perceived as sounding more competent when women were speaking to their peers.
Communicative Cues. Women have been found to be superior in encoding and decoding nonverbal cues (Hall & Halberstadt, 1981). Howard and Bray (1988) found that their woman assessees were judged to be more sensitive and socially objective. Deaux (1976b) concluded, from a review of studies, that they are more sensitive to nonverbal cues. Women try to minimize social distance while men use nonverbal behavior to maintain social distance and assert their status (Denmark, 1977). Men more frequently initiate nonreciprocated touching of women, which declares their dominance or higher status. Women look more at the speaker than do men. But in a mutual gaze, women lower their eyes first. Men more frequently use the direct stare as a threat, while women use it as sexual provocation. Smiling, often a submissive gesture, is more frequent among women. The use of non-verbal power plays is unacceptable if used by women (Henley, 1973a, b).
Howard and Bray (1988) concluded, from their intensive assessment of AT&T managers, that in addition to the just-mentioned slight but significant superiority of women in verbal ability, men scored higher on a test of general information but both men and women contributed equally to the functioning of discussion groups and did equally well in the planning, organizing, and decision making aspects of an in-basket test. The women were somewhat more creative on the in-basket test. Similarly, strengths likely to contribute to effective leadership, such as goal setting and teamwork, tended to be higher for the women among 2,482 managers rated 360 degrees with the Manager-Leadership Practices Inventory (Pfaff, 1999).
Reviews by Shields (1975) and Wittig (1976) and a meta-analysis by Hyde (1981) found some support for sex differences favoring men in spatial visualization. Block and Kolakowski (1973) attributed this difference to a sex-linked chromosome. Maccoby and Jacklin (1974) concluded that particularly from adolescence onward, males are superior to females in mathematical ability, but a meta-analysis of studies suggested that the effects were small (Hyde, 1981), although males dominated in the achievement of extremely high scores in mathematics (Benbow & Stanley, 1983). However, 20 years later, Spelke (2005) completed a critical review on whether cognitive sex differences result in men having more talent in mathematics than women and more often attaining careers in mathematics and science. She found no difference between the sexes. Rosenthal and Rubin (1982) pointed out that in the preceding 20 years, females had shown significant gains relative to their male counterparts in verbal, numerical, and spatial skills. In the past several decades, the attraction of women into higher education and careers in mathematics, science, and engineering has been marked.
Socioemotional Skills. Groves (2003) used the Riggio (1989) Social Skills Inventory, a somewhat disguised self-assessment, to analyze self-rated differences between 41 female senior managers and 67 male counterparts from universities, government, and business. The women saw themselves as stronger in socioemotional competencies than did the men. Results were similar when Groves (2005) expanded the study to 108 managers and their 325 direct subordinates in four public institutions, agencies, and programs. Women were higher than men in social skills (r = .24), social sensitivity (.22), and so-cial expressivity (r = .20). They were higher in over-all emotional skills (r = .32), in emotional sensitivity (r = .30), and emotional expressivity (r = .33). They were also higher in social control (r = .32) but not emotional control (r = −.09). Women managers were also described by their subordinates on the Conger and Kanungo (1994) scale as more charismatic (r = .22). However, Gardiner and Tiggermann (1999) found no sex difference in the interpersonal orientation of Australian managers if their industry was male-dominated. Only in female-dominated industries were female managers more interpersonally oriented than male managers.
Ways of Thinking. Women may consider their thought processes as different from those of men. Myers and McCaulley (1985) reported systematic differences on the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory of the self-descriptions of 1,051 men and 181 women who attended management development programs at the Center for Creative Leadership between 1979 and 1983. Some of the differences may have been due to the greater proportion of men in upper management and the greater proportion of women in middle management and staff positions. More women than men frequently typed themselves as intuitive and feeling. Men more frequently typed themselves as sensing and thinking than women.
Women managers use different constructs to describe managers than do men. Alimo-Metcalfe (1994) subjected male and female managers in the British National Health Service to Kelly’s (1955) repertorial grid, in which they generated constructs to describe the two designated managers with whom they could be compared in communication and interpersonal skills. The male managers’ constructs dealt with the ability to influence, with confidence, and with the ability to communicate effectively with a wide audience. The female managers’ constructs were about being approachable, fun to be with, sensitive and supportive, and helping someone who feels intimidated at meetings.
Tannen (1991) suggested that women and men talk and listen differently. Women need to learn not to be threatened by conflict and differences of opinion. Conflict may also arise about the intimacy of talk. Sharing details about their personal lives is more common between women than between men, who see such intimacy as a breach of trust. Often women talk to affirm their similarities and reinforce intimacy; men talk to define their independence and establish their status. Other small but real sex differences that affect leadership potential are in identification, self-confidence, moral values, interpersonal concerns, and use of power. Differences in attitudes toward authority, tendencies to conform, sex-role orientation, and attitudes toward oneself are involved. These may be continuing differences in traits between the sexes that are ordinarily of consequence to leadership. But they may still fail to result in differences between men’s and women’s attempts to lead and their success and effectiveness as leaders. For instance, although the women in a mixed-sex group may not be as assertive as the men, they may attempt as much leadership as the men because they are equal in experience or expertise in the task at hand. They may be as successful leaders as the men because followers happen to be more attentive to the members’ knowledge. Although female executives may prefer to take fewer risks than do male executives, Muldrow and Bayton (1979) demonstrated that their effectiveness was as good as their male counterparts’. The quality of their decisions matched those of the male executives.
Differences in Personality and Motivation. A meta-analysis of 63 social psychology studies by Eagly and Steffen (1986) found that, on average, men were more aggressive than women. But the results for many other differences in traits between the sexes may appear more frequently for students and inexperienced adults and disappear among more mature adults and managers. Thus Morrison, White, and Van Velsor (1987) could find few sex differences in a large data bank of interviews and assessments of male and female executives. Only trivial differences were reported in four large samples of men and women, in the effects of race, age, and ethnicity, but women job applicants scored higher on overt integrity tests (Ones & Viswesvaran, 1998). Female MBA students, in four periods between 1960 and 1980, obtained mean scores that were lower than their male counterparts’, in their motivation to manage: orientation toward authority, competitiveness, assertiveness, comfort with exercising power, efforts to obtain visibility, and ability to take care of detail (Miner & Smith, 1982). Among 232 MBA students, the mean score for the motivation to manage was 7.04 for males and 3.24 for females (Bartol & Martin, 1986). But for samples of male and female store managers and school administrators, Miner (1974a) could find no differences between the men’s and women’s motivation to manage. Further illustrating the impermanence of sex differences in personality, Miner (1965) found that the motivation of women changed with training and experience in a way similar to that of men. Comparable results were reported by Morrison and Sebald (1974). Female executives were similar to male executives in self-esteem, motivation, and mental ability. In a number of additional studies,8 female executives differed from female employees in general in the same way that male executives differed from male employees in general. Again, after reviewing the evidence, Terborg (1977) concluded that, on the whole, women who become managers have motives that are similar to those of male managers. Concomitantly, women who are experienced managers show no differences from their experienced male counterparts in leadership abilities (Caudrea, 1975). At the same time, Pfeffer and Shapiro (1978) observed that managerial women differ from women in general. They are less likely to have traditional female characteristics and more likely, either by temperament or accomodation to the stereotyped male role (Hennig, 1971), to be analytical, rationally oriented, and personally competitive (Lannon, 1977). In a study of 27 women in middle management in a variety of organizations, Banfield (1976) found that all but two incorporated masculine characteristics; 17 were identified as masculine in self-concept and role behavior, only one was identified as feminine; and the other nine were identified as androgynous. Consistent with the masculine stereotype of the good manager (Powell & Butterfield, 1979), Schein (1975) found that, compared to men, women thought a good manager was more unlike themselves.
In developing a leadership orientation scale for the Women’s Strong Vocational Interest Blank, Casey (1975) found that the interests of women leaders varied significantly from those of women nonleaders. The leaders indicated a preference for positions of eminence, freedom of thought, challenge, and interpersonal contact; the nonleaders favored artistic activities. Konrad, Corrigall, Lieb, et al. (2000) completed a meta-analysis of 31 studies of what managers and business students preferred in jobs. Men significantly regarded earnings and responsibilities as more important than women did. For women, prestige, challenge, task, significance, variety, growth, job security, good coworkers, and good supervisors were more important, as was the work environment. Jensen, White, and Singh (1990) found women to be significantly more concerned about the work environment. Larwood and Wood (1977) agreed that women in general have been found to differ from men in traits of consequence to leadership. These differences may include men’s greater need for achievement, assertiveness, self-esteem, power, dominance, self-reliance, dependence and their preference for taking risks, and competitiveness and women’s greater fear of success. These differences may result in women’s failure, when they are first placed in leadership roles, to seek their maximum advantage. They may also fail because of their tendency to seek compromises too quickly when cooperation is required. But Larwood and Wood interpreted the results of experimental findings of such sex differences as transitory evidence of the women’s relative lack of familiarity with the leadership tasks involved. With experience, the sex differences disappear. At the same time the differences in traits of men and women, in general (even among adolescents), that are of consequence to leadership may be disappearing with societal change. By 1986, Santner (1986) found no differences in the cognitive skills, dominance, friendliness, task orientation, and motivation to achieve of male and female high school leaders, although female students were more likely to head formal groups and male students were more likely to lead informal groups. The generation from which data have been collected to analyze male-female differences is likely to be an important modifier of these kinds of results. An exception is male-female differences in interests. There has been surprisingly little change in the patterns of males’ and females’ interests. Hansen (1988) compiled analyses of the Women’s Strong Vocational Interest patterns of 500 women in the 1930s; 1,000 in the 1960s; 300 in the 1970s; and 500 in the 1980s. Through all these decades, women tended to be more interested than men in art, music, drama, writing, social science, and nature, and less interested in realistic and mechanical activities. The only areas in which formerly sizable male-female differences disappeared in the 1980s were in teaching, mathematics, and scientific activities. This finding may have some implications for the movements of women into positions of leadership in finance, science, and high tech.
Women are thought to overemphasize the task at hand rather than its implications for future achievement. They concentrate on their current activities either because they personally have not learned to set goals or because they believe they are unlikely to be promoted. Also, they remain more concerned than men about their interpersonal relations, either because of socialization or because they must remain in the same “dead-end” position (Kanter, 1977b).
Reactions to Conflict. A study by Beatty (1996) of 193 Canadian professional women in their mid-30s to late 40s recognized the possibilities of family-work conflict but found that professional women did not reveal higher levels of anxiety, depression, hostility, or physical symptoms of stress. Results were similar for senior executives and those with children. But for a larger representative sample of women, their genetics and experiences handicap leadership performance, as they suffer from depression 1.7 times as much as men. Also, negative thinking and sad feelings are more common among women than men, according to the 1994 National Morbidity Survey. Women are more likely than men “to dwell on petty slights and to mentally replay testy encounters” (Gilbert, 2004). Consistent with Gilligan (1982), that women are more caring than men, Gibson, Mainiero, and Sullivan (2004) found in an online national survey three months after the September 11, 2001, terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center, involving 5,860 full-time workers (63.7% women, 36.2% men) that the women respondents expressed more caring and sensitivity than the men. But unlike earlier scholarly expectations, the women also expressed somewhat more desire than the men to seek justice.
Women may differ from men in how they react to obstacles and conflicts not faced by men that affect their potential as leaders. Heinen, McGlauchin, Legeros, and Freeman (1975) suggested that women managers have particular difficulty dealing with interpersonal conflict among subordinates because their socialization encourages them to avoid confrontation. Larwood and Wood (1977) saw that women were more likely to withdraw psychologically from organizations when they faced obstacles to their promotion to higher management levels. Role conflict with homemaking may be a second source of psychological withdrawal from the organization. When faced with opportunities to share a reward, men may be more likely than women to initiate competition for the whole reward. In comparison, women may first try to cooperate. They will enter competition only in retaliation when others reject their initial efforts to cooperate (Terhune, 1970; J. A. Wall, 1976).
In the 1960s, the implication was that women had to adapt to a managerial model that conformed to the male stereotype of our culture. Women’s traits had to be altered so they could become more consistent with those of male managers. But subsequently it was noted that if and when there are personality differences between men and women, the two sexes could complement each other in management. Mixed-sex teams could be more creative than same-sex teams (Loden, 1985). The leadership behavior of women, in contrast to that of their male counterparts in the same situation, could be positively enhanced by their greater recognition of and response to the needs of others, and greater sensitivity to interpersonal cues. To the degree that women, in general, are less assertive, they may make better leaders in situations in which such assertiveness would be threatening and likely to arouse competitiveness and defensiveness in followers (Larwood & Wood, 1977). Perhaps this may explain why women supervisors who expressed anger in video vignettes were rated higher by 370 undergraduates and 265 employees although supervisors as a whole who expressed anger were rated lower (Glomb & Hulin, 1997).
Reactions to Feedback. In laboratory studies, women were found more responsive to feedback than their male counterparts. Compared to men, they were more likely to alter their self-appraisals based on the feedback they received and to find feedback meaningful. Men remained more confident about their competencies despite the negative feedback they received (Roberts & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1989). The same male-female difference was also detected among male and female midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy, but the difference was not significant (Atwater & Roush, 1994).
Differences in Sex-Role Identification. An obvious difference between the sexes that remains at all levels of maturity and experience is sex-role identification. Each sex engages in different role activities. Men are more likely to pay attention to business affairs and sports. Women are more likely to pay more attention to friends and children. Male managers who choose to spend considerable time at household tasks are penalized in the workplace (Konrad & Cannings, 1997). Howard and Bray (1988) found sex-role identification to be the biggest difference in their personality assessments of male and female managers at AT&T. Such sex-role identification, if masculine, predicts stronger aspirations for management (Powell & Butterfield, 1981). It seems to have taken more than two decades of research to recognize that the various available masculinity and femininity scales appear to measure, respectively, the tendencies to be directive and assertive and to be nurturing and interpersonally concerned. Men score higher on the former scales, and women higher on the latter. But the best supervisors score higher on both scales (Motowidlo, 1981, 1982). However, even this positive association of androgyny with successful leadership in small groups seems to dissipate as groups continue to develop over time, according to a study of the development of ten groups by Spill-man, Spillman, and Reinking (1981).
The identification of 68 Israeli women managers compared to 84 male equivalents was seen when they were presented with a brief incident of political influence. Generally, political behavior was less acceptable to the women but was tolerated more if the target was a man. Political behavior was generally more acceptable to the men, particularly if the target was a woman (Drory & Beaty, 1991). Seifert (1984) completed a contrived experiment in which male and female participants were led to believe they were working with male or female leaders. But all communications (by note) had been prewritten by the experimenter. The female participants rated themselves as less competent than did the male participants. When the outcome of the task was “successful,” compared to the males, the females attributed more of the reason for success to the “leader” than to themselves. The male participants gave themselves relatively lower ratings and their “leaders” relatively higher ratings when their “leaders” supposedly were male.
Differences in Self-Confidence. An exception to the general reduction in the effects of differences between sexes, from adolescent students to experienced managers, is the continued lower self-confidence of females compared to males (White, 1981). This lower self-confidence is correlated with relatively lower self-esteem and less willingness to take risks because of a greater fear of failure. Females may also feel uncomfortable with too much success, although this issue has remained controversial.9 These propensities may contribute to a lower career orientation and a lower desire to compete for advancement (Hennig & Jardim, 1977), as well as a greater tendency to conform (Eagly & Carli, 1981) and to avoid attempting to be influential (Eagly, 1983). According to a meta-analysis by Kling, Hyde, Showers, et al. (1999) with 216 effect sizes for 97,121 respondents, the difference (d 5 .33) favoring males in self-esteem is greatest in late adolescence. Results were replicated in a second analysis with three other large, nationally representative samples, although the differences found were not as large.
Maccoby and Jacklin (1974) obtained findings indicating that females had less confidence in their abilities across a wide variety of activities, such as achieving good grades in tasks requiring manual dexterity, solving puzzles, and the ability to deal with emergencies. In the past, possibly out of a desire to project stereotyped femininity (Ireson, 1976), females, more than males, tended to predict lower performance for themselves than was warranted by their intelligence (Crandall, Katkovsky, & Preston, 1962), and they presented themselves as dependent and incompetent (Vaught, 1965). Although the results were not uniform (Morrison, White, & Van Velsor, 1987; R. S. Schuler, 1975), typical reports like those of Schwartz and Waetjen (1976) and Hennig and Jardim (1977) concluded that women managers were observed by their own supervisors to be less confident, more conservative, and less likely to take risks than their male counterparts. The lack of confidence in themselves was seen in woman managers’ tendencies to attribute their personal failures to their own lack of ability rather than to luck or to external forces. Despite these findings, Spence, Helmreich, and Stapp (1975) concluded that women’s self-confidence was increasing with the incorporation into their own self-concepts of more stereotyped masculine traits. At the same time, in comparison with men, women appeared to be better able to express their vulnerability and acknowledge instances when they lacked self-confidence (Grant, 1988).
Differences in Moral Values. Another difference between the sexes that is of consequence to leadership is men’s and women’s values, how they develop, and the attitudes associated with them (Gilligan, 1982). For example, public opinion polls always show women, compared with men, as more supportive of peace and less supportive of militarism. Men’s competitiveness shows up in the greater importance they attach to equity and fairness in the allocation of rewards. For women, valuing such equity is weaker than, say, valuing need (Brockner & Adsit, 1986). Consistent with this finding, Gilligan (1982) argued that the sexes differ in moral reasoning. Women focus on care and responsibility, while men are preoccupied with rights and justice. For a total sample of 187 people faced with real-life dilemmas, 92% of the women and 62% of the men were found to show care for others in their reasoning. None of the men ignored justice, while 23% of the women did (Gilligan, 1982). A meta-analysis of moral reasoning by Jafee and Hyde (2000) confirmed that women were slightly more oriented toward caring than men, while men were slightly more oriented toward justice (See Chapter 9).
Women are more concerned with seeing that no one is hurt and that everyone involved in a situation can be accommodated. Men attach more importance to hierarchical relationships; women, to networks and “webs of connection.” Chodorow (1985) added that the separation of self from others is valued more by men, while the connection of self to others is valued more by women. Furthermore, when Powell, Posner, and Schmidt (1984) compared the reported values of 130 male and 130 female managers aged 34 to 45, they obtained results indicating that the women showed more concern for others with respect to ethical issues and religious values. Stamper and Van Dyne (1999) surveyed the organizational citizen behavior of 257 restaurant workers and their supervisors. They found the women to be more loyal, altruistic, and obedient than the men, but no difference appeared in their advocacy participation.
Differences in Power and Using Power. Historically, men have dominated business and government organizations. Even in nonprofit organizations two-thirds of which are based on a paid and unpaid female workforce, men have often dominated the leadership. Women came to the fore as leaders only on such specific national issues as women’s rights and child welfare. At the local level, women concentrated as leaders of nonprofit social service, community, and volunteer organizations. More often, they served in supportive rather than leadership roles (O’Neill, 1994).
The sexes differ systematically in their respective relationships to power and therefore in their emergence as successful and effective leaders (Eagly, 1983; Henley, 1973). Women’s status, relative to men, and their legitimacy as leaders reduce their power to lead, as does their supposed lack of expertise. In the past, male leaders could more readily use power to induce members to conform to group norms without losing favor than could female leaders (Denmark & Diggory, 1966). However, when Ragins (1987, 1991) carefully matched male and female leaders by rank, department, and specialization, she found no difference in the evaluations of the leaders’ effectiveness because of their sex. But she did find strong differences in the evaluations due to the perceived power of the leaders. In reviewing earlier studies on the subject, she noted that similar results had been reported by many other investigators,10 who had controlled power-related variables. Sex differences appeared only when power-related variables could enter the picture.11
Differences in leadership styles between the sexes tend to be significant but small. Irwin (1988) found, in a large sample of U.S. firms, large and small, that female managers used a more participative, interactive style in working with others, while male managers more often tended to employ a more “directive” command and control style. This was to be expected from their known differences in traits and in male-female socialization.
Chapman (1975) reported no sex differences in leadership styles among noncoms to majors in the military or among civilian middle managers. However, differences in leadership style were found in laboratory and assessment studies but not in organizational studies. Bender (1979) inferred from laboratory studies that the leadership process was different with female and male leaders. However, Osborn and Vicars (1976) concluded that in leadership studies similarities rather than differences in style between the sexes appeared most frequently. Rosener (1990) argued that in the past, to advance in management, women had to adopt the masculine style of command and control. But “a second wave of women is making its way to the top, not by adopting the styles that have proved successful for men but by drawing on the skills and attitudes they developed from their shared experience as women” (p. 119). Statham (1987) reported that women managers depended for their leadership more on their social power, nurturing, and relations orientation. Men’s leadership depended more on their personal power, individualism, and task orientation. Jago and Vroom (1982) found, among 483 students and managers, that when queried about what decisions they would make in various circumstances, the women chose to be more participative than the men did. Blanchard and Sargent (1984) obtained parallel results for situational leadership choices. Morrison, White, and Van Velsor (1987) found that female executives did more to personalize their experiences than did male executives. On the other hand, Boulgarides (1984) could find no differences in the personal values or preferred decision making styles of 108 male and 108 female business managers of the same age. Epstein (1991) argued that both men and women tend to describe their own style to match the stereotypes—what the culture says they should be like. Self-descriptions are suspect. Nevertheless, there is now considerable evidence of gender differences, often small, based on others’ ratings. Eagly and Johnson (1990) completed a definitive meta-analysis of male-female comparisons in leadership styles in 329 comparisons, half of which had been published after 1981. No average significant difference was obtained for 269 organizational studies. The role of manager had more effect on style than did differences in sex (Eagly, 1991). However in the aformentioned meta-analysis by Eagly and Johnson, significant results fitting the stereotypical differences in interpersonal style, task orientation, and directive style were found for 43 personal assessment studies and 17 laboratory studies.
Women leaders seem to be more transformational; men, more transactional (Bass, Avolio, & Atwater, 1996). In their transactional styles, women tend to be more humane and more appreciative of situational circumstances when correcting subordinates (Murphy, Eckstat, & Parker, 1995). Rosener (1990) obtained survey results suggesting that her “new wave” of female executives were likely to be more transformational than their male counterparts. Instructors were rated as more transformational as leaders by their female students, than by their male students (Walumbwa & Wu, undated). Another 262 teachers were rated by 101 vocational administrators. The women teachers were seen as more transformational (Daughtry, 1997). A small overall effect favoring women was found between male and female leaders in a meta-analysis by Van Engen and Willemsen (2004) of leadership studies between 1987 and 2000. Southwick (1998) reported that a large sample of female managers surveyed with the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) were higher than men on all the transformational leadership scales and on contingent reward (which contains a transformational component). Men were higher than women on all the transactional leadership scales. The same was reported by Bass, Avolio, and Atwater (1996), regardless of whether the subordinate raters were men or women. In subsequent meta-analyses, Eagly and Johanneson-Schmidt (1995, 2001) extended the results to find mean differences indicating that 2,874 women leaders were somewhat more transformational and less transactional and less laissez-faire than their 6,126 male counterparts. Female leaders were more transformational than male leaders and also practiced more contingent reward. Male leaders were more likely to be transactional and laissez-faire in style (Eagly, 2002; Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2002). However, Yammarino, Dubinsky, Comer, et al. (1997) established with WABA analysis that the transformational or contingent style of each woman’s leadership varied from one individual follower to another and was not generalizable to her group of followers as a whole. Consistent with Southwick and with Bass, Avolio and Atwater (1996), Carless (1998) found for Australian managers, in an Australian experiment, that males acting as supervisors were more likely than females to use transactional messages of correction when faced with supposedly poorly performing subordinates.
In 1984, I observed in workshops for business and public agency managers in New Zealand and the United States that the MLQ subscale scores of charismatic leadership were higher among women than men. This was consistent with Grove’s (2003) finding that women leaders were higher in charisma on Conger and Kanungo’s (CK) scale. Telephone interviews of more than 100 state and national elected officials and legislators ascertained that the women were more transformational but they also rated themselves higher in active managing by exception, which the men practiced more passively (Bass & Harding, 1999). Tucker (1994) obtained similar results for 430 of the 1,517 women serving in U.S. state legislatures in 1993–1994.
A total of 120 junior and middle-level Australian female branch bank managers were rated on various instruments as more transformational than their 184 male peers by both their 32 superiors and their 588 subordinates. The differences appeared to center mainly around individualized consideration from the MLQ, enabling others to act and encouraging the heart from the LPI, and from interpersonal leadership responses to the Global Transformational Leadership Scale (GTL) (Carless, 1995). Thirty-one male hall directors were rated significantly higher in intellectual stimulation than their women peers, but the other expected scale differences for MLQ scores in transformational and transactional differences were too small to be significant (Komives, 1991). Instructors were rated as more transformational leaders by their female but not their male students (Walumbwa & Wu, undated). Again, 262 teachers were rated by 101 vocational administrators. The women teachers were seen as more transformational (Daughtry, 1997). At a New Zealand polytech, 153 students used the MLQ and the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (SRI) to describe a leader “of whom they had vivid recollections.” Business, social, sports and other leaders’ SRI ratings in femininity correlated significantly higher with MLQ consideration (.56) and charisma (.57) than with SRI masculinity (.22 versus .43), and significantly lower (.29 versus .46) with MLQ intellectual stimulation (.29 versus .46).
Relations versus Task Style. Women leaders tend to be higher in concern for interpersonal relationships; male leaders, for task achievement. Such was the case for the just-mentioned hall directors (Komives, 1991). Likewise, an Eagley and Johnson (1990) meta-analysis indicated that male leaders were more task-oriented than women leaders. Also, women leaders were more concerned about relationships, but only in laboratory and assessment studies. No such differences appeared in organizational studies. In some samples but not others, Petty and Bruning (1980) reported, female supervisors displayed more consideration than male supervisors. Bowes-Sperry, Veiga, and Yanouzas (1997) found that women managers more than male peers tended to respond with understanding when employees sought help. Male managers did more evaluating, but both males and females relied more on evaluating for helping. With reference to emerging leadership, Deaux (1976b) suggested that women were more likely to seek interpersonal success, in contrast to men’s greater concern for being successful in the task. Similarly, Eskilson and Wiley (1976) reported that women attempted to create a more positive group affect than did men. In allocating resources, Vinacke (1969) inferred that women focus more on maintaining harmony, whereas men concentrate on the quality of individual performance.
Preferences in Ideal Leaders. In a survey by Denmark and Diggory (1966), sorority leaders were likely to be described as displaying less authoritarian behavior than fraternity leaders. Consistent with this finding, school-teachers described female principals as exhibiting less coercive behavior than male principals (Kappelman, 1981). On the other hand, when a much broader set of studies was considered in Eagley and Johnson’s (1990) meta-analysis, women leaders were found to be more participative and democratic, men more directive and autocratic. In a study by Rosenfeld and Fowler (1976), some differences emerged among the self-described scores for “ideal democratic leader” of 89 men and 89 women. But the results for preferred ideal autocratic leaders were the same for both groups. Women emphasized being helpful, affectionate, nurturing, and open-minded, and accepting blame; men emphasized being mature, forceful, competent, moral, utilitarian, and analytical, and valuing people.
Administrative Styles. Morsink (1966) found that when female principals were described by both male and female staff members, they were significantly higher on Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ-XII) factors than male principals were in representing their people, persuasiveness, emphasis on production, predictive accuracy, integration of the group, and influence with superiors. Kappelman (1981) obtained similar results in another survey of male and female principals. Millard (1981) obtained results indicating that 38 female managers, compared to a matched sample of male managers, in a large government agency, were described by subordinates as scoring higher on production and orientation toward superiors but lower on tolerance for freedom and uncertainty. Sleeth and Humphreys (undated) found differences between 122 men and 122 women students at a large urban university in self-descriptions of their leadership behavior, as scored on the LBDQ and Hersey and Blanchard’s (1977) Leader Effectiveness and Adaptability Description (LEAD), as well as their self-descriptions of assertiveness and endorsement of the work ethic. The women reported themselves as slightly higher in consideration and the men reported themselves as higher in task than relations orientation. Similarly, more consideration than initiation of structure was seen in the self-descriptions of 51 first-and second-level women supervisors (DiMarco & Whitsitt, 1975).
Involvement. Eskilson (1975) reported that the women who emerged as leaders of three-person laboratory groups showed more intensive involvement with the task than did the men who emerged as leaders. Similar results appeared for coalition-forming in a competitive, high-risk game (Lirtzman & Wahba, 1972). The female executives were thought to be more concerned than their male counterparts about achieving organizational goals and following rules and policies (Hyman, 1980), but the male executives were more comfortable with intellectual authority (Morrison, White, & Van Velsor, 1987). Bass (1985a) reported that women managers display less management by exception than their male counterparts. This may point to women’s greater tendency to be involved in their subordinates’ activities. Associated with this tendency may be the different ways in which female and male supervisors appear to view poor performance by their subordinates. In a laboratory simulation of a work-place, Dobbins (1985) found that women supervisors were more supportive in their leadership if the subordinates were women. Male supervisors were supportive only if they had inferred that the cause of the poor performance was stable and due to causes beyond the subordinate’s personal control. They thought that close monitoring of a poorly performing subordinate was more appropriate if the subordinate was lazy and incompetent.
The preceding studies found some tendencies for women leaders to be more relations-oriented and involved than their male counterparts. However, a large array of evidence has failed to establish any consistent differences. Many male managers are caring and considerate; many female managers are controlling and autocratic. Management training now “preaches the importance of nurturing, cooperation, and consensus” (McKee, 1992, p. 5).
Girls and women do differ from boys and men on many attributes. These attributes may be associated with one’s emergence as a leader. But the differences between the sexes blur if one contrasts women and men who have already achieved status as leaders. Once they are legitimated as leaders, the preponderance of research suggests that women actually do not behave much differently from men in the same kind of positions. Most often, reviews and analyses of both field and laboratory studies have concluded that few or no effects of sex on leadership style were obtained, whether the leaders were describing themselves or being described by their subordinates.12 Thus among 100 male and 100 female executives at the same middle-management level in federal agencies, Muldrow and Bayton (1979) found no differences in the handling of six personnel decisions, although the women described themselves as less likely to take risks. And Carpeno (1976) found no differences due to sex on the Leadership Opinion Questionnaire. Sonnenfeld (1995) found little significant difference in the behaviors of 220 male and 30 female CEOs described by an average of six members of their management teams. Southwick (1998) reported no gender differences in perceptions of transformational or transactional leadership when MLQ ratings were obtained from leaders’ supervisors, although these differences had been found in subordinates’ ratings of the same leaders.
Michener and Schwertfeger (1972) reported no differences between men’s and women’s preference for the use of coercive power or for withdrawing from a situation, although men, if they were liked, were more likely to be persuasive. In a study of a simulated work setting, Baker, DiMarco, and Scott (1975) obtained no significant differences between the way men and women allocated rewards or penalties. In a longitudinal field study, Szilagyi (1980a) failed to discern any differences in men’s or women leaders’ administration of rewards or punishments, according to their subordinates of both sexes. Likewise, Butterfield and Powell (1981) obtained no differences in the ratings of the styles of male and female managers. Osborn and Vicars (1976) also found no sex differences in initiation of structure or the amount of consideration of supervisors, according to their subordinates in men’s residences. Similarly, Thomas (1982) reported no differences in the supervisory orientations of 252 male and 285 female business students or in the students’ responses on in-basket tests. No sex differences in preferred solutions to the LEAD situational leadership questionnaire appeared among the male and female management students. Also, Birdsall (1980) reported that both men and women managers used the same masculine communication style.
Androgyny. According to Murphy, Eckstat, and Parker (1995), women leaders are no longer adopting a completely masculine orientation as in the past but are using a feminine or, better yet, androgynous orientation. They can be both nurturing and task-oriented; as was advised 44 years ago by Blake and Mouton (1964): to be the best, managers must have strong concern for performance and concern for people. Both male and female leaders are adopting androgyneous approaches, reducing the differences in style between them (Ballard-Reich & Elton, 1992). Androgynous leaders use masculine styles in some situations and feminine styles in other situations (Vonk & Ashmore, 1993). They integrate rather than polarize the masculine and feminine styles (Park, 1997). Androgynous women leaders rated themselves higher than did their peers, which male leaders were less prone to do (Gurman & Long, 1993). However, women leaders are more likely to adopt androgynous styles accompanied by more flexibility in response to different situations. Male managers still tend to concentrate more on performance and less on people (Stern, Dietz, & Kalof, 1993). And for 1979 and 1989 samples of undergraduate and graduate business students, the good manager was still being described as masculine rather than androgynous (Powell & Butterfield, 1989). Nevertheless, it is the androgynous leader—both task-and relations-oriented—who tends to be the most effective (see below).
When women rather than men are placed in supervisory and leadership roles, how well are they accepted and followed by their subordinates? How meritorious is their performance, as appraised by their superiors? How good is the performance of the groups they lead? How satisfied are their subordinates? Does the sex of the leader make a difference in whether the group attains its objectives and satisfies its needs? Are the productivity and satisfaction of the group affected by the sex of the leader? Rice, Bender, and Vitters (1980) commented that these questions are complicated when answers depend on subjective ratings that may reflect sex bias. However, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the organizational requirements for more consensus and cooperation and less “command and control” styles of leadership, more common among women, are giving them greater success and effectiveness. This is despite the fact that women in the same leadership roles as men often tend to be less valued (Adams & Yoder, 1985). Powell (1993) concluded from a review that although there were differences in traits and styles of men and women leaders, the differences disappeared when one examines the effectiveness of their actual performance. In all, the evidence is mixed. Some studies show that groups and organizations do better with female leaders; some studies show that groups and organizations do better with male leaders; and still others find no differences due to the sex of the leader. In the aggregate, meta-analyses give a slight edge to the women. Ballard (1992) concurs that overall, women make better managers. Whether or not women managers are accepted as role models by their subordinates depends much more on their effectiveness than their sex, according to a survey of 1,579 Canadian public senior managers (Javidan, Bemmels, Devine, et al., 1995).
Contrary to what they had hypothesized, Eskilson and Wiley (1976) found, in a study with 144 undergraduates, that groups led by females were more productive than those led by males. And from a review of the literature between 1979 and 1984, Smith (1986) concluded that on creative tasks, groups led by women outperformed groups led by men. Bass and Avolio (1994) confirmed the slightly greater effectiveness of women manager, saying it could be attributed to their being more transformational than their male counterparts. The results were the same for ratings from both male and female subordinates. According to Zimmerman-Treichel, Dunlap-Hinkler, and Wash ington (2003), firms were more effective when women served on boards of directors and in senior management.
Irwin (1998) inferred from the profiling of 360-degree ratings from a large sample of managers from Fortune 100 corporations and small businesses that women managers were somewhat more effective. Women were stronger on such performance factors as communicating, planning, controlling, leading, problem solving, and managing relationships.
Park (1996) agreed (as was noted in earlier chapters) that the best leaders tend to be both task-and relations-oriented. The blending of the more masculine task orientation and the more feminine relations orientation by both men and women may make for the most effective leadership style. Thus the “one-minute manager” was seen as androgynous by Blanchard and Sargent (1984). Kaplan and Sedney (1980) suggested that an androgynous style allowed for broader, more flexible leadership. Women managers’ leadership styles reveal more willingness to consider circumstances when rewarding or correcting subordinates.
Several studies pointed to the negative effects of women in leadership posts. Baril, Elbert, Mahar-Potter, et al. (1989) found, contrary to the above, that for 65 first-line supervisors administered the Bem Sex-Role Inventory, the androgynous supervisors were rated least effective by their superiors. Their successful women supervisors were rated higher in masculinity. In an employee attitude survey, Hansen (1974) found that women supervisors had less impact than men supervisors on the climate of their departments, as evidenced by the correlations between supervisors’ attitudes and ratings of the groups’ climate. Roussel (1974) examined the effects of the sex of 40 department heads on teachers’ ratings of the departmental climate in 10 high schools. Departments headed by men were rated higher in esprit and intimacy; departments headed by women were rated higher in hindrances. Atwater, Carey, and Waldman (2001) interviewed 163 subordinates about their supervisors’ workplace disciplinary behavior. Women supervisors were judged to be less effective in disciplinary actions and less effective overall. Hutchinson, Valentino, and Kirkner (1998) surveyed 91 employees and their leaders. Employees’ commitment to the organization was higher if their male, but not their female, supervisor was high in consideration and initiating structure.
Yerby (1975) assigned 192 male and female undergraduates to small problem-solving groups according to their positive or negative attitudes toward female leaders. All groups were led by women. The groups’ performance correlated with the attitudes of their members toward females as leaders. Such attitudes also resulted in the lower group morale of male subordinates under female leaders. Rice, Bender, and Vitters (1980) completed a laboratory study of 288 West Point cadets assigned to 724-person groups led by females and males with all subordinate roles filled by males. They found that groups with male leaders did better on two assigned tasks than groups led by females. When 312 Israeli soldiers rated 82 unit leaders, satisfaction was lowest in units led by women (Gavrieli, 2003).
Bartol (1978) concluded, in a review of the results of laboratory studies, that in general the sex of the leader was not a consistent factor in determining a group’s productivity. Nor, according to Larwood, Wood, and Inderlied (1978), did the effectiveness of the performance of managers in field studies appear to be associated consistently with their sex. B. A. Hall (1975) reported no difference in the effectiveness of the assertiveness training of women as a function of the sex of the group leader.
Ross, Davidson, and Graham (1985) reported that 165 women who worked for a major domestic airline scored higher in their performance at centers to assess their management and leadership potential than 215 men did. These results were attributed to the relatively bias-free situation.
Men came to the fore more often as leaders than women of initially leaderless groups, according to a meta-analysis of 75 studies by Eagley and Karau (1991). They analyzed mainly college-age samples from four preceding decades of laboratory studies and from few natural studies, with a median size of four members. The mixed-sex groups were composed of an average of 53% males and 47% females. Male leadership was more pronounced if sessions were shorter than 20 minutes, if the tasks were masculine, if the groups were smaller, if the subjects were older, if the studies had been completed years farther back in the past, if general and task measures of leadership were used, and if respondents of both sexes thought men would be more likely than women to lead the groups performing the tasks. Consistent with social role expectations, women led if more social complexity was present and if social measures of leadership were used.
In all-male and all-female groups, members high in in dominance, intelligence, general self-efficacy, and self-monitoring tended to emerge as leaders (Foti & Gershenoff, 1999). Masculine and androgynous-gendered individuals more frequently emerged as leaders of small mixed-sex groups, although biological sex was not significant (Kolb, 1997). Some earlier studies pointed to the biological sex difference in emergence between women and men in mixed-sex groups. Women were socialized to hold back from attempting leadership because of sex-role expectations (Eagley, 1983). When paired with men in work dyads, they were less likely to come to the fore as leaders even when they had the strengths to fit the requirements for leadership (Carbonell, 1984). No doubt this difference will disappear with the liberation of women and their efforts to increase assertiveness. For some tasks and for the continuing expectations of participants about the appropriateness of the leadership role for women (Hollander, 1983), men are seen as more likely to attempt leadership or emerge as leaders in mixed-sex circumstances (Eskilson & Wiley, 1976). As noted earlier, even when women are generally more dominant, they have tended to defer to men for leadership (Megargee, 1969). Attempts to lead, as seen in the initiation of structure and the amount of talking, were found by Strodtbeck and Mann (1956), in jury deliberations, to be greater for men. At a Mormon institution, Brigham Young University, Oddou (1983) found that men came to the fore more frequently than women as leaders of mixed-sex work groups. However, at a nonsectarian school, while Kent and Moss (1993) found sex differences in leadership emergence among 122 undergraduates favoring men, they also noted that but men with an androgynous orientation were more likely to emerge as leaders.
Many studies failed to find any differences that could be attributed to gender differences. For instance, Schneler and Bartol (1980) examined sex differences in the appearance of leaders in 52 task groups participating in a personnel administration course over 15-weeks. They found no significant differences when leadership was assessed by sociometric choice or when it was based on observational data from Bales’s interaction process analyses.
The expected conflict between fulfilling the stereotyped role of a woman and fulfilling the role of a manager has already been noted. Yet the satisfaction of subordinates appears to be unrelated to whether supervisors fulfill appropriate sex-role stereotypes (Bartol & Wortman, 1975; Millard, 1981; Osborn & Vicars, 1976). It is difficult to divorce subordinates’ attitudes and expectations about women leaders from the subordinates’ job satisfaction under female or male leaders. Nevertheless, many studies have reported little difference in the job satisfaction of subordinates as a function of the sex of their supervisor.13 For instance, Terborg and Shingledecker (1983) could find no differences about staying in or quitting a job between 331 male and female employees under female supervisors and 132 employees working for male supervisors, except that of all the employees, the male subordinates under male supervisors were the most unclear about how their own performance was evaluated. Adams’s (1976) survey of the 276 subordinates of 18 chain store managers failed to find differences in the subordinates’ satisfaction with supervision that were due to the sex of the managers. But numerous other studies14 have reported a preference for male supervisors, again with other relevant factors affecting the preference. For example, among blue-collar employees surveyed by Haccoun, Haccoun, and Sallay (1978), satisfaction of subordinates was higher with male supervisors.
Confounding Factors. In a study, Goetz and Herman (1976), looked at subordinates of department managers in a large retail store chain and found that employees working for women managers were more satisfied with their supervision than employees working for men. Yet, there the effects of sex could be accounted for mainly by other differences, such as commission versus noncom-mission payment plans and the composition of the work units. In the same way, Osborn and Vicars (1976) reported that the effects of the sex of the supervisor could be explained by other factors. One such factor may be the duration of the leader-subordinate relationship. In a short-term laboratory study, Rice, Bender, and Vitters (1980) showed that male West Point cadets holding traditional attitudes toward women as army officers were less satisfied in their interactions in a short exercise with appointed female leaders than were egalitarian male or female subordinates. But in summer training, an experience of longer duration, the correlation disappeared (Adams, Prince, Instone, & Rice, 1984). In cadet-training programs that lasted six weeks, no consistency in the correlation of these attitudes with satisfaction was obtained, regardless of the sex of the leader or the subordinate (Rice, Instone, & Adams, 1984).
The leader’s influence “upstairs” is another confounding factor. Trempe, Rigny, and Haccoun (1985) demonstrated, from their findings with 197 semiskilled employees, 52% of whom were women, that although the sex of a supervisor was irrelevant to an employee’s satisfaction, the supervisor’s influence with a higher authority was important and male supervisors were seen to have greater influence (Terborg, 1977). Similarly, Taylor and Ilgen (1979) completed a survey of employees with female and male supervisors and could find no difference in the employees’ satisfaction with their supervisors that was associated with sex. But in comparison to employees working under male supervisors, the employees working for female managers thought that their supervisors had less reward power.
Revealed wisdom and early research hinted that even women workers generally preferred male superiors. As White (1981) noted, a 1971 poll of working women showed that they strongly preferred a male rather than female boss. But by the 1980s, studies of college women were suggesting that women preferred women as bosses. The same changes were occurring for preferred opinion leaders. By 1975, men, on most topics, revealed no preferences in selecting opinion leaders on the basis of the leaders’ sex, but women exhibited a distinct preference for women leaders, except on political issues (Richmond & McCroskey, 1975). As shall be seen later, better-educated subordinates had become more favorably inclined toward women as leaders than had less-educated subordinates. But male subordinates’ attitudes toward women superiors have remained less sanguine.
Again, the evidence is mixed. On the one hand, as has already been noted, there is a bias toward men in positions of leadership. Nevertheless, such distortion tends to dissipate with performance appraisals based on intensive observation or extensive experience. Laboratory studies have tended to find no difference in the performance appraisals assigned to men and women (e.g., Gianantonio, Olian, & Carroll, 1995), although such findings have not been uniform. Some have favored women (e.g., Bigoness, 1976); others, men (e.g., Woehr & Roch, 1996).
In field studies, Powell and Butterfield (1994) found that higher evaluations were received by women applicants for executive service in a federal agency. Schwartz and Waetjen (1976) reported that 95 percent of employers of female managers rated their job performance as excellent, very good, or good (probably no different from their leniency-prone ratings of male managers). But according to a review by J. E. Smith (1986), when managers were rated by their peers or superiors, no consistent sex differences appeared. Again, Tsui and Gutek (1984) could find no differences between the sexes in performance appraisals of middle-level managers in a corporation. This finding was confirmed in a meta-analysis by Dobbins and Platz (1986), who felt the search for such differences should be abandoned.
Deaux (1976a) obtained no difference in the rated performance of men and women retail store managers. M. M. Wood (1975, 1976) and Wood and Greenfeld (1976) also found little difference in the rated performance of men and women managers in several field analyses. Likewise, the AT&T assessment center’s predictions of the managerial potential of 1,097 women were similar to those for men. The distribution of the assessors’ ratings for men and women were similar (Ritchie & Moses, 1983). No difference was found in the leadership evaluations of male and female management students using the same style of leadership (Butterfield & Powell, 1981). On the other hand, making use of a professional accounting association, Griffith and Bedeian (1989) found that male supervisors in 464 dyads rated their male subordinates lower than their female subordinates.
Some Differences on Specific Aspects of Performance. In a few studies, women leaders received higher or lower ratings than male leaders on some particular kinds of performance. M. M. Wood (1976) surmised from a survey that male managers tended to rate their female peers more highly in decision making, competence, and ability to handle emotions. Women were seen as bringing a fresh outlook to business problems and as offering useful insights into marketing problems involving female customers. They were regarded as tending to reduce intense feelings of competition among male managers.
Rosen and Jerdee (1973) completed three experiments with in-basket evaluations to examine cross-sex role behavior by women supervisors. Although friendly, helpful leadership was rated as more effective whether the supervisor was male or female, a reward style was evaluated as more effective for male than female supervisors. At the same time, Petty and Lee (1975) obtained results suggesting that consideration by female supervisors is more highly related to the satisfaction of subordinates than the same consideration by male supervisors. Petty and Lee inferred that because more consideration is expected from women, when it fails to materialize, it is more likely to result in subordinates’ dissatisfaction.
In an analysis using 192 male middle managers, R. A. Patterson (1975) found that females received lower ratings than males on evaluations of performance and promotability. As mentioned earlier, male cadets were satisfied to serve under female cadet leaders in summer training. But female cadet leaders at West Point earned lower staff appraisals than male cadet leaders for their performance in summer camp. The performance appraisals of 86 female cadets during summer training, compared to those for a random sample of male cadets, were found by Adams and Hicks (undated) to show that in assigned formal leadership roles, female leaders were rated more poorly in overall performance. Rice, Instone, and Adams (1984) reported these same results for larger samples. The female leaders were rated as having less capacity for increased responsibility, less ability to organize and coordinate the efforts of others, less initiative, forcefulness, and aggressiveness, and less ability to adjust to new or changing situations and stresses than the male leaders.
Same Behavior but Evaluated Differently. Although women leaders may behave in a way similar to their male counterparts and have similar effects on their groups, they are likely to be evaluated differently (Seifert, 1984). Van Nostrand (1993) argued that the culture plays favorites. Men are more privileged and entitled. Women are less favored by higher authority. They are evaluated slightly less favorably, according to a meta-analysis by Eagley, Makhijani, & Klonsky (1992). This occurs especially when the women are autocratic, directive, and stereotypically masculine when they occupy masculine-dominated roles, and when the evaluators are men. But an earlier meta-analysis by Dobbins and Platz (1986) of studies comparing male and female leaders on the LBDQ measures of initiation and consideration did not reveal significant mean effects owing to sex differences. Findings by Ziegert and Hanges (2002) suggested that stereotyped attitudes affect what happens, whether they are measured implicity or explicitly and regardless of efforts to statistically control the attitudes.
Differences in sex moderated the evaluation of the same expressive emotional leadership behavior in a laboratory study by Sherony (2003). Men’s emotional expressiveness received higher ratings than women in positive, creative, and task situations, and lower ratings in negative situations; but Ashkanasy and Newcombe (2001) found otherwise. Women leaders on videotape received lower evaluations than men after being viewed giving the same negative feedback with negative affect.
Wheelan (1975) reported that for 72 female and 72 male undergraduates, women were ranked lower than men in leadership in mixed-sex, six-person groups, despite the women’s greater participation, ordinarily predictive of leadership. In the same way, subordinates may be less satisfied with women supervisors who display the same styles as male supervisors (Petty & Lee, 1975; Rosen & Jerdee, 1973). Hansen (1974) could find no significant differences in support or goal facilitation by supervisors that were associated with the women’s gender; nevertheless, subordinates of both sexes were more dissatisfied if their supervisor was a woman. This finding may have been due to the reports by women supervisors themselves that they had less autonomy or, as was found in other studies, that as women supervisors they had less influence with higher authority (South, Bonjean, Corder, & Markham, 1982). Subordinates may also favor male managers because male managers are generally more experienced (Liden, 1985). In all, one is forced to conclude, as did Denmark (1977), that in a majority of cases, differences between male and female leaders are more a matter of stereotyped expectations than actual fact.
One reason for the perceptions of the differences between the leadership of men versus women in the absence of actual differences in behavior between the sexes was demonstrated by Ceis, Boston, and Hoffman (1985). These researchers contrasted how viewing all-male and all-female authority role models in television commercials affected the subsequent leadership performance and leadership evaluations of 276 undergraduates in four-person mixed-sex discussions. The men and women performed equally as leaders in the discussion, but their equal performance was recognized only by those subjected to the all-female TV authority figures. Those who viewed the all-male authority figures recognized only the males as leaders in their own discussions.
As noted before, females who were perceived to be directive were negatively evaluated, while males perceived to be directive received positive evaluations (Jago & Vroom, 1982). Again, illustrating the difference in evaluations, Denmark (1980) contrasted the reaction of 384 students to a hypothetical male or female professor who had written an outspoken or a conciliatory letter in response to a suggestion made at a faculty meeting. Although the conciliatory style was favored by the students, the conciliatory female professor was rated as less of a leader, less interesting, less sophisticated, less strong, and less fair than her male counterpart. The outspoken woman professor was particularly downgraded by the female students. In the same way, Moore (1984) found that in evaluations of performance, masculine behaviors (ambition, self-reliance, independence, and assertiveness) were valued more highly than feminine behaviors (affection, gentleness, and understanding), especially in female high performers.
Different Reasons Applied. There are also differential attributions for why men and women succeed or fail. A man’s success is more likely to be attributed to ability, but a woman’s success is attributed to hard work, good luck, or an easy task (Deaux & Emswiller, 1974). Conversely, a woman’s failure will be attributed to her lack of ability, but a man’s failure will be attributed to bad luck, task difficulty, or lack of effort (Cash, Gillen, & Burns, 1977; Feather & Simon, 1975). Forsyth and Forsyth (1984) used female confederates as leaders who behaved either in a task-oriented or interpersonally concerned way in mixed-sex groups. When the group was successful with a female leader, both the leader and the male subordinates attributed the success to luck. With a male leader, the group attributed the success to the leader’s ability.
The attributions for the successful and unsuccessful leadership of women by men are related to men’s attitude toward women as managers. For 143 male participants who evaluated a scenario of the performance of a woman manager, those with more favorable attitudes toward women as managers were more likely to attribute success to the woman’s ability and effort rather than to luck or the value of the job. With such favorable attitudes, they were less likely to attribute failure to the woman’s lack of ability or effort (Garland & Price, 1977; Stevens & DeNisi, 1980).
Other Distorting Factors. As noted earlier, men are more likely to explain a woman’s success as a leader as due to her sex rather than to her job-relevant competencies if she is in a solo position (Lockheed, 1975). Devaluations of a woman’s successful performance are also more likely if the job appears to be inappropriate for women or the outcome of the work effort is ambiguous.
When 96 experienced managers were asked by Wiley and Eskilson (1982) to evaluate the performance of a hypothetical male or female supervisor who used his or her expert or reward power to influence a subordinate successfully, the managers evaluated the male supervisor more favorably when he employed expert rather than reward power. But the female supervisor was evaluated more favorably when she used her reward-based power. The investigators thought these results were due possibly to the greater credibility of men as experts.
Evaluations come closer to reality when work objectives are clear and the job fits sex-appropriate stereotypes. For example, evaluations are closer to reality for female nursing administrators than for female engineering supervisors. Discrimination disappears if objective reasons for success are available (Riger & Galligan, 1980). In fact, with equally high levels of objective performance by men and women, participants explicitly evaluated women more favorably than they did men in overreaction to women’s unexpected success (Bigoness, 1976). Distortions favoring the woman leader were seen by Jacobson and Effertz (1974) in subordinates’ and peers’ evaluations of leadership performance. They found that women leaders in experimental small groups were judged less harshly than male leaders when performance levels did not meet the groups’ expectations. And unexpected success by a woman was seen as deserving more praise than the same unexpected success by a man (Taynor & Deaux, 1973).
Despite their claims to the contrary, both male and female owners did not manage their small businesses using a masculine or femininine style. They actually practiced both styles. The results seen in a Canadian study by Cliff, Langton, and Aldrich (2003) of 229 small businesses depended on what the owners did rather than what they said.
After a review of the available evidence, Chapman and Luthans (1975) concluded that sex differences in leadership depended on the group and the situation involved. For instance, in a survey of 1,137 employees in three organizations, compared to men, the women preferred consideration from their supervisors. Nevertheless, both men and women with more education and tenure preferred less structuring from their leaders (Vecchio & Boatwight, 2002). Haccoun, Haccoun, and Sallay (1978) found that although nondirective styles were favored for women, the sex of both the supervisor and the subordinate determined the group’s performance. Differences between the sexes in the leadership of men and women occur that may be due partly to other moderating factors, such as differences in men’s and women’s age, education, seniority, experience, level in the organization, and professional training.
Pygmalion Effect. When supervisors, teachers, and leaders are led to believe that their subordinates, students, and followers are highly competent, improved performance results, according to experimental research on the “Pygmalion effect” (Eden, 1993). But the Pygmalion effect appears to work better for men than women, as seen in a meta-analysis of 19 studies (McNutt, 2000). Successful induction of the Pygmalion effect occurs when leaders’ low expectations of subordinates are raised to high expectations.15 Lees-Hotton and Syantek (2002) reported inducing the Pygmalion effect with women, although most other attempts with women have failed. Followers of control leaders who don’t change their low expectations perform poorly compared to those for whom there are natural or induced expectations of better performance. The controls are an illustration of the “golem effect,” in which leaders with low expectations generate or maintain poor follower performance (Eden & Davidson, 1997).
Success of the Leader of the Same or Opposite Sex of Followers. Whether the subordinate and the leader are of the same or opposite sex affects the leader’s likelihood of success. Thus in trios, female leaders were least likely to succeed when the other two members were men; they were most likely to succeed when the other two members were women (Eskilson, 1975). Consistent with these results, Aries (1976) observed that males displayed more leadership than females in mixed groups of males and females than in same-sex situations. Likewise, Megargee, Bogart, and Anderson (1966) examined various combinations of dominant and submissive men and women in two experimental tasks. Dominant men paired with submissive men and women, and dominant women paired with submissive women tended to appoint themselves as leaders. But dominant women paired with submissive men tended to appoint the men as leaders. The dominant women avoided attempting to lead male partners. Among 144 undergraduates in 48 trios, Eskilson and Wiley (1976) observed that although typical sex-role expectations resulted in male leaders receiving more requests for direction, both sexes addressed more directive behavior toward groups of their own sex.
As was noted early in the chapter, the placement of women in leadership positions over men generates status-reversal conflict, particularly for men with traditional attitudes toward the role of women. The consequence is a negative impact on the men’s performance (Yerby, 1975). Early on, Whyte (1949) described such a status reversal in restaurants in which waitresses gave orders to counter men. Although the counter men accepted such orders, they did so with resentment and hostility. Despite the continuing stereotypes, it is expected that greater acceptance of women as leaders has occurred since these studies were completed. Yet men who work for women may still feel a greater reluctance to disclose difficulties because they want to protect their own feelings of superior status and not be seen as lacking strength. Zammuto, London, and Rowland (1979) studied how resident advisory assistants in dormitories dealt with their supervisors as a consequence of whether the assistants and the supervisors were men or women. Both female and male assistants were less likely to withdraw when they were in conflict with female rather than male supervisors. Also, highly committed male assistants were more likely to try to smooth over differences, to compromise, or to confront their female supervisors.
But contrary to expectations, Frantzve (1979) failed to find much effect on whether males or females emerged as leaders in initially leaderless groups when she systematically varied the number of females from one to six in six-person groups. Opposite results were found in the field studies of West Point cadets by Rice, Instone, and Adams (1984). Similarly, Lonetto and Williams (1974) found that regardless of the sex of the group, the same personal factors, such as a member’s intelligence and self-orientation, were related to the men’s and women’s emergence as leaders for 31 males and 31 females in three-person undergraduate groups. In the same way, Kanter (1977b) noted that when all-male and all-female groups were given a specific assignment, the interactional patterns and leadership styles within each group were similar. Likewise, in a group of experienced managers, Gaudreau (1975) could find no differences in leaders’ competencies associated with their sex. But compared to male cadet subordinates under male or female cadet leaders, female cadet subordinates under female cadet leaders generally described their leaders less favorably. They attributed greater influence to hard work by subordinates and less to the leaders’ skill.
Effectiveness of the Leader of the Same or Opposite Sex. Eisman (1975) found that in marathon encounter groups of one sex or the other, in which a goal is to promote self-disclosure for therapeutic purposes, more such disclosure occurred when groups were led by a person of the opposite rather than the same sex. But most studies that dealt with short-term, less emotionally involved performances found the contrary to be true: same-sex supervision was better. Females supervised by a woman rather than a man performed better on mechanical tasks (Larwood, O’Carroll, & Logan, 1977), standard mathematics tests (Pheterson, Goldberg, & Keisler, 1971), and mathematical word problems (Hoffman & Maier, 1967). Groups with same-sex leaders were reported by Bullard and Cook (1975) to develop a better group atmosphere than groups led by opposite-sex leaders. However, no differences in productivity were found.
Attitudes toward the Leader by the Same or Opposite Sex. Subordinates’ sex and other personal characteristics moderate the difference in the attitudes of subordinates toward female or male supervisors. Subordinates’ attitudes are a complex interaction of the sex composition of the subordinate groups and the leader’s sex (Yerby, 1975). Male subordinates looked less favorably on their women superiors than did women subordinates (Jacobson, Antonelli, Winning, et al., 1977). Subordinates received better performance ratings and were better liked in same-sex leader-subordinate dyads than in opposite-sex dyads (Tsui and O’Reilly, 1989). Compared with men, women were more favorably disposed toward women managers (Stevens & DeNisi, 1980). Male midshipmen subordinates led by women rated their leaders slightly lower than male leaders. The women subordinates evaluated their leaders equally whether their leaders were male or female (Atwater & Roush, 1994). But in another military school study, female cadets reacted more favorably to female cadet leaders (Larwood, Glasser, & McDonald, 1980). In all, according to Helland, Barksdale, and Peat (2005), women have an advantage in subordinates’ and peer ratings, but not in self-, supervisor or assessment center ratings of leadership.
In their laboratory study of 72 teams of male cadets led by males or females, Rice, Bender, and Vitters (1980) found that the male subordinates with traditional attitudes toward women were lower in overall team morale when led by women. When led by women, traditionalists attributed their groups’ success more to luck and less to the leaders’ shared work. For subordinates with liberal attitudes, the leaders’ sex did not matter as much. Nevertheless, male subordinates, as a whole, thought that women leaders contributed more to the group’s performance but that the expert ability of male leaders was more important to their own individual performance. In agreement, Garland and Price (1977) found that men with favorable views toward women managers attributed the managers’ success to factors such as ability and effort and avoided attributions of success to luck and the difficulty of the task. These attributions differed from those of more traditional men that women succeed because of good luck, easy tasks, or extra effort (Deaux & Ernswiller, 1974). They subscribed to the stereotype that men with masculine characteristics make better managers. But women looked on successful managers as having both masculine and feminine characteristics (Brenner, Tomkiewicz & Schein, 1989).
Vecchio and Bullis (2002) examined the appraisal by U.S. Army officers of their satisfaction with their 2,883 supervising U.S. Army officers. Satisfaction with one’s supervisor generally decreased over time. The largest decrease occurred for women supervised by women. The most consistently satisfied were men supervised by men. Petty and Lee (1975) found that male subordinates of female supervisors rated their supervisors as lower in consideration and higher in initiating structure than did female subordinates of female supervisors or subordinates of either sex of male supervisors. But it is not known whether the ratings reflected the actual differences in the behavior of the female supervisors toward female and male subordinates or differences in the way subordinates perceived the same behavior by female and male supervisors. The male subordinates with female supervisors felt less satisfied with their work and with their supervisors. Since women are expected to exhibit more consideration, and generally do, Petty and Lee suggested that when female supervisors display a lack of consideration, their inconsiderate behavior has more of an effect on their subordinates’ dissatisfaction than similar inconsiderate behavior by a male supervisor.
Differential Effects of Leaders’ Behavior. Petty and Lee (1975) reported the tendency for male subordinates to be more dissatisfied with female supervisors who were high in initiation of structure and to be more satisfied when both male and particularly female supervisors were more considerate. Petty and Miles (1976) noted that considerate leadership behavior by female supervisors of social service agencies (as well as initiation of structure by male supervisors) was most conductive to the subordinates’ satisfaction with supervision. But when larger samples were employed, Bowman, Worthy, and Greyser (1965) found that among 2,000 active executives, 86% of the men and 77% of the women reported that men were uncomfortable working for women executives. Consistent with what was reported earlier about stereotypes of women’s lack of leadership potential (Bass, Krusell, & Alexander, 1971), 41% of the men were unfavorable toward women as managers; women respondents were less unfavorable.
Effects of Marriage. Career women executives are more likely to be divorced or never married. A national sample of male managers and executives in 1975 revealed negative expectations about married women executives. They felt that married women could not handle the responsibilities of both home and career (Rosen, Jerdee, & Prestwich, 1975). On the basis of field research using participant observations, S. S. Mayes (1979) concluded that women in authority elicited hostility and dependence in men. Men resist the changes in sex-role behavior involved in promoting women to positions of authority over them. The men fear such change will destroy the traditional norms of family and relations between the spouses. Few men talk openly about such hostility, but they continue to harbor much resentment. “Behind every woman manager is a man who thinks she got the job only because she’s a woman” (Wessel, 1986, p. 20D). When competing for a job, it is difficult for a man to accept defeat on the basis of qualifications; it is easier for him to blame the woman’s success on affirmative action. (Attitudes and expectations may have changed in the last 20–plus years.)
Effects of Subordinates’ Age and Education. Often women have been found to prefer working for a man (Ferber, Huber, & Spitze, 1979; Robic, 1973). However, women with higher levels of education were more favorable toward women managers. And younger college women indicated they were looking forward to working for a woman (Koff, 1973; Terborg, Peters, Ilgen, & Smith, 1977). Undergraduate women appeared to be more favorable toward working for women leaders than male students, who were slower to change their outlook (Welsh, 1979). Wheeless and Berryman-Fink (1985) suggested that, compared to male respondents, female respondents perceive female managers as more competent communicators, regardless of their previous experience in working for a woman manager. Yet Hollander and Neider (1978) found that women, but not men, generated more negative critical incidents about female leaders. When Petty, Odewahn, Bruning, and Thomason (1976) employed larger samples, they found that, regardless of the sex of the supervisor or the subordinates, the subordinates’ satisfaction with supervision was positively correlated with all leadership behaviors except emphasis on production. Similarly, Bartol (1974), in a study of 100 undergraduates in 24 same-sex and mixed-sex teams of four members playing a business game, failed to find that dominant (counter-stereotype) women had a detrimental effect on the subordinates’ satisfaction. Again, Fallon and Hollander (1976) reported no difference in the satisfaction of undergraduate males and females with their elected male and female leaders of mixed-sex groups. But the male leaders were seen by both male and female members as more influential and better able to deal with tasks.
According to social role theory, people are expected to pursue activities that are congruent with their culturally defined gender roles (Eagley, 1987). Hollander and Yoder (1980) pointed out that some tasks, such as mechanical construction, are seen as masculine, while others, such as child care, are seen as feminine. Men are more likely to take the lead in dealing with stereotypically masculine tasks, and women are likely to do so with feminine ones. In the latter case, women who ordinarily might not accept leadership roles will think it is legitimate to do so when dealing with a task that is relevant to them.
Congeniality of Tasks and Sex Roles. Since leadership in a mixed-sex group is less customary for women, women may be more sensitive to the need to be competent in dealing with the task (Eskilson & Wiley, 1976). Beckman (1984) found that with married couples, in general, it was the wife who tended to dominate the decision processes about fertility and contraception. However, interviews with 376 Egyptian villagers indicated that it was the husband who dominated the basically economic decision for the family to migrate to better employment opportunities (McDevitt & Gadalla, 1985–1986).
Similarly, Bass (1965a) reported in an experiment that directive and persuasive wives were more acceptable as leaders in working with their husbands on a task that dealt with household issues. At the same time, they were unacceptable as directive and persuasive leaders if the task involved issues within the organization in which the husband worked. Carbonell (1984) demonstrated that females with leadership ability were less likely to display leadership in interactions with males when they were dealing with masculine tasks. Musham (1980) found that women, in general, and men whose role preferences were androgynous were more likely to emerge as leaders if the tasks were socioemotional. Men, in general, and androgynous women emerged as leaders when task-oriented leadership was required. The intention of female and male Japanese university students to lead in a laboratory situation depended on whether the task was customary for their sex—feminine (doing embroidery) or masculine (making frequent decisions in an adventure computer game) (Sakata & Kurokawa, 1992). For a meta-analysis to show the effects of task-sex congeniality to effective leadership, Eagley, Makhijani, and Karau (1992) asked 306 undergraduates to rate 119 leadership roles for congeniality to men or women. A leadership task congenial to men was coaching a football team; a leadership task congenial to women was editing a women’s fashion magazine. Gender match with sex role affected leaders’ effectiveness. The meta-analysis of 56 organizational and 20 laboratory comparisons found that men were more effective in “masculine” leadership tasks; women were more effective in “feminine” leadership tasks.
“Doctor Asserts Women Are Unfit for Top Jobs” was a headline on July 26, 1970, in The New York Times. Dr. Edgar Berman declared that “raging hormonal influences” of the menstrual cycle as well as menopause disqualified women for key executive jobs because they had the potential to disrupt crucial decisions. Some selection committees might still be influenced by such considerations. But according to a review by Vecchio (2002) of leadership research on sex differences, the claims of women being less successful leaders and the weaker sex have been seriously overstated. Their role as mothers is more influential than the father’s role, according to a Gallup poll. While 53% of Americans said their mother had more influence on their life growing up, only 28% chose their father. The relationship with the mother was very positive for 75%, less so with the father. Klein (2000) notes that the advent of the information technology of the Internet and computer communications has leveled the playing field, increasing the opportunities for women’s advancement in management. “Old-boy” networks are less important for information, and virtuality has increased in decision making when awareness of the sex of other members may be obscured.
Lyness and Schrader (2002) compared announcements in 1998 in The Wall Street Journal of the appointments of men and women to senior management positions; women received 6% of the appointments. They were severely underrepresented in appointments to top management in business and industry but not in federal government administration. (Powell and Butterfield [1994] studied promotion decisions for senior executive service positions in the U.S. federal government and found that being a woman was advantageous.)
In business and industry, staff women, compared to men, were more likely to be appointed to new staff rather than line positions and to remain at the same management level with no increase in job scope. Stroh, Brett, and Reilly (1992) looked at the career advancement of 795 male and 223 female managers in 20 Fortune 500 firms. The women lagged behind the men in the progression of their salaries and job promotions. The women were comparable with the men in education, industry, contributions to the family, steady employment, and apparent readiness to transfer, but they were actually less geographically mobile. In the same way, Kirchmeyer (1998) found that experience, tenure, career continuity, and professional degree had stronger effects on men’s than women’s management career success. Women had to be better than their male counterparts to be promoted (Baumgardner, Lord, & Maher, 1991). Women’s entry into management was handicapped by male administrators’ tendencies to discriminate against women in personnel decisions involving promotion (Gutek & Stevens, 1979).
Gradually, women are reaching parity with men in middle-management but not higher-level management positions. Except for selected industries such as publishing, cosmetics, and retailing, a “glass ceiling” still keeps women from advancing to top management (Ragins, Townsend, & Mattis, 1998). They have the necessary abilities but may lack the network required (Adler & Izraeli, 1994). To be promoted to senior levels, senior women executives in Fortune 100 firms have to have fewer weaknesses and more strengths than their male peers (Morrison, White, & Van Velsor, 1987).
Ann Hopkins. Her failure to fit the male stereotype of a woman was enough to block her promotion. Ann Hopkins, a successful manager at PriceWaterhouse, was the only woman nominee for promotion into partnership. She had brought into the accounting firm more new business—over $40 million—than any of the other 87 nominees, but she was denied promotion, while 47 of the 87 men were promoted. Her supporters described her as courageous, self-confident, assertive, independent, and outspoken—traits ordinarily seen as important for leadership. But her detractors interpreted the same behavior as being overbearing, arrogant, self-centered, abrasive, and lacking in interpersonal skills. She used profanity. She did not fit the stereotype for a woman. Her behavior was interpreted differently “because she (was) a woman and leadership is a (cognitive) categorization less likely to be applied to women” (Lord & Maher, 1991, p. 5).
Such discriminatory practices have been justified on the basis of women’s higher absenteeism and turnover and their lack of geographic mobility, particularly if they are married or have children (Robie, 1973). Absenteeism and turnover rates of women used to be far higher than those of men at all age levels (U.S. Department of Labor, 1977), often as a consequence of child care problems and their husbands’ relocation. In the movement to upgrade women at work, it has been especially important to provide adequate day care for their children, more challenging jobs, and the opportunity for individual women to decide about relocation instead of being treated as a class who follow in the wake of their husbands’ career moves.
A Glass Ceiling Commission was created by the U.S. Congress as an amendment to the 1991 Civil Rights Act. In a 1992 BusinessWeek interview poll of 400 women executives in corporations with $100 million in annual sales, 56% agreed that a glass ceiling, a point beyond which women never seem to advance, was an obstacle to success in their company (Segal & Zellner, 1992). This was abetted by the unfavorable view that the stock market takes upon the announcement of the appointment of a women CEO, although the negative effect is lessened if the promotion is from within the firm (Lee & James, 2003). The glass ceiling has been pervasive in U.S. corporations, according to a 1990 mail survey of executive women and CEOs. In 1995, women accounted for 10% of corporate officers and 2.4% of corporate leadership in Fortune 1000 firms.
The Myth about Quitting. The glass ceiling is costly. Eighty percent of women middle managers reported quitting their organization for another. Many leave to start their own competitive business (Ragins, Townsend, & Mattis, 1998). The revealed wisdom is that women managers voluntarily quit their jobs more readily than men. However, women’s turnover among 26,359 managers in a financial services organization proved to be somewhat lower than the rates for their male counterparts. Also, women promoted in the previous 11 months were less likely to quit than their counterpart promoted men (Lyness & Judiesch, 2001). The early-21st-century economy requires a two-income family. Both spouses in middle-class families must usually remain gainfully employed.
Shattering the Glass Ceiling. To be able to shatter the glass ceiling, it is necessary to understand the barriers to promotion of women to top positions and the strategies of women who succeed in overcoming the barriers. In addition, corporate leaders, male and female, need to understand the barriers and corporate climate, unfavorable to women’s advancement to the top, faced by their female employees. In a survey of male CEOs in 1990, the lack of women in top management was blamed on too few having line experience (82%) and too few women being in the pipeline long enough (64%). Among women executives, only 29% and 47%, respectively, agreed. They saw, as the reasons for the glass ceiling, male stereotyping and preconceptions (52%), exclusion from informal networks (49%), and inhospitable cultures (35%) (Ragins, Townsend, & Mattis, 1998). In a Korn Ferry International survey (1990), half the CEOs saw opportunities for women to advance to senior management as having improved greatly in the preceding five years; but only 23% of the women executives agreed. In a survey of 708 employees, 33% of them women, in a large insurance firm, the scaled perception of six items that a glass ceiling was present correlated .81 with the scaled perception of nine items that men and women employees were treated differently (example: “At our company, men are assumed to be competent, but women must prove their competence”). Perceptions of a glass ceiling correlated .59 with the perceived existence of an old-boys’ network and the importance of having decision makers as friends. However, perceived upward mobility was viewed as aided by the firm’s standard promotion procedures, by mentoring one’s immediate manager, and by special career development programs for women (Elacqua, Beehr, & Curtiss, undated).
“Queen Bees.” Fewer high-level women are available to serve as mentors. Their number is reduced further by “queen bees,” who are uninterested in or unsuited to such mentoring (Riger & Galligan, 1980). Queen bees tend to be antifeminine. They are interested primarily in preserving their unusual high-level status in a world of men (Staines, Tavris, & Jayaratne, 1974).
Mentoring. Fortunately, queen bees do not represent the majority of high-level woman executives, more of whom are supportive of their younger junior women managers (Terborg, Peters, Ilgen, & Smith, 1977). Bowen (1985) compared 18 male with 14 female mentors of female protégés. Although the cross-sex pairing created problems, such as jealousy among spouses, the most salient problem, regardless of the sex of the mentor, was the resentment of coworkers.16 Women indicated that they needed more help than men to rise in the organization (Van Velsor, 1987). Men, who occupy most of the higher-level positions, are thought to be less willing to serve as mentors for young women managers. Nevertheless, women reported having received more help from mentors than their male manager counterparts did, according to Shapiro’s (1985) survey of 75 middle and senior male managers and 67 comparable female managers.
Hoffmann and Reed (1981) concluded, from interviews of both clerks and supervisors in a Fortune 500 firm, that the lower rate of promotion of women was self-imposed rather than due to discrimination. They found that promotion was directly dependent on both men’s and women’s motivation for advancement. However, although marriage increased the motivated men’s efforts to be promoted into management, it decreased such efforts to be promoted, among similarly motivated women. Women who sought and accepted promotion were disproportionately those who had rejected marriage and parenthood. The societal change in delaying marriage and parenthood and the increased career orientation and higher education of women in the past few decades have changed the calculus and considerably increased women’s motivation for careers in management. Hymowitz (1997) argued that many women in exit interviews may give as their reason for leaving the need to return home full-time but in fact may be quitting to accept another job elsewhere. Maintaining both family and job provides more income, opportunities to experience success, and an expanded frame of reference, but it may also bring occasions of failure, frustration, and increased distress.
Personal and Family Factors. Women leaders are less likely to explicitly orient themselves toward careers as leaders. In interviews by Apfelbaum and Hadley (1986) and a 1999 Gallup poll, women were less likely than men to consider themselves leaders. Nonetheless, Fagenson’s (1986) survey of 260 women entrepreneurs and managers found that women advanced in their careers because of personal orientation as well as organizational opportunities. Those who were higher in their organizations gave more weight to their careers than to their personal lives and were more committed to their organizations. Also, they were more satisfied with their jobs than those at a lower level. At the same time, those in higher-level positions thought their organization was more concerned about the growth of their careers. In addition, they felt that they were included in the informal power structure in after-hours activities.
Family Considerations among Political Leaders. Carroll (1987) examined the personal and family factors that were of consequence to a sample of 609 women and a comparable representative sample of 365 men who were in state legislatures or the federal administration. Although 24% and 31%, respectively, of the female political appointees in the Carter and Reagan administrations had never been married, the corresponding figures for the male appointees were 4% and 12%, respectively. Over 80% of the men but only half the women appointed were currently married. The pattern was the same for state senators and state representatives, although the differences due to sex were not as extreme. On the other hand, while 80% to 100% of the married women officials reported having very supportive husbands, only 58% to 72% of their male counterparts indicated that they had very supportive wives. The men were more likely than the women to have at least one child under age 12. The women who were elected to the state legislatures, compared to the men, more often felt it was important “to my running for office that my children were old enough for me to feel comfortable about not being home as much.” However, family and job roles were the single largest source of conflict for women in politics. Nevertheless, Barnett and Hyde (2001) argued that the multiple roles that have to be enacted do not mean less commitment to one role or the other.
Affiliations. Personal affiliations were also important for the career women professionals. From 64% to 81% were members of at least one major women’s organization, such as the American Association of University Women. Many federal appointees, especially in Democratic administrations, were also members of at least one feminist organization, such as the National Organization for Women. Regardless of political party, they tended to belong to organizations of women public officials and women’s business and professional organizations.
Attractiveness. Riger and Galligan (1980) noted that personal attractiveness may be disadvantageous for female applicants seeking managerial positions that are believed to require predominantly male attributes such as ambition, decisiveness, and rationality (Heilman & Saruwatari, 1979). But countering this “dumb blonde” syndrome is the fact that physically attractive women are likely to find more office doors readily open to them and to be granted longer interviews. Then (1988) found that, in the judgments of 35 male and 37 female students in a simulation experiment, very attractive women were rated higher than average-looking or unattractive women in their potential for promotion to top management. The unattractive women received the lowest ratings, despite being seen as more “masculine” in their potential for promotion, as well as more suitable as a coworker or friend. Among 285 female and 452 male MBA graduates surveyed over a period of 10 years, the attractiveness of women’s faces contributed to their salaries in later years, but not when they started their careers, while attractiveness helped men both at the start and in later years (Frieze, Olson, & Russell, 1991).
Competence, Personality, and Advancement. Lar-wood and Kaplan (1980) surveyed 80 women bank officers concerning the reasons for their success. These women thought that their ability to make decisions and their demonstration of competence were most important. Successful officers were distinguished from unsuccessful ones by their greater interest in learning from male models and their decision-making ability. They reported themselves to be successful, despite their lower evaluation of their self-confidence. At the same time, the women middle managers studied by Banfield (1976) emphasized their human relations skills, participative decision making, sacrifice of femininity, and reluctance to assert themselves. As a group, they revealed well-integrated personalities with high levels of self-esteem. According to Litterer (1976), the successful woman executive was characterized by the ability to move socially between informal male and female groups. She could be part of the important informal communication. Similarly, Bartol (1978) distinguished between women managers and women in general, finding that, compared to non-career-oriented women managers, the career-oriented women managers saw themselves as more broad-minded, dominating, efficient, and independent.
Motivation, Support, and Advancement. A survey of 1,087 Australian managers and their 1,000 subordinates indicated that career advancement was predicted by managerial aspirations and masculine traits (Tharenou, 2001). According to Koff and Handlon (1975), women who were more likely to advance were motivated to do so. Their motivation is evidenced by their desire to achieve, their previous successes, and their personal commitment to develop their careers. Those who are career-oriented are pioneers, climate sensitives, or support seekers. Pioneers are innovators, initiators, risk takers, and high achievers. They enjoy challenges and are not easily discouraged. They have a positive sense of self-worth and expect to be successful. They also expect to operate independently and autonomously and to be rewarded for their achievements. They feel a sense of accomplishment from handling increased responsibilities. Climate sensitives are more responsive to the psychological climate around them and to approval and recognition from top management. Support seekers need stroking and hand-holding. Their upward path needs to be cleared of external obstacles and resistance. These women are easily discouraged, readily lose confidence, and do not like to take risks. But support from a higher authority is important for most women for successful careers in management.
Organizational Factors. Organizations may foster or deny opportunities for women to advance. They may have developmental systems such as career counseling for women, networking groups, mentoring programs, and diversified job assignments. They may provide training programs. On the other hand, they may deny women opportunities by excluding them from the inner circles of management, from opportunities to earn rewards and recognition, and from entry into development programs (Ruderman, 2002). Wood (1975) argued that women have to be more competent and work harder to rise in a corporation than do their male counterparts. Although women have been concentrated at the lower levels of management, their failure to advance may be due partly to the fact that in the past, many have had less seniority and experience than their male counterparts. Contrary to expectations, when Tsui and Gutek (1984) examined a representative sample of 217 male and 78 female middle managers in a large corporation with business in computers, education, and finance, they found that the women had a faster rate of promotion, higher performance appraisals, and more merit pay increases.
A further illustration of the organizational aspect of women’s careers is that, historically, women in smaller firms have been more likely to advance (Bowman, Worthy, & Geyser, 1965). However, it is the larger firms that have the best-developed affirmative action programs and more standardized promotion plans that constrain sex biases (Donnelly, 1976). Probably, as a consequence of affirmative action programs in larger organizations, Dreher, Dougherty, and Whitely (1988) found that for 486 business school alumni, the typical lower management salaries for women were less common in larger organizations.
Despite affirmative action programs, Gutek (1988) noted that women appear to have only one real route to high-level positions. They must enter the organization with a professional job of reasonably high status—one that traditionally has gone to men. Such an opportunity in the twenty-first century is a realistic expectation. Graves and Powell (1988) found no sex discrimination in 483 campus interviews by outside organizational recruiters. The results were the same for both male and female recruiters. But affirmative action is unlikely to help women move up the corporate ladder from female-dominated, low-status jobs. Furthermore, according to a survey by Chacko (1982), affirmative action programs are a mixed blessing. Women managers who thought they had been hired because of affirmative action by the organization instead of their abilities were less committed to the organization. Also, they were less satisfied with their work, supervision, and coworkers. They experienced more role conflict and role ambiguity than the women managers who believed that their status as women had not been important to their selection.
In larger firms, most women enter managerial ranks in staff rather than line positions. In these positions, they can become specialists and earn credit and acceptance from male colleagues for their skills, expertise, and competence in performing tasks (Hennig & Jardim, 1977; Jacobson & Kock, 1977). But to advance, they usually need to move into more general management. In an Australian study, a mailed survey was completed at three time periods by 1,399 female and 1,431 male employees. Some could be tracked as they were promoted into various levels of management. Compared to the men, advancement of the women from nonmanager to lower-middle and senior management, ocurred in organizations less dominated by a male hierarchy (Tharenou, 2001).
Foreign Assignments. Women are less likely than men to be offered, to seek, and to accept foreign assignments (Adler, 1986–1987; Adler, 1994). They are often pioneers when they accept such assignments. They report feeling more isolated and excluded, according to Linehan (2001), who interviewed 50 senior Western European and North American female managers experienced in at least one international career move. They mentioned the difficulties involved with trailing male spouses; work family conflicts; lack of mentors, career planning, networks and female role models; and tokenism. Almost all reported that, upon return, they had more difficulty in reentering their home organization. They felt a loss of status and autonomy. Needed support was unavailable.
Support and Encouragement. Kimmel (2002) found that women elected to political office in Mississippi particularly owed their career to family encouragement, family financial responsibility, and the power of their connections. But generally, men benefited even more from social support.
Support from Higher Authority. In Tharenon’s (2002) Australian survey, women were more likely to be promoted into management early if they had worked closely with a female manager. Especially for advancement into middle and senior management, women, compared to men, were helped more by a sponsoring mentor’s encouragement, coaching, and challenging assignments. Hennig and Jardim (1977) found that 25 women who had reached the higher executive level in major corporations were similar to one another in many respects. All were firstborn children.17 Their fathers, with whom they tended to be close, had encouraged them to be independent, self-reliant, and risk-taking. As children, they had been active in team games. The encouragement, support, and help of a male superior with whom they had developed a close relationship tended to be crucial to their success. Morrison, White, and Van Velsor (1987) confirmed the importance, to the success of the careers of 22 women executives, of help from above. Ruderman (2002) reported that for women in a firm, lack of promotion opportunities correlated –.51 with being supervised by an unsupportive boss. The support of a higher authority is, no doubt, of considerable consequence to the advancement of men, but the powerful person of consequence to a woman’s promotion usually has to be an enlightened male manager. Protégés of male mentors obtained greater financial reward than protégés of female mentors (Dreher & Cox, 1996). Male protégés of female mentors had the lowest rate of promotion.
Driscoll and Goldberg (1993–1994) advised that having a woman senior executive meet with clients at breakfast outside the “comfort zone” of some senior male executives. Failure of women to be promoted has been attributed to biased selection committees. But Powell and Butterfield (1994) could find no such tendency in the U.S. Senior Executive Service. And Knott and Natalle (1997) found that sex differences did not account for benchmark skills, in a sample of 400 managers at medium and upper levels rated by their superiors. It may be that some of the women with the necessary seniority and experience who fail to rise prefer to avoid increased responsibility, challenges, and risks. Or possibly they are passive and lack ambition and energy. They may lack self-esteem and be motivated mainly by the need for security. They may view their peers as family. Or promotion may conflict with their loyalty to their peers, since it may mean the need to sever relations with friends.
Failure to perform effectively as a manager results in reduced self-confidence and motivation. And that failure reinforces the negative stereotypes about women’s potential for management (Schwartz & Waetjen, 1976). The two main reasons for women’s failure as managers, according to a survey of 100 male managers, were the women’s unwillingness to help other women and their tendency to be overdemanding at times, particularly of other women (M. M. Wood, 1976). Women are expected to behave in a feminine manner by showing their subordinates more consideration and less direction than would be expected from male leaders (Bartol & Butterfield, 1976). But, as mentioned earlier, some women who achieve high status exhibit a “queen bee syndrome” and downgrade their women associates (Staines, Tavris, & Jayaratne, 1973). As noted earlier, women managers who attributed their hiring to their status as women rather than to their potential contribution to the firm suffered more role conflict and role ambiguity, which interfered with their effectiveness as leaders (Chacko, 1982). But this cannot account for the small proportion of women in upward movement from middle to top management blocked by the glass ceiling.
Some women, such as Cynthia Trudell at Saturn, do manage to reach the top even in traditional male-dominated industries such as the automobile industry. Argentina’s Maria Lacroze de Fortabat took over a cement company on the death of her husband and built a large conglomerate enterprise. When South African’s Wendy Lomathemba Luhabe hit a glass ceiling at BMW, she formed her own training organization (Crowe & Wucker, 1999).
Credentialing. According to a mailed survey of 486 business school alumni by Dreher, Dougherty, and Whitely (1988), no differences appeared in the upward-influence tactics and strategies of women and men. But Larwood and Wood (1977) suggested strategies women managers should use to promote their success in an organization. Even more than male managers, women managers should assure their superiors of their competence by earning the right credentials and by receiving competitive job offers and outside acclaim (M. M. Wood, 1975). Mainiero (1994) agreed and, based on 55 successful women executives, added that women especially need to be assigned high-visibility projects, attract high-level support, accurately identify what their organization values, and display entrepreneural inititive and critical skills for effective job performance. Parents should encourage sports-mindedness and self-reliance in their daughters (Fierman, 1990). And although early socialization correlates with women’s entry into management, it does not predict their further advancement (Tharenou & Conroy, 1994). Nonetheless, as with men, career encouragement of women predicts more engagement and training, leading to advancement in management (Tharenou, Latimer, & Conroy, 1994).
Interviews with and surveys of managers in a Fortune 100 firm by Lauterbach and Weiner (1996) indicated that the women were more likely to involve others in planning. They were more likely to act out of organizational interests, consideration of others’ points of view, and concerns for both task and relationships. Men were more concerned about their self-interests and the task, showed less concern for others’ feelings, and planned alone in their upward-influence efforts.
More than their male counterparts, women managers need to have the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities in successive organizational experiences (Konrad & Cannings, 1997). Learning how to befriend and give and receive help from men without letting that experience turn into a sexual encounter is important. Pearson (1980) concluded, from a study of the choices of 60 employers in the human services field who had viewed videotapes of six employment interviews, that female applicants who combined a warm, cooperative style with goal-oriented leadership skills were most preferred.
Suggested Strategies to Advance Careers. Four strategies stood out in a national survey of 461 female executives and 325 CEOs reported by Raggins, Townsend, and Mattis (1998). To achieve status as executives, 77% said it was crucial to consistently exceed performance expectations, 61% said it was crucial to develop a style that men were comfortable with; and 50% said it was crucial to seek high-visibility “stretch” assignments. Other less crucial, but still fairly important strategies included having an influential mentor, networking with influential colleagues, gaining line management experience, changing functional areas, initiating discussions about career aspirations, having the ability to relocate, upgrading educational credentials, changing organizations, developing leadership on the outside, and gaining international experience. A poll by Segal and Zellner (1992) found 83% of the 400 women interviewed agreeing that women should build networks with other women to help each other; 76% of those polled agreed that women should take legal action against discrimination, and 70% agreed that women should take a strong public stand on hiring and promotion of women executives.
Networking. It is important not just for women to be in a network but to have the right network of contacts relevant to their profession, business, and interests. Pragmatic business contacts are likely to be more useful than general meetings with other women managers (Cox, 1986). Interviews with 15 women TV industry executives suggested that a woman manager needs to network 360 degrees—with her superiors, peers, and subordinates (Ensher, Murphy, & Sullivan, 2002). The woman manager needs to act and dress more like a manager and less like a secretary. She can take a visible seating position at meetings (Donnelly, 1976). She can make sure to inform superiors about her activities. Like the male manager, the woman manager can profit from an apprentice role with several superiors. Sometimes she may find it useful to exploit her stereotypic differences by requesting assignments to ensure that “the woman’s point of view is represented.” Depending on the situation, the woman manager needs to be able to play the female role or the managerial role, whichever is appropriate (Trahey, 1977). As was already mentioned, she needs to know how to deal with sexual advances and sexual harassment. Almost all the women executives surveyed by Litterer (1976) had experienced sexual advances from male executives, but practically none reported having had an affair with someone in their own organization. The traditional “casting couch” demand on an entertainer for a successful career is obviously present but not required for success as a woman manager. Women need to learn how to use and react to power effectively (Instone, Major, & Bunker, 1983). They must convert aggressiveness into assertiveness and initiation. They need to appreciate their own competencies better (Wood, 1975).
Constraints on Acceptable Behavior. After a review of interview and assessment data on more successful and less successful women executives, Morrison, White, and Van Velsor (1987) concluded that executive women may actually differ little from their male counterparts on most matters that count, but, unlike the men, they must confront two sets of demands. To be successful, “[they have] to show their toughness and independence and at the same time count on others. They [must] contradict the stereotypes that their male executives and coworkers have about women—they [must] be seen as different, ‘better than women’ as a group [yet they must not] … forfeit all traces of femininity, because that would make them too alien to their superiors and colleagues. … [They must] do what wasn’t expected of them, while doing enough of what was expected of them as women to gain acceptance. The capacity to combine the two consistently, to stay within a narrow band of acceptable behavior, is the real key to success” (p. 4).
Women in leadership positions need to make special adjustments that are not required of their male counterparts. Satisfaction with one’s job and one’s life in general tend to be correlated. However, Kavanagh and Halpern (1977) found them uncorrelated for women at higher levels of university leadership. This lack of correlation may be due partly to the fact that, as was mentioned earlier, women executives are less likely to have husbands to assist with the social and home care demands on their time (Harlan, 1976). But for a majority of women managers, work/family conflict is regarded as inevitable. They need to ask for programs like flexible work arrangements (Nelson & Burke, 2000).
Dealing with Conflicting Roles. As Hall (1972) noted, women managers who are married and mothers face role conflicts that are best handled by structural role redefinition—changing the demands within the conflicting roles of homemaker and manager—rather than trying to meet the conflicting demands of both. Unlike the glass ceiling they encounter in large firms, women have fewer such obstacles starting small businesses. Often these are in the service sector in new industries. Women’s decision to start such businesses may reflect family considerations, the desire to make better use of their knowledge and abilities, the desire to restart interrupted careers, less discrimination, more control of their own fate, and greater financial opportunities (Bowen & Hirsch, 1986). In all, a resilient woman will treat perceived obstacles with a sense of realistic optimism. Potential threats will be converted into challenges to be overcome (Nelson & Burke, 2000). Tharenou and Conroy (1994) found that while career advancement for Australian women managers continued to be impeded by the smaller degree of mobility they had compared to men, they were able to adequately handle their home responsibilities. Their educational level was not as important to their advancement as it was for their male counterparts. They appeared to have an advantage in advancement in the public sector due to equal opportunity legislation. Their advancement was disadvantaged, compared to men, by their greater unavailability for training. But they reported more career encouragement from organizational peers and seniors than men did.
Surprisingly, the research results about the stereotyping of women in conflict with the “male” factor in management have continued into the twenty-first century. Nevertheless, because changes are rapidly occurring for women in leadership roles, earlier research may need to be discounted. Progress toward seeing women as compatible with management continues, despite the handicaps of socialization, status conflicts, and stereotyping. Some consistent differences in traits between boys and girls remain as they do, to a lesser extent, among adult men and women managers and leaders. Characteristics that are usually linked to masculinity are still demanded for effective management, though most differences between male and female leaders tend to be accounted for by controllable or modifiable factors. Still, women continue to face conflicts in their decisions about their roles as wives and mothers, and managers and leaders.
When it comes to the traits underlying the potential to lead, women benefit by having slightly better verbal skills, but differences in cognitive skills are generally small. With reference to personality traits and the use of power, women may suffer from a lack of self-confidence; but this trait, along with other personality differences in the needs, values, and interests that are of consequence to leadership, appears to evaporate for women who move up the corporate ladder and gain positions of power. For instance, Menkes (1999) found that senior executive women were as comfortable wielding power as their male peers and were no more democratic in doing so.
The rise of feminism and affirmative action has been accompanied by a flood of analyses of sex differences in leadership, to the point where, by 1985, Dobbins called for a moratorium on such studies. Publications since then may reflect societal and institutional changes. Society is changing from a time when smart women played dumb, to a time when assertiveness training for women is commonplace. Yet it seems necessary to continue to give careful consideration to the underlying dynamics and dimensions of the success and effectiveness of women leaders. The same careful consideration is necessary to the development of a new appreciation of racial and ethnic differences in leadership.