gender differences in leadership essay

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Home > Books > Contemporary Leadership Challenges

Leadership and Gender Differences—Are Men and Women Leading in the Same Way?

Reviewed: 14 September 2016 Published: 01 February 2017

DOI: 10.5772/65774

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Contemporary Leadership Challenges

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In this chapter, we aim to highlight the main gender differences in terms of leadership, to provide a critical comparative analysis, to discuss potential barriers that need to be overcome, and to find some ways of increasing organizational performance through a better leadership style. The focus will not be placed on the gender differences by themselves but on the ways these differences can positively influence the organizational performance. Our proposed chapter is mainly based on literature review as a methodology in its own right. Since literature review has revealed quite many divergent opinions, we also used questionnaires and interviews as data collection tools and we intend to present some of our results, without aiming to generalize all these results to different cultures. We cannot conclude that men’s leadership skills are more powerful and more important than women’s skills or vice versa, but it is clear that gender differences do exist and people should capitalize on them. We consider the word ‘complementary’ is better than the word ‘different’ when talking about leadership styles and that it is possible for leaders to develop a series of skills that are not necessarily traditionally linked to their own gender.

• leadership styles
• communication
• femininity versus masculinity

Author Information

Cătălina radu *.

• Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania

Alecxandrina Deaconu

Corina frăsineanu.

*Address all correspondence to: [email protected]

1. Introduction

Business ventures are currently facing all sorts of risks that seem to be endangering their very existence. There are economic, political, cultural, environmental, technological, and social challenges that force stakeholders, investors, employees, and state representatives to carefully analyse and project different strategic scenarios in order to sustain long-term business growth.

When looking at the specialized literature concerning the business environment, the analyses are being conducted from different perspectives. Having said that, they do converge toward a universally shared opinion, which is that leadership decisively influences the day-to-day business activities and their results.

Evaluate the people’s desire to lead and favour a self-reflection process that will offer them answers to questions such as: what do you feel when others are interested in finding out your opinions? During a project, do you like asking your teammates challenging questions? Do you enjoy helping the members of your team finish their tasks on time and in good conditions? How do you value personal interests versus the team’s ones? Can you enable an authentic team spirit when working with other people? Do you feel comfortable when other people take your ideas and put them into practice? Do you enjoy helping others to improve their skills and assuming a coaching/mentoring role? When personal conflicts arise, would you rather sort them out within the team, or do you let them continue? What are your feelings when noticing someone else being successful? Can you have a productive discussion when the others are disagreeing with your opinion? Do you see your team’s problems as your own? Do you enjoy generating ideas and sharing them with your group?

Evaluate the leader’s commitment to the company’s mission and vision . It is hard to imagine how you can convince others to give their best when attempting something that you, as the leader, don’t put a real faith in. Certainly, with careful observation, we can notice the fact that, not by accident, the first company leaders were actually the ones who created the company. The founding leaders had a mission and a vision regarding the purpose of their organization, their customers, and the changes that they will create in their belonging industry. They took risks and made personal sacrifices before their company has become a successful one. They hired the first leaders from within the company, trained and groomed them, taught them what to do and how to behave. These leaders, in turn, carried on the same process until the human hierarchies were created in order for the company to fulfil its mission and vision.

Evaluate integrity . That means that a leader’s actions should be in line with his/her words, he/she should behave according to his/her team’s expectations, to be authentic and express the expectations he/she has from his/her colleagues and teammates. Although that does not sound very difficult, reality shows that these sorts of promises are not all that easy to keep. In fact, it is quite challenging for people to keep their word and be an example, especially when under a great amount of stress.

Over the past few years, there have been quite a lot of careful, diverse studies regarding the leadership concept. Often, it is analysed alongside the gender characteristics, which further reveal some interesting tendencies in the future of the business world.

As far as we are concerned, in this present chapter, we wanted to delve into the potential relationship between gender and leadership style, while also looking for an answer to the following question: ‘Are Men and Women Leading in the Same Way?’ We wanted to highlight the main gender differences, to provide a critical comparative analysis, to discuss potential barriers that need to be overcome, and to find some ways of increasing organizational performance through a better leadership style.

Leadership is contextual, as people’s individual and organizational characteristics lead to particular perceptions and behaviours. Therefore, we should not expect to find the best way of dealing with people. However, we are interested in finding a series of elements that might lead to a leader profile that is able to influence the business environment in a positive manner. Therefore, the focus in this chapter will not be placed on the gender differences by themselves but on the ways these differences can positively influence the organizational performance. Actually, one of the main ideas that should be stressed right from the beginning is that we agree with the viewpoint of existing two different leadership styles—masculine and feminine—, but it is also important to add that the differences are not a result of the gender by itself and in fact refer to human traits that are only traditionally attributed to men and/or women.

Our opinions take into account not only many of the viewpoints expressed in the specialized literature but also the results of our own research, which was conducted over the past 2 years, through a survey and interviews with responsible factors in the Romanian business environment.

2. The evolution of women’s managerial careers

Before speaking about women’s leadership, we thought it would be useful to analyse women’s relationship with their own career paths, as it was presented in several recent studies conducted all over the world.

In the past few years, women have increasingly expressed their desire to develop their careers, while the percentage of working women has also increased. At the same time, there have been favourable changes with regard to their presence in domains in which, till not long ago, women were accessing with difficulty.

A recent survey conducted by the ILO’s Bureau for Employers’ Activities (ACT/EMP) (2013) among around 1300 private sector companies in 39 developing countries showed the extent to which the companies have policies and measures in place to promote women in management [ 3 ]. And these policies were not created only as a result of a need for minimizing the problems created due to gender discrimination. They are, instead, based on an increasing and extremely important awareness that women have great results in the organizations they lead. That explains the conclusion of a study made by Catalyst (conducted in 2008), according to which the percentage of women in managerial positions has seen a constant increase from 13.8% in 1950 to 26.1% in 1980 and to more than 50% nowadays [ 4 , 5 ].

Still, it should be noted that, in reality, when women are part of management, they usually find themselves in the middle of the pyramid and rarely at the top [ 6 ]. They are underrepresented in the well-paid job sector and it will take some time until this imbalance changes. Furthermore, there is still a considerable gap between men and women earnings [ 7 ]. In addition, even if some authors advanced the idea that women and men are equal from the point of view of education in many occupational fields [ 8 ], US Bureau of Labor Statistics still shows that women obtain only 80% of men’s incomes [ 9 ]. This inequality affects women at various professional levels. At a high level, women are less preferred for the managerial and professional positions and for the positions involving decision-making regarding the policy of the company [ 8 , 10 ].

On a global level, women’s involvement in the management structures is shown in Table 1 . The results indicate that in just four countries (Finland, Sweden, Norway and United Kingdom) women represent over 20% of board members; in 13 countries, between 10% and 20%; in 14 countries, between 5% and 10%, and in 13 countries, <5%.

Table 1

Percentage of board seats held by women, 2013, Catalyst Inc. Knowledge Center [ 11 ]

We can also look at the percentage of men and women in management positions in different sectors, as shown in Table 2 .

Table 2

Percentage of companies with women and men in different types of management, International Labour Organization [ 3 ]

It is quite easy to observe that women are a large percentage of management in the HR, Public Relations and Communications; there is quite a balanced approach in the Finance and Administration departments, whereas women represent a minority in the Research and Development of new products and especially in Sales and Operations. The f also shows a strong imbalance for women when looking at the General Manager position.

This sort of gender difference can be traced back to the education system. If we look at the young people’s options in terms of University degrees and their trends, we can predict future trends. In Figure 1 , we can look at some key information regarding graduate distribution in countries all over the world.

Figure 1.

Increase in percentage of graduates in engineering, manufacturing, and constructions who are women, selected countries, 2000–2012, International Labour Organization [ 3 ].

As it can be seen from Figure 1 , the positive evolution that has been recorded over the past few years in terms of an increased involvement of women in business and management did not create a perfect overall balance. So, it is obvious that we should expect a continuous future acceleration of this phenomenon.

We have presented this situation not only in order to characterize a certain facet of the current business environment but also to show that women’s presence, scarce as it is, has allowed specialists to observe the way in which they behave in leadership roles, as well as their competencies and potential in that sort of position. We did not expect to see big percentages of women as leaders. We also consider that gender stereotypes are still part of global culture and are a big reason for this current situation because this results also from practice and other studies [ 12 ].

The feeling that we are unable to actively help solving this gender imbalance in leadership positions is certainly not a very comfortable one, which is why we thought it would be useful to redistribute some opinions that validate the results of women as leaders. In our opinion, it is quite revealing that, according to many analyses, employees view female leaders better than male ones in several characteristics regarding transformational leadership (charisma, motivational skills, creativity, problem solving, and several other key skills that show leadership efficiency) [ 13 – 15 ]. Furthermore, Eagly has evidenced that, according to research, teams with a female leader are more willing to make an extra effort, are more satisfied with their leader and their teams are in many cases more efficient when compared with teams with a male manager. All the information currently at our disposal regarding women’s ability to act as efficient leaders still does not answer this question: how is there still so much data showing a serious discrepancy between genders in terms of leadership, when women leaders are currently viewed much better by the management than they were previously, perhaps even better than their male counterparts? This paradox seems to be a reflection of our current historical context and proves that, despite the fact that the social roles of women are rapidly changing, there is still a traditional cultural expectation which continues to be the norm [ 14 ].

3. Challenges in the evolution of women’s careers

Keeping all these information in mind, all we need to do is take a look at the barriers, which are slowing down the evolution of women’s careers. Some of these challenges refer to the women role in families and in society as a whole. Moreover, there are just a few role models for women, and masculine corporate cultures are still the norm in many cases. Women are the ones who take most of the family responsibilities and it is hard to find some flexible work solutions. While gender equality policies are generally in place, they are not properly implemented and there is an inherent bias in recruitment, selection, and promotion. Stereotypes against women and discrimination can lead to real problems (which have totally different dimensions depending on the culture) [ 3 ]. No matter the diversity of potential barriers for women as leaders, they could be grouped into two main categories: work-family challenges and discrimination.

There are also other barriers keeping women from accessing the top management level, which basically reflect some general psychological differences between the two genders [ 16 , 17 ]. As women are more emotionally driven than men, they tend not to act in an authoritarian manner, and in many cases, it is hard for them to use imperatives and to show disapproval, when it is the case. They are less aggressive than men and tend to involve personally, to smile more, but also to give credit to other people for their own success. As a plus, they are generally available when people need them, as they prefer to invest their time in building relationships.

‘Glass cliff’ is also a concept that has been used quite often in the recent literature. It refers to the idea of choosing women for leadership positions associated rather with deteriorating than with increasing their performance, whereas the opposite is found in the case of men (who are rather chosen for leadership positions associated with increasing and not with decreasing performance) [ 18 , 19 ]. According to the authors who identified this phenomenon, the glass cliff should appear especially in the case of a masculine industry and/or culture and this could happen due to gender stereotypes. However, a recent study does not support this theory, after a research on a highly masculine IT setting in Turkey [ 20 ]. There are also many other studies that support or reject the hypothesis of the glass cliffs and for sure this could be further explored [ 16 , 21 ]. In our opinion, results will always be contextual, as it depends on a lot of variables: feminine/masculine culture, field of activity, team structure (gender, age, occupation, and previous experience), and so on.

4. Feminine leadership versus masculine leadership

If we compare male and female leaders, we can see that it is an ever-evolving situation. There are some female principles and characteristics (such as using their intuition in the decision-making process, being careful, getting a good work-life balance, and social responsibility), as being in tune with the basic cultural hypotheses with regard to the way men and women think and act [ 22 ].

In general, women are better equipped for motivation (they are energetic and enthusiastic), communication (they make sure that their employees are well informed), feedback (they update their team in terms of their performance), and aspirations (they set high goals). Men are better at tradition (building knowledge based on past experience), innovation (they are open to new ideas and are willing to take chances), strategy (seeing the big picture), being calm (they tend to keep their emotions in check), delegating (they assign objectives and responsibilities), cooperation (they are good teammates), and persuasion (they sell ideas and win people over).

Furthermore, women tend to be better evaluated in terms of empathy (showing good people management skills and their needs by establishing a strong connection with their team) and communication (by establishing clear demands from others, expressing their thoughts and ideas clearly, and by keeping a solid communication flow) when compared to men [ 23 ]. Also, women are better qualified in terms of people skills (sensitivity toward others, being kind, having good listening skills, and developing efficient relationships with their team and their superiors). Contrary to popular belief, women have great results on the leadership scale, which measures their focus on production (women have a great interest in achieving their goals; they have high expectations both from themselves and their colleagues). Men tend to get good results on scales that evaluate the focus on strategic planning and the overall company vision.

We all know that at the beginning of this century, the professional activity was totally different from the reality nowadays. There was no discussion upon flexibility and innovation as phenomena characterizing the global economic conditions and there were no such fast changes in technology. Cameron calls these transformation changes in the culture of Anglo-American capitalism and associates them with the passage to the norms of traditional interaction (aggressiveness, competitiveness, and individualism) to a new leadership style focused on flexibility, team work, and collaboration in problem solving [ 24 ].

Traditionally, the most appreciated leadership characteristics were masculine in their nature. Yet, in the past years, the researchers have shown that many of these traits (assertiveness, individualism, and task orientation) did not always contribute to the efficacy of leadership. Instead of the leadership theory centred on The Great Man, the transformational leadership has emerged, and its efficiency is supported by more and more researchers [ 14 ]. It is interesting that many of the traits of the transformational leadership (such as collaboration and empowerment) are associated traditionally with women, which illustrates that many feminine features contribute to the leadership efficacy. Fortune 500 showed how the companies with many female managers have a much higher average productivity of their own capital in comparison with the companies with few female managers [ 25 ]. Despite this information, female leaders still deal with many disadvantages. Often, people tend to attribute their success as leaders to some external rather than internal factors and avoid placing them on leadership positions [ 16 ].

Some authors showed that increasing the number of female leaders has been accompanied by changes of theory and practice in leadership [ 15 ]. They also specify that the most modern characterization of an efficient leadership found in the literature and in mass media is heavily based on the characteristics considered to be feminine. At the same time, they state that if the leadership roles belong to more women and/or are perceived feminine attributes, we will continue to see a serious cultural change. It is a real success that many analyses emphasize the fact that employees position female leaders better than male leaders in more traits of the transformational leadership (charisma, ability to motivate the employees, and creativity in problem solving) [ 13 – 15 ]. Moreover, these characteristics of leadership are considered a real support for the efficacy of leadership. Subordinates of some of the female leaders are more willing to make supplementary effort, are more satisfied with their leaders, and are more efficient competitively in comparison with the subordinates of male leaders. It was also observed that women work harder than men in the same position, and this difference is explainable by the strict standards and exigencies manifested toward women [ 26 ].

Various papers published on this topic develop and compare the feminine leadership with the masculine leadership. The feminine leadership style was called social-expressive, with personal attention paid to subordinates and with focus on a good work environment; by contrast, the masculine leadership style was described as an instrumental one, focused on giving directions. Helgesen is one who made researches that led to the identification of the differences between the masculine and feminine leadership styles [ 27 ]. The works of Hofstede are also very well known at the international level and actually femininity versus masculinity is considered an important cultural dimension. Human traits that are generally attributed to men are more present in some cultures, whereas the ones generally attributed to women appear in other cultures. For example, in a more masculine culture, like the American one, it is expected that in CVs, people’s works are presented in superlative terms, as they feel the need to show their qualities and sometimes even more. For people living in a masculine culture, it is important to win, to have recognition, to be promoted, and to accept challenges. On the contrary, in Holland, we should meet more modesty, as there is a feminine culture. People value relationships and cooperation and generally think that work safety is more important than challenges [ 28 ].

Is feminine leadership a solution for modern organizations? In order to answer this question, we took, as our starting point, the opinions of Kouzes and Posner and conducted a research based on the list of the 10 descriptors included in the Checklist of Admired Leaders: Ambitions, Caring, Competent, Determined, Forward-looking, Honest, Imaginative, Inspiring, Loyal, and Self-controlled [ 29 ]. In conducting this research, we have taken the following steps: Step 1: Preparing the research. During this stage, we formulated the goal of the research, we chose the research method, and we built the instrument we needed to conduct it. Also, we defined the respondent group, while also formulating the research hypotheses. Step 2: Conducting the research. During this stage, the research was launched and the respondents’ opinions were gathered. Step 3: Interpreting the results, verifying that the objectives were completed, and validating the work hypotheses that were initially formulated.

We have taken into consideration the continued development of new businesses, organizational structures, and operational and managerial processes. Many of today’s companies are lean, dynamic, and adaptable, which is essential, especially with employees who have different expectations, motivations, and skills than the ones from previous generations. It seems obvious that a successful leader for these types of companies ought to have a different profile from the traditional one.

In order to collect the data, we have constructed a questionnaire consisting of two parts: Part 1, composed of questions referring to personal information: age, gender, field of work, professional status (manager/non-manager) and Part 2, in which respondents are invited to establish the relationship between, on the one hand, the leadership characteristics as seen by Kouzes and Posner and, on the other hand, the gender of a successful leader (in other words, they were asked to assign each characteristic to a gender: masculine, feminine, or they could consider to be neutral). Then, the respondents were asked to order these characteristics on a scale of 1–10, based on their importance to a successful leader.

After analysing the resulted data, we have noticed that descriptors such as Ambitious, Caring, Honest, Imaginative, and Loyal are mainly associated with a female style of leadership, whereas descriptors like Competent and Forward looking tend to be associated with a male style of leadership. We have also noticed the fact that there is no clear answer when looking at the Determined, Inspiring, and Self-controlled descriptors, which means that these concepts are generally equally attributed to male and female leadership.

This research has also helped us observe how people’s perception of a successful leader varies when the respondent is a manager or not, male or female, and when they belong to a certain generation (Baby boomers, X or Y). Indeed, the respondents’ opinion influenced their preference for several key female leadership characteristics: non-manager respondents said that they appreciated descriptors such as Honest, Imaginative, and Caring more (35% versus 15%). As far as the generation differences are concerned, they were also clearly visible: for people from Generation Y, characteristics such as Imaginative, Ambitious, Honest, Inspiring, and Determined are more valued, which suggests the fact that, over time, there have been changes in mentality that favour the women’s style of leadership.

The research has also given us a lot of signals indicating that successful leadership is no longer solely attributed to men and we anticipate that there will be further important changes in the approach based on the social and cultural evolution of our times. For this reason, we will keep following the articles and studies written on this subject and we will analyse the opinions of as many employees from the business environment as possible.

5. In search of ‘The Best’ leadership

Constructive styles—Achievement, Self-Actualizing, Humanistic-Encouraging and Affiliative

Passive/Defensive styles—Approval, Conventional, Dependent and Avoidance

Aggressive/Defensive styles—Oppositional, Power, Competitive, and Perfectionistic

Since constructive styles are the ones that are needed for a real leadership potential, we will try to give some recommendations in order to improve in each of us the styles grouped in this cluster and to diminish the influences of the other styles.

According to our research, women and men have split the 12 styles quite equally. Thus, in terms of constructive styles, women tend to be better at Humanistic-Encouraging and Affiliative, whereas men scored better at Achievement and Self-Actualizing. When being defensive, there are more women with passive styles (Approval, Conventional, Dependent, and Avoidance) and there are more men with aggressive styles (Oppositional, Power, Competitive, and Perfectionistic). Of course, our research is contextual (Romania in 2015), but we believe at least partly, the results could be generalized, as they seem to be in line with the ideas mentioned in the previous sub-chapter.

5.1. Achievement style

This is clearly an effective thinking style, which increases the leadership potential through a feeling of direction and the capability to establish and attain realistic objectives, better planning, more respect, and self-accomplishment. There are also more promotion opportunities, higher wages, and less stress.

Focusing more on themselves, by taking into account their real needs

Taking risks (not very high, though)

Establishing and working on attaining objectives

Accepting others’ help, when this is the case.

According to our research, it is slightly more often attributed to men (but the difference is not really significant).

5.2. Self-actualizing style

This is the style showing the highest level of personal development and generally manifests through an excellent self-acceptance and acceptance of others as they are. In this case, people are very preoccupied with self-development and release of any negative feeling. They have more energy, believe in their instincts, and are open to new experiences. Self-actualizing leaders can see new opportunities in every situation and are more flexible.

Living in present and thinking less about past and/or future

Reducing the temptation to judge others and trying to always accept them as they are

Choosing to do pleasant things whenever it is possible and reorganizing the unpleasant ones in order to become better activities

Looking at the problems from multiple facets, in order to see the opportunities

Allowing their feelings and thoughts to guide them more in their lives.

While women generally seemed to work more in order to obtain the benefits of a self-actualizing style, our research showed that this style was clearly more attributed to men.

5.3. Humanistic-Encouraging style

This style also refers to a positive unconditioned acceptance of others, but in another way. People having this thinking style are very sensitive to the others’ needs, value close relationships, and put most of their energy into the others’ development. They appreciate sincerely people’s strengths and believe in them. They are optimistic and good at inspiring and motivating the others, which makes them great leaders. They are patient and productive.

Developing their empathy and learning to listen more

Asking for ideas and feedback from the others

Being more involved and spending more time with other people

Focusing on a few persons, encouraging them, and observing the role of this encouragement into their lives

Looking for opportunities to help and train others

Showing genuine appreciation for what the others do to you and maybe learning to say ‘Thank you’ more often

Being open about their feelings and thoughts, in order to encourage the others to be open as well.

According to our research, women score generally better for this style compared to men.

5.4. Affiliative style

The last, but not the least constructive style is the affiliative one. It refers to a real need for social interaction and interpersonal contact. People having this thinking style value strong relationships more than anything else, work on developing interpersonal skills, and motivate others with a friendly attitude. They are liked because they focus on teamwork and building trust. By having a collaborative style, they are more productive.

Looking for opportunities to interact with others and even forcing themselves to initiate talks with persons they do not know very well

Attending courses and events in order to meet new people

Focusing on being very close with somebody, in order to build a trustful relationship and to communicate effectively.

As expected, the results of our research showed that women are generally more affiliative compared to men.

5.5. Approval style

This refers to a defensive approach, based on the need to be accepted by others. While it is absolutely normal to want to be approved, the tendency to understand this as a need inevitably leads to a series of problems related to low self-esteem, too much attention to the others’ opinions, and difficulties in conflictual situations and in negotiations. Affiliative managers are not good leaders because they tend to be undecided, to postpone discussions, to avoid conflicts, and not to act immediately.

Being more self-oriented and expressing their own opinions

Practicing direct approach of confrontations

Reflecting on the need for approval and on its causes

Recognizing their strengths and the fact that they are valuable persons for what they are and not because the others like them or approve them.

The results of our research showed that women tend to feel the need for approval stronger than men and they should work more on diminishing it.

5.6. Conventional style

Another defensive and potential dangerous approach is the one of acting only according to norms. It is potentially dangerous because this way people risk losing their uniqueness and individuality. Conventional managers are not good leaders, because they prefer the standard rules and procedures and generally work in a very predictable environment that hinders innovation. The Rules are more important than ideas.

Understanding that being conventional generally means fewer opportunities for development

Focusing on their unique skills and strengths

Taking moderate risks, when it is the case

Trying new ways of doing things, avoiding routine.

According to our research, women tend to be a little more conventional than men.

5.7. Dependent style

Dependent managers cannot lead because they rather tend to follow and to depend on the direction of the others. It is quite rare for them to disagree with them or to take a moderate risk, as they are very sensitive to the others’ feelings and reactions and it is very hard to say ‘no’.

Learning something new in order to become more achievement-oriented

Establishing small objectives, as a series of small steps can mean very much

Focusing on making decisions independently

Trying to take initiatives and move toward the behaviour of a leader.

The results of our research showed that women tend to be more dependent than men and thus they should work more on the above suggestions.

5.8. Avoidance style

People having the avoidance thinking style need protection and keep distance from any potential danger. They are afraid of failure and tend not to take responsibility for their own behaviour. It is hard for them to express their feelings and, in many cases, they focus on their weaknesses rather than on their strengths.

Identifying the causes of the avoidance behaviour

Focusing not only on their feelings but also on the relationships with the others

Developing self-trust

Trying to tell the others what they feel and having this, at least for a period, as an objective by itself.

In our research, we found that women tend to have higher avoidance scores than men.

5.9. Oppositional style

This is an aggressive thinking style that shows a tendency to be in disagreement with the others. People having high scores for this style often appear to be distant and seem to look for the others’ mistakes. They have a negative attitude and their humour is sarcastic. This approach is a result of their belief that their ideas are better than the others’ ideas. While the oppositional style is not a constructive one, the score should not be very low either, because in that case the others would perceive them as naïve and maybe too flexible persons.

Understanding that people would admire them more if not being so oppositional

Not rejecting ideas only because they are not theirs

Praising the others more often and avoiding the temptation to criticize.

As expected, the results of our research have shown an increased oppositional style in men when compared to women.

5.10. Power style

The power thinking style measures our tendency to associate our self-recognition with the degree in which we can dominate and control the others. People having this style are motivated by the need for prestige, status, and influence.

Trying a more friendly approach and looking at the others’ reactions

Trusting the others and delegating more

Learning to be a mentor for the others

Being aware that the need for power actually means a fear

Obtaining feedback about their behaviour from neutral sources.

According to our research, as expected, men manifest the need for power considerably more than women do.

5.11. Competitive style

This style reflects the need for always comparing with others and obtaining self-recognition through competition. While this is traditionally associated with the idea of success, it was proven that people should rather focus on performance, excellence, on the process by itself, and not on the result of winning in order to really become successful. Actually, people scoring high at competitive style are very aggressive and have a big fear of failure. Competitive managers are preoccupied with the way they are perceived by the others and focus more on being the winners than on performance.

Focusing on results, on self-achievement, and not on comparisons with others

Striving to always improve and obtain excellent results

Cooperating more with others for various projects

Accepting the fact that no one can be the best at everything.

The results of our research have revealed higher competitive scores for men than for women.

5.12. Perfectionistic style

As the name of this thinking style suggests, it refers to the degree in which we feel the need to be perceived as ‘perfect’. Of course, the need for being perfect comes at quite a high price: it is hard to be relaxed, people seem not to be very close, everything is stressful, and priorities are not really clear. This style generally comes with a low level of self-esteem and an excessive preoccupation for avoiding mistakes. Expectations from self and others are huge, and it is very difficult to cope with emotions and to express them. Perfectionistic managers tend to look too much into details and thus do not see very well the whole. While being perfectionist seems not to be a good thing, too low scores for this style also reveal some issues related to working under the potential and lacking motivation and determination.

Understanding that the desire to be perfect is actually harmful and time-consuming and becoming aware of the fact that their work is not the same with their value

Improving relationships

Lowering expectations in order to obtain more satisfaction.

According to our research and this time unlike our expectations, men seemed to be more perfectionistic than women (with a difference not really significant).

6. Conclusions

Once more, our endeavour has evidenced the fact that the concept of leadership is increasingly important in today’s business environment. All the recent changes have called for a new look at the leadership characteristics that guarantee success in the business world. We cannot conclude that men’s leadership skills are more powerful and more important compared to the ones of the women or vice versa, but it is clear that gender differences do exist and people should capitalize on them. Business and cultural changes have also shown that, in order to benefit from sustainable development, organizations need a balance in terms of masculinity and femininity, and this can be achieved through a proper understanding of these concepts. A new approach from the one of a one-gender leadership style (masculine or feminine) certainly needs, in our opinion, to be replaced with a vision of both genders complementing each other. This is perfectly justifiable when looking at the current leadership styles and the fact that they are very rarely based on traditional abilities, instead being characterized by innovation skills, flexibility, intuition, and a people-oriented approach.

Besides the analysis that was presented in this chapter, we wanted to define a few initiatives for the future which might contribute to the normalization of the business world in terms of gender equality and favourable performance environment. In our opinion, there are two main directions that can be taken. The first refers to management education: leadership skills programs; leadership courses in all university programs; extracurricular activities that would develop leadership skills; mentoring programs that would contribute to personal growth, confidence, and self-motivation; and strategic thinking (forward looking). The second refers to managerial practice: developing leadership skills through training and coaching; adopting and implementing adequate, non-discriminatory career strategies that capitalize on leadership skills; practicing a provisional type of management; adopting an appropriate managerial style based on performance; an evaluation criteria that will point out the required characteristics of a potential leader; a set of values (equity, professionalism, competence, team spirit, etc.) that are to be obeyed by every member of the organization; and strategies that will later be shared with all the employees.

One of our main concerns was to not transform this text into a manifest to support women in their profession and society. Our approach was to be as neutral and objective as possible because we think this subject is not a trend but an essential one: can we remain fixed in our traditional approach, although we are aware that current economic realities reveal certain skills that women possess at a very high level? The pragmatism which characterizes most of the businessmen will make them choose efficient solutions for the companies they run and, if this will lead to a more powerful presence of women in top management, then our society will become more solid and balanced.

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Article Contents

1. background and experimental design, 2. data and results, 3. conclusion, understanding gender differences in leadership.

• Article contents
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• Supplementary Data

Sule Alan, Seda Ertac, Elif Kubilay, Gyongyi Loranth, Understanding Gender Differences in Leadership, The Economic Journal , Volume 130, Issue 626, February 2020, Pages 263–289, https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/uez050

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Using data from a large-scale field experiment, we show that while there is no gender difference in willingness to make risky decisions on behalf of a group in a sample of children, a large gap emerges in a sample of adolescents. The proportion of girls who exhibit leadership willingness drops by 39%, going from childhood to adolescence. We explore the possible factors behind this drop and find that it is largely associated with a dramatic decline in ‘social confidence’, measured by willingness to perform a real effort task in public.

It is well documented that women occupy top executive positions in politics and industry much less frequently than men. Leadership is an important component of many such careers. As one rises in the hierarchy of corporations or in politics, one increasingly needs to take on leadership roles, assuming responsibility for making executive decisions. The stark scarcity of females in leadership positions persists despite much improvement in societal norms and institutional barriers in recent years. For example, at the 2014 G20 summit, only five out of 58 leaders were female. Around the world, only 17% of government ministers, and only 5.2% of S&P 500 chief executve officers (CEOs) are female. 1 While explanations such as discrimination have also been put forward, self-selection—that is, differences in leadership ambition—are likely a major factor behind these gender gaps. Indeed, there is evidence that women are less likely than men to seek to be elected to political leadership positions, and that female students are less likely to run for student government in college (Lawless and Fox, 2008 ; New, 2014 ; Kanthak and Woon, 2015 ). Consistently with this, many corporations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and colleges now implement leadership training programmes targeted towards females, designed to both build women’s leadership skills and get them interested in leadership in the first place.

A major component of a leader’s job is to hold the power and responsibility for making decisions on behalf of others. These decisions (such as investment, financing and recruitment decisions in a corporation or campaign decisions in a political party) are often risky in nature and determine how the team, firm or party/electorate fares. In particular, they are consequential for the people who delegate decision-making responsibility to the leader. Building decision-making skills and learning how to handle responsibility and accountability for others’ outcomes are in fact major focus points of most leadership training programmes (Wood and Winston, 2005 , Blenko et al ., 2010 ). Attitudes toward responsibility in social contexts can be an important factor behind observed gender differences in leadership. The recent ‘leader emergence’ literature in psychology shows that women have lower motivation to lead and may be more concerned about whether they will harm others with the decisions that they will need to make as leaders (Elprana et al ., 2015 ). Women have been found to be less willing than men to make decisions on behalf of others in risky contexts (Ertac and Gurdal, 2012 ; 2019 ) and less willing to assume a position of coercive power in groups (Banerjee et al ., 2015 ). It is this component of leadership, taking on the responsibility of decision making, that we focus on in this article. 2 Over and above differences in other traits relevant to leadership, such as risk tolerance or competitiveness, differences in attitudes toward decision-making responsibility may play a distinct role in why women are less likely than men to volunteer for (and rise to) leadership roles. The implication, which is of concern not only in economic but also in social and political domains of decision making, is that critical decisions would be mainly left to men, potentially causing inefficiencies and an over-representation of the preferences of a particular subgroup of the population.

In this article we study the evolution of willingness to assume the decision-maker role in a group, which is a major component of leadership, from childhood to adolescence. Using unique data from a large field experiment that involves a sample of children of average age 10 and a sample of adolescents of average age 13 in Istanbul, Turkey, we explore factors that are associated with leadership willingness and the gender gaps therein. The rich dataset allows us to measure and study a number of factors potentially associated with the willingness to take decision-making responsibility: risk attitudes, self-confidence, gender role attitudes, and a novel measure of ‘social confidence’. Although not longitudinal, our dataset is well suited to studying the evolution of these factors from childhood to adolescence, as our samples of adolescents and children represent the same narrowly defined socio-economic segment in our study site.

To measure self-selection into a decision-making role, we use a task in which subjects are placed in three-person groups, and are asked whether they would like to be the one that makes a risky decision on behalf of the group, determining everyone’s payoffs. Abstracting from any pecuniary concerns (rewards or punishment) potentially associated with being a leader, the task captures pure preferences towards taking on decision-making responsibility and being accountable for other people’s payoffs, which are a fundamental aspect of executive decision making and leadership. 3 We therefore refer to the choice of whether or not to take on the decision-maker role in the group as the ‘leadership choice’. Using this measure, we first document that while there is no gender gap in willingness to make a decision for the group in childhood, a large gender gap (about 19 percentage points) emerges among adolescents. We then set out to understand the factors associated with the emergent gender gap in leadership—in particular, the major potential contributors such as risk tolerance, self and social-confidence, and gender role attitudes.

Self-confidence is believed to be one of the most fundamental factors determining selection into ambitious paths in educational and occupational settings. There is a large literature that has documented gender differences in self-confidence, with women holding a less positive view of their abilities than men (see Kling et al ., 1999 and Croson and Gneezy, 2009 for reviews). Lack of self-confidence has also been put forward as an explanation for women’s dislike of negotiation (e.g., Babcock and Laschever, 2003 ) and their lower willingness to self-select into competition, leading to a major source of inefficiency if such negative beliefs occur despite truly high ability. Self-confidence is also likely to be associated with who rises to leadership positions in groups (see Reuben et al ., 2012 ), who show that women are less likely to be selected as leaders of groups in a real effort context due to lack of confidence). However, voluntary leadership usually requires a type of self-confidence that goes beyond the individual belief that one can do well, and interacts with social concerns. The decisions that a leader has to make on behalf of others typically face scrutiny from the people she represents. Especially in the case of a bad outcome due to a wrong decision or bad performance, the leader may be faced with expressed disappointment or disapproval from other group members and/or may feel guilt, regret or embarrassment because of having negatively affected others’ payoffs. The willingness and ability to withstand public pressure (for example, being able to generate convincing arguments against dissent, or being able to overrule opposition or facing the aftermath of a dismal public performance) are likely to be necessary traits to possess for a leader. Someone without such confidence may therefore not want to assume the decision-maker role in the first place.

In order to study the role of self-confidence in leadership, we develop two incentivised measures. These involve a mathematical real effort task where the subject is allowed to opt for a more difficult-higher reward or an easier-lower reward version of the same task. We use the difficulty choice as a measure of (private) self-confidence, with the conjecture that it proxies the subject’s assessment of her own ability. 4 We then measure subjects’ willingness to face social scrutiny. This measure involves eliciting subjects’ willingness to perform the same mathematical task in public, i.e., in front of peers and experimenters. We conjecture that this measure, which we refer to as ‘social confidence’, captures a unique aspect of self-confidence that is relevant for leadership decisions over and above what is captured by the private, individual choice of task difficulty. We document that there is about a 9 percentage-point gender gap in social confidence in childhood already, and this gap becomes very large (about 25 percentage points) in adolescence. Even after controlling for ability, risk tolerance and private self-confidence, girls are 18 percentage points less likely to accept to perform the mathematical task on the board, in front of their peers.

We find that social confidence is the single most important predictor of willingness to make decisions on behalf of others in both childhood and adolescence. The predictive power of this measure is a lot more prominent for girls and it increases significantly going from childhood to adolescence: while girls’ willingness to perform under public scrutiny increases the propensity of leadership willingness by 17 percentage points in childhood, the effect almost doubles (becomes 32 percentage points) in adolescence. Our results suggest that the dramatic gender gap that emerges in social confidence in favour of boys may largely be responsible for the concurrent gender gap in leadership willingness in adolescence. Additional data from a supplementary experiment conducted on a fresh sample of students show that girls have lower social confidence in spite of the fact that they can succeed in public, highlighting the inefficient nature of the gap.

We offer a theoretical mechanism which helps us understand the relationship between leadership choice and social confidence that we observe in the data. To do this, we first set up a simple expected utility model augmented with psychological costs related to social concerns. We then perform a structural estimation exercise in which we estimate the cross-sectional distribution of the coefficient of relative risk aversion and the joint distribution of psychological costs of acting under public scrutiny, using an indirect estimator. With this exercise, we show that a simple expected utility model that incorporates social concerns into decision making can successfully generate the predictive power of social confidence on leadership choice and justifies the gender gap among adolescents that we observe in the data.

Gender differences in risk aversion, competitiveness and self-confidence are well-documented in individualistic performance and decision settings (see Croson and Gneezy, 2009 , for a review). Social performance contexts that involve accountability for others include an extra layer over and above individual decisions that may be particularly conducive to gender gaps favouring men. This article puts forward a novel measure of ‘social confidence’, a previously overlooked aspect of confidence, and identifies its role as a primary factor behind an individual’s reluctance to rise to a decision-making position. The results point to adolescence as a period in which social confidence declines more dramatically in girls, and a concurrent gender gap emerges in leadership willingness in decision making, with boys more likely to volunteer to make decisions on behalf of others. The results offer new insight into why so few women are in decision-making positions in politics and in the business world, and implications for designing interventions to prevent these gaps from emerging in the first place.

The rest of the article is organised as follows: Section  1 provides the background and experimental design, Section  2 presents the data and discusses the results and Section  3 concludes.

For our main analyses, we use data from two cohorts of students in a number of state-run schools in Istanbul. Our sample consists of elementary school students (children sample) who were in 4th grade, and middle school students (adolescent sample) who were in 8th grade at the time of the data collection.

The elementary school data are collected as part of a large-scale field study implemented with the aim of evaluating a series of randomised educational interventions. The experiments that we conducted for the purpose of this article were carried out in the baseline of this study. We then launched another field study that involves adolescents in middle schools, with the conjecture that social pressures that reinforce traditional gender roles may kick in around puberty, when physical changes manifest, and may lead to gender gaps in behaviour (as documented in Andersen et al ., 2013 , in the context of competitiveness). The average ages of the students are 10 and 13 for the children sample and the adolescent sample, respectively. 5

The comparability of our children sample with the adolescent sample is facilitated by a unique feature of the Turkish education system. In Turkey, while middle- and high-income families mainly choose private schools, lower socio-economic status (SES) families (our target group) tend to send their children to public schools in their catchment areas. In some districts elementary and middle schools share the same ground. Due to this locational convenience, a significant proportion of elementary school students spend their middle school years in the same school ground. We chose our sample of middle schools from among the elementary schools in our sample. Because 12 years of education is now compulsory in Turkey (with four years of elementary, four years of middle and four years of high school), there is no attrition at the middle school level based on gender. In addition, there is no performance-based selection into schools going from elementary to middle school. That is, students whose families send them to state-run elementary schools stay in the state school system for the middle school as well, and stay in the same school if it has a middle school in the same ground. Therefore, we are confident that our sample of children is fully comparable to our sample of adolescents. 6

1.1. The Leadership Task

Our outcome variable, leadership willingness, is elicited using an incentivised experiment, based on Ertac and Gurdal ( 2012 ). The experiment consists of two tasks—the individual and the group decision task—one of which is randomly selected at the end for payment. In the first task, subjects make an individual decision under risk. The second task, which is the group task, involves two stages. In the first, subjects state whether they would like to be the decision maker for the group and, in the second, one individual makes the decision that determines the payoffs for the whole group. The risky decision task, which forms the backbone of the experiment, is based on Gneezy and Potters ( 1997 ). Students have five tokens corresponding to gifts from a gift basket, which they can allocate between risky and a riskless options. Tokens placed in the risky option, which is conveyed to the children as putting the tokens in a particular bowl, are either tripled or lost, with 50% chance. Tokens that are not put in the bowl are safe. Uncertainty is resolved through a draw from an opaque urn that contains one yellow and one purple ball. If the yellow ball is drawn, the good outcome occurs. If the purple ball is drawn, the tokens placed in the risky bowl are lost.

In the group decision task, children are told that they will be placed into randomly determined groups of three people. The decision task is the same allocation task as in the individual case. However, everyone in the same group gets the same payoff, based on a single group member’s decision. Given that different people have different preferences as to how much risk to take and these preferences are not known, taking the responsibility of the decision inherently involves “social risk” coming from the imposition of one’s own preferences. Investing most of the tokens into the risky option, for example, may lead to everyone getting a low payoff in the case of a bad draw. Similarly, keeping all in the safe option may turn out to be a bad decision for everyone ex pos t . Being the decision maker in such a context is related to a major component of leadership, which is that decisions made by leaders oftentimes have payoff consequences for others and involve responsibility. We therefore call the decision maker in the task the ‘leader’ in what follows.

Who among the three people will make the actual group decision is determined based on self-selection. Specifically, each individual states whether she would like to be the one making the decision on behalf of the group. The actual decision maker is then randomly selected from among volunteers. If there are no volunteers, one individual is selected randomly from among the three. The decision made on behalf of the group by the leader is implemented, and everyone in the group gets the same payoff, based on the leader’s decision. 7 Knowing this mechanism, individuals make two decisions: (1) Whether they would like to be the group decision maker; (2) in the event that they are selected as the decision maker, what their decision would be. This allows us to collect decisions from all subjects regardless of leadership willingness.

We interpret saying yes to the question of whether one would like to be the decision maker as leadership willingness. Notice that, in this task, there is no payoff-related reason to say no to being the group decision maker. Since leaders are not monetarily punished for decisions that lead to low payoffs, someone who cares only about their own monetary payoff should always take the opportunity to implement her own preference. An individual who declines the opportunity to be a leader may be unwilling to impose her own preferences on the group or may not want to take the risk of causing a bad outcome that may not be liked by other group members. 8

One concern that may come to mind with this design is whether the use of a random payment scheme creates an issue, if children and adolescents understand random payment schemes differently, given existing results that different subject pools (e.g., professional traders versus undergraduates) may have different levels of comprehension of compounded lotteries (List and Haigh, 2005 ). Charness et al . ( 2016 ) provide a methodological discussion of the use of random payment schemes in experiments. While random payment has advantages, such as the avoidance of cross-task contamination, hedging and wealth effects, it may create problems in terms of diluted incentives and the introduction of background risk. In our specific context, given that gender gaps within each cohort are our main focus, and given that there is no reason to expect differences in the way in which adolescent boys and girls (and younger boys and girls) react to the incentive structure, the random payment design is unlikely to confound our main results.

1.2. The Self- and Social Confidence Tasks

As mentioned above, self-selection into a leadership position is likely to be related to self-confidence, particularly in the face of social scrutiny. Someone who has a tendency to feel regret, guilt or embarrassment after making a decision that disappoints or is disapproved by others may decline the leadership position in the first place. Similarly, being able to withstand public dissent after a failed decision or dismal performance is likely a necessary trait to possess for a leader.

We propose an incentivised measure that aims to elicit this type of strength in the context of a real effort task, which we refer to as ‘social confidence’. We conjecture that this measure will capture an important aspect of self-confidence that should be especially relevant for predicting leadership willingness. We use this measure along with a measure of ‘private’ self-confidence in own performance that will not be subject to public scrutiny. To elicit both types of confidence we use a real effort task. Specifically, students are presented with a task in which the goal is to find pairs of numbers in a grid that add up to 100 in elementary schools and 1,000 in middle schools. The task has two versions. The four-token task brings four gift tokens whereas the one-token task brings one gift token in the case of success, with both types of task giving zero payoff in the case of failure. In both tasks, the goal is to find at least three pairs adding up to 100 (or 1,000), within 1.5 minutes. However, the number grid in the four-token task is larger, which is why this task is more difficult. Note that mathematical tasks have been widely used in the literature documenting gender differences in competitiveness and self-confidence, and are useful for measuring differences that may have implications for educational and labour market choices.

For the private self-confidence measure, we ask the students whether they would like to do the difficult or the easy task, in case they will do the task by themselves, anonymously. The idea here is that individuals who are more confident in their ability to do well will be more likely to choose the more difficult task. To elicit ‘social confidence’, we elicit students’ willingness to perform this task in public—that is, on the board, in front of their classmates. Students are asked to decide which task they would like to perform, in the event that they are selected to do the task in front of the class. They also have the option to refrain from doing the task altogether. After everyone makes their decision, one student is selected at random, and her choice is implemented. If she chose to do the task on the board, she is paid according to her performance. If she chose to opt out, another student is randomly selected to do the task (only the randomly selected student who does the task on the board is paid). In what follows, our measure of social confidence is a binary variable that takes the value of one if the student was willing to perform on the board and zero otherwise. The reason for our using the decision to refrain from doing the task altogether is that this is a self-preserving strategy that absolves the individual from any social pressure or potential embarrassment. 9 Although the probability of success is higher, doing the easy task on the board still involves (even stronger) social risk. This is because failure in the easy task can lead to social ridicule, and having chosen the easy task may not be appreciated by others even in the case of success. Refraining from doing the task altogether protects the individual from such risks, albeit at the cost of forgoing gifts. 10 Note also that we refer to the individual self-confidence measure as ‘private self-confidence’ and occasionally refer to the social confidence measure as the ‘board task’ throughout the text.

In order to both familiarise students with the general task and have a measure of mathematical ability, before making the private difficulty choice and whether to perform on the board, students are given two minutes to find as many pairs as possible that add up to 100 (1,000 for the adolescent sample) in a large number grid. We incentivised this part of the experiment as well by offering a small gift per correct answer.

1.3. Experimental Procedures

All experiments were conducted in class, with pencil and paper, during the allotted class time for extracurricular projects; see sample instructions provided in the Online Appendix. Rewards were in the form of gifts for the elementary school children: each token that was earned in the selected tasks corresponded to one gift item that children could take from a gift basket that included attractive toys and stationery items. We took care to ensure that the gifts were of value to the children, and that the basket included adequate numbers of each type of gift. In the adolescent sample, tokens corresponded to coupons worth 1TL (about $0.5 at the time). 11 We implemented both the individual and the group decision tasks in a single class hour, and one task was selected at random for payment at the end of the session.

Children first made a decision in the individual investment task, and then proceeded to the group task. To collect decisions, children were (randomly) distributed choice sheets that had their group’s ID number. At the time of decision, children did not know with whom they were in a group. After the leadership decision and the group investment decision were made, we collected the sheets and sorted them according to group ID. At the end of the session, either the individual part or the group part was randomly selected for payment. If the individual decision was selected, each child received gifts based on her individual risk allocation decision and the outcome of the random draw. If the group decision was randomly selected for payment, we determined the group decision makers according to the mechanism of random selection among volunteers. Each choice sheet had a letter in small print (A, B or C). In the event of a tie (more than one person or no one willing to decide), letters earlier in the alphabet took precedence. This procedure achieves randomness, since choice sheets were distributed randomly. At this stage, the identity of the group decision maker and his/her decision was revealed to everyone in the group, which amplifies the social risks associated with being the group decision maker. Based on the decision maker’s choice of tokens invested and the random draw, everyone in the group received the same number of gifts.

In the elementary school sample, the self-confidence tasks and the individual-group decision tasks were conducted on two separate days because of logistical constraints, while in the middle school sample all were done on the same day. The individual and group decision tasks came before the self-confidence task in both children and adolescents. In addition to the main experiments, we report results from an additional (smaller) field study conducted on a fresh sample of children and adolescents, in Subsection  2.4 .

In addition to our incentivised social and private self-confidence measures, our data contain a number of other variables. We utilise these variables as potential predictors of leadership choice. One such predictor is risk attitude. As explained in Subsection  1.1 , we elicit risk attitudes using the Gneezy-Potters investment task in the context of the individual decision-making part of the leadership task. In this task, children choose how many of their five gift tokens to invest into a risky option where invested tokens are either tripled or lost, with a lower number of tokens invested into the risky option indicating higher risk aversion; see Charness et al . ( 2013 ) for a review of the use of this task for eliciting risk preferences. As a measure of mathematical skill, we use the number of pairs found in the initial piece-rate number task that was conducted before choices were made.

We also use a battery of survey questions with which we construct a summary score that measures grit—a non-cognitive skill that has been shown to correlate with academic achievement as well as competitiveness (see Duckworth et al ., 2007 ; Duckworth and Quinn, 2009 ; Alan and Ertac, 2019 ). We conjecture that in this context grit may play a role as one might expect that gritty individuals, i.e., those who set challenging goals and are perseverant, are more likely to self-select into leadership positions. Finally, using a large number of survey questions, we construct a summary score that measures how traditional students’ beliefs on gender roles are, with the conjecture that these beliefs may play a role in volunteering to become the group leader. We provide the translation of all survey questions used to construct the grit and gender stereotype scores in the Online Appendix. All survey data were collected after experimental measures, in order to prevent potential priming effects on behaviour.

While all data on adolescents were collected in a single visit to participating middle schools, data on children were collected in different sessions (days) as this effort was part of a bigger field study with a much larger sample. This created a moderate missing data problem for our elementary school sample because, on a given day, about 20% of the students do not attend school for various reasons such as common viral infections. This non-attendance is likely to be random and, consistently with this, we see that girls and boys do not have significantly different likelihood of missing school ( p  = 0.422), and children with missing values for covariates have the same leadership willingness as those who have full data ( p  = 0.280). In the adolescent sample, we also have some students with missing covariates, in this case due not to non-attendance but to incomplete questionnaire data (e.g., on gender roles, grit). Here, boys are more likely to have missing covariates ( p  = 0.001) but, reassuringly, the leadership willingness and social confidence of those students with and without missing covariates are similar ( p  = 0.969 and p  = 0.841, respectively). For our main analyses, we restrict our data to those for whom we have the non-missing leadership indicator and impute missing values of our covariates. We provide our main result without imputation in the Online Appendix (see Table A.14).

Our main sample consists of 769 children and 625 adolescents who participated in the leadership task. These data come from a total of 18 schools (25 classrooms in elementary schools and 21 in middle schools). All data were collected using pencil and paper by physically visiting the classrooms. In all analyses, we cluster standard errors over classroom to account for intra-cluster correlations.

2.1. Descriptive Statistics

Table  1 provides the sample statistics of some of the key variables used in our analyses for boys and girls separately, in the children and adolescent samples. Empirical distributions of all non-binary variables, i.e., maths ability, risk tolerance, self-reported grit and self-reported gender roles measures, are depicted in Figures A.2, A.3, A.4 and A.5 in the Online Appendix. The very first row documents the statistics that motivate the article: the proportion of students who state their willingness to be the decision maker for the group. Here, we note two observations: first, the willingness to decide on behalf of a group is much higher in the elementary school sample (75% in the whole sample with both girls and boys) than in the adolescent sample (56% in the whole sample). Second, while leadership willingness declines, going from childhood to adolescence for both girls and boys, a large gender gap of 19 percentage points emerges in favour of boys. Specifically, while boys’ willingness to lead declines too as they become teens (by 10 percentage points), the proportion of girls who exhibit leadership willingness drops by 30 percentage points (39%) going from childhood to teen years, resulting in a significant gender gap in leadership willingness.

Summary of Experimental Results, Self-reported Measures and Demographics.

Notes : Presented variables are constructed as follows: Leadership: a binary outcome variable that indicates whether the student chose to decide on behalf of the group (leadership choice); equals to 1 if willing to be a leader; 0 otherwise. Maths ability: number of pairs found in the number task implemented prior to the choice of task difficulty and choice of performing the task at the board. Risk tolerance: number of tokens invested in the Gneezy-Potters task allocation of five tokens (privately made, prior to the leadership task). Private self-confidence: binary choice of task difficulty, equals 1 if task is 4TL; 0 otherwise. Social confidence: binary choice of performing the task at the board, equals 1 if willing to perform the task on the board; 0 otherwise. Self-reported grit: standardised summary score constructed using survey questions adapted from the Duckworth grit scale. Self-reported gender roles: standardised summary score constructed using survey questions targeting gender stereotypes. Grit and gender roles scores were constructed using a principal-component factor method. Higher values mean that individuals become more perseverant, and they tend to have more progressive gender role beliefs. SES is reported by the teacher based on a 1–5 item scale in childhood sample and it is self-reported in adolescent sample based on a 1–4 item scale.

Table  1 also shows the differences between boys and girls in each age group with respect to a number of other attitudes and outcomes, which are potential factors associated with leadership willingness. It is clear from this table that some stark differences between genders are present even in childhood, and most of these differences persist into adolescence. A notable gap is in mathematical ability, as measured by initial performance in our real effort task. It appears that boys perform better in this context, both in childhood and in adolescence (see Hyde, Fennema and Lamon, 1990 ; Fryer and Levitt, 2010 ; Golsteyn and Schils, 2014 ). Consistently with some of the previous findings in the literature, girls appear to be more risk averse than boys, although this gender difference seems to disappear in adolescence in our sample; see Harbaugh et al . ( 2002 ), Croson and Gneezy ( 2009 ), Cárdenas et al . ( 2012 ), Sutter et al . ( 2013 ), Khachatryan et al . ( 2015 ), Almås et al . ( 2016 ) for related evidence. They also exhibit higher self-reported grit and more progressive beliefs regarding gender roles.

An important finding in this table is the gender difference in self-confidence measures. Note first that while there is no gender difference in private self-confidence in childhood, a significant gap emerges in adolescence. In terms of social confidence, a significant gender gap in favour of boys is already present in childhood, and this gap significantly widens in adolescence. While girls are 9 percentage points less likely to state a willingness to perform the real-effort task on the board than boys in childhood (which is statistically significant), the gap becomes 25 percentage points in adolescence. In what follows, we will show that social confidence is the major predictor of leadership decisions. In particular, the change in social confidence favouring boys largely predicts the emerging gender gap in leadership willingness going from childhood to adolescence.

2.2. Leadership Willingness and its Determinants

Figure  1 shows the percentage of children and adolescents who exhibit leadership willingness. The two panels present the finding in the first row of Table  1 in visual clarity. The willingness to lead a group is quite high among children, with no statistically significant gender gap. Specifically, about 76% percent of girls and 75% of boys state that they want to be the leader. The picture changes dramatically when we look at our adolescent sample (Panel 2). Here, we see that the willingness to lead declines significantly and that a significant (19%) gender gap emerges going from childhood to adolescence. 12

Gender Gap in Leadership Decision.

The first analysis that we carry out aims to pin down the factors associated with leadership willingness. Table  2 presents the predictive power of the variables in Table  1 in determining leadership willingness in childhood and adolescence. Our measure of social confidence (board task) appears as the major predictor of leadership willingness in both childhood and adolescence: while children who elect to perform a mathematical task in front of their peers are about 16 percentage points more likely to exhibit willingness to make a risky decision on behalf of a group, the impact of the social confidence measure increases in size in adolescence (about 25 percentage points). Compared with a model without social confidence, adding in social confidence increases R 2 by almost 107% in childhood and 62% in adolescence, higher than increases due to any of the other covariates. Note also that self-reported grit is significantly and positively correlated with leadership willingness in childhood and adolescence. 13 Specifically, a one standard deviation increase in the grit score is associated with about a 4 (6) percentage point increase in leadership willingness in childhood (adolescence). Risk tolerance and private self-confidence emerge as significant predictors only in adolescence.

Gender Gap in the Leadership Decision.

Notes : Reported estimates are average marginal effects from a linear probability model where the dependent variable is the binary leadership choice. The standard errors are clustered at the classroom level. * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01.

Given that we are interested in understanding the factors behind the gender gap in the leadership decision, it would be informative to analyse the predictive power of these covariates separately for boys and girls. Table  3 presents this analysis for our full specification (columns 2 and 4 in Table  2 ). A number of interesting findings should be noted here. First, social confidence is the strongest predictor for both boys and girls, especially in adolescence, but its impact is higher for girls than boys within both age groups. In particular, going from childhood to adolescence, the impact of this measure almost doubles for girls, although we cannot reject the equality of coefficients for either cohort ( p -values of 0.44 and 0.16 for the children and adolescent samples, respectively). Second, risk tolerance is an important predictor for girls in childhood and boys in adolescence. Third, grit seems to be an important predictive factor for the leadership choice only for girls in both childhood and adolescence. Finally, private self-confidence is positively associated with leadership decisions for both genders in adolescence, albeit lacking statistical significance when we look at subgroups, possibly due to the smaller sample size.

Notes : Reported estimates are average marginal effects from from a linear probability model where the dependent variable is the binary leadership choice. The standard errors are clustered at the classroom level. * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01.

So far, our findings highlight an emergent gender gap in leadership willingness going from childhood to puberty and a number of important factors that seem to determine this attitude, whose predictive powers are different across gender and age groups. Can changes in these underlying predictive factors explain the gap that emerges in adolescence? In the next section, we attempt to identify the changes in these predictive factors and explore how these changes contribute to the gap in leadership willingness going from childhood to adolescence.

Before moving on to what explains the gender gap, it is worthwhile discussing whether the fact that girls enter puberty earlier than boys confounds our results. Puberty is a transformation process rather than a single event, and the onset of puberty has been found to occur at a mean age of 10.1 for girls in Turkey and a mean age of 11.6 for boys (Bundak et al ., 2007 ; 2008 ), suggesting that all students in our adolescent sample are likely to have at least begun the process. Table A.12 in the Online Appendix shows that if we separate age into three groups in the adolescent sample and take the oldest group, in which both boys and girls are likely to have entered puberty, we still have the result that boys are more willing to become leaders.

2.3. Explaining the Emerging Gender Gap in Leadership Willingness

In this subsection, we explore the relative contributions of the ‘change’ in the aforementioned predictive factors to the ‘change’ in the gender gap in leadership willingness between childhood to adolescence. Figure  2 depicts the changes in the gender gap in leadership and changes in the gender gap in the predictive factors that we examine in earlier sections, by presenting difference-in-difference estimates of the gender gaps with 95% confidence bands. 14 The top line shows the ‘change’ in the gender gap in leadership choice, that is, the gap we observe in adolescence minus the gap we observe in childhood (approximately 19% with p -value = 0.00). Coefficients plotted on the right-hand side of the zero line represent the change in gap estimates in favour of boys, while the left-hand side depicts those in favour of girls. This figure clearly shows that the only factors for which the gender gap goes in the same direction as that in leadership willingness are private self-confidence and social confidence.

Change in Willingness to Lead and Its Determinants from Childhood to Adolescence.

These results suggest that the dramatic decline in self-confidence and, in particular, social confidence, may explain a significant portion of the emergent gap in leadership willingness. Interestingly, the gender gaps in risk tolerance and progressive beliefs on gender roles seem to shift in favour of girls, while we do not observe any significant change in gender differences in maths ability or grit. While remaining the same in levels, the contribution of the latter two factors may become differentially larger going from childhood to adolescence. This in turn could contribute to the emerging gender gap. Going back to the estimates provided in Table  3 can provide some clues in this regard. Testing the equality of the coefficients across samples for each gender, we find no evidence of changing contribution of math ability for girls going from childhood to puberty ( p -value = 0.53). The coefficient estimate increases and turns positive for boys in adolescence but this increase does not represent a significant change in contribution ( p -value = 0.29). Similarly for grit, we see no evidence of changing contribution in a way that is different across genders. The predictive power of grit increases for both genders in a similar magnitude going from childhood to adolescence. Overall, it appears that only the gender-differential decline in social confidence stands out as a prominent factor in explaining the emerging gender gap in leadership.

A couple of caveats are in order here. First, even after controlling for social confidence and other factors, a large gender gap of about 12 percentage points remains (see the last column of Table  2 ). While this may suggest that pure preference change may be a major reason for the observed gap, it may also point to omitted factors. Second, without exogenous variation in social confidence (or a valid instrument), the documented relationship cannot be given causal interpretation. In what follows, we will try to shed more light on these issues with the help of supplementary data and a simple theoretical model.

2.4. Discussion

The above analysis establishes that social confidence, as measured by the willingness to perform a mathematical task in front of peers, is strongly associated with the willingness to assume a decision-making role. The reason for our taking decisiveness as the dependent variable is conceptual: given that leaders are often faced with decision-making responsibility and this is a central aspect of leadership, unwillingness to take on decision-making responsibility may be a major reason behind women’s self-selection away from leadership. In this sense, decision making on behalf of others (a potentially difficult social situation) is the central behavioural aspect of leadership that we focus on, and social confidence is the level of ease with which one can face such social situations. In our conceptualisation, the level of social fear constitutes a reason for individuals shying away from making decisions on behalf of others and determines the extent to which they do so. Having said that, it is likely that a number of unobserved confounds govern both social confidence and decisiveness simultaneously. Without a credible instrument for social confidence, we cannot give causal interpretation to the coefficient estimates presented in Tables  2 and  3 .

Table  4 presents the coefficient estimates from a bivariate probit regression and, as such, the extent to which unobserved confounds may be associated with both decisions. The last two rows in this table provide the estimates (95% confidence intervals) of the cross-equation correlation coefficients across two equations for each sample. As can be seen from this table, our data decisively reject the no correlation restriction for both children and adolescent samples. This finding suggests the presence of unobserved confounds governing both decisions.

Joint Estimation of Leadership Decision and Social Confidence.

Notes : Reported estimates are from a bivariate probit regression where the dependent variables are binary leadership choice and social confidence. The standard errors are clustered at the classroom level. * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. The last two rows give the 95% confidence bands for the correlation coefficient between the errors of two equations.

Table  5 examines the social confidence variable in isolation. As shown in the table, a significantly higher proportion of female students refrain from this task. Even after controlling for mathematical ability and risk tolerance, girls are about 7 (19) percentage points less likely to opt for the board task in childhood (adolescence). 15 Not surprisingly, private self-confidence is significantly associated with social confidence: willingness to attempt the difficult version of the task privately is associated with a 10 (12) percentage point increase in the willingness to do the task on the board in childhood (adolescence). Note that risk tolerance is significantly associated with the board task choice only in adolescence, which may suggest that the social risk involved in performing the task on the board may come into play especially in this period.

Gender Gap in Social Confidence (Board Choice).

Notes : Reported estimates are average marginal effects from a linear probability model where the dependent variable is the binary board task choice. The standard errors are clustered at the classroom level. * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01.

Why is it the case that girls shy away from this task? It may be that even if they are equally able, girls may be less likely than boys to succeed when they perform the task under public pressure, and they are aware of this issue. Put differently, if girls were asked to do the board task regardless of their willingness, perhaps they would not perform as well as boys of the same ability level. This may be particularly relevant given the mathematical task, in which girls may experience stereotype threat (Spencer et al ., 1999 ). 16 One cannot test this idea by simply comparing the performance of girls who performed the task on the board with that of boys due to the obvious selection problem. Understanding whether social concerns have any direct impact on one’s actual performance or whether such concerns are limited to beliefs and choices is important for mitigating gender-achievement gaps.

In order to compare performances in front of peers purged of selection, we organised an additional field study and supplemented our main data with a small fresh sample of students, a significant proportion of whom were asked to perform the board task regardless of their initial choices. Contrary to the procedures followed in the collection of main data, we informed the students at the outset that they would make a choice, and while this choice would count with some chance, with some chance they would be asked to perform the task on the board regardless of what they chose. 17 In each class, after everyone made their decision, a random set of students were picked one by one and they were asked to do the (difficult) task on the board (or with very low probability, their own choice was implemented). We continued this procedure until we reached the end of the allotted time for our experiment. This gives us a sample of board performances that is largely free of self-selection. Children also did the leadership in decision-making task, which allows us to observe whether the data patterns regarding leadership replicate in this sample.

These supplementary data consist of 300 students. Among these, 155 constitute our supplementary elementary school sample (children), and 145 our middle school sample (adolescents). These students were recruited from one elementary and one middle school, about two years after the initial field experiment. These schools were new schools (not in our original sample) but students were the same grades and ages as in the original sample, from the same socio-economic status. Therefore, our supplementary sample is expected to have similar demographic characteristics to our main sample. Table A.11 in the Online Appendix compares the key variables used in the article for the main and supplementary samples. While maths ability in both children and adolescents and private self-confidence in only adolescents are lower in the supplementary sample, there are no differences in the gender gaps in these variables across the main and supplementary samples (for maths ability, p  = 0.261 for children and p  = 0.12 for adolescents; for self-confidence, p  = 0.841). Nevertheless, we caution that the purpose of this exercise is not to replicate our main results; rather, it is to provide some evidence on the rationale behind the decisions that we observe. 18

A total of 139 students performed the task on the board; 60 children and 79 adolescents. In this sample, a total of 106 students had chosen not to perform the task on the board (35% of the whole supplementary sample), which was similar in proportion to our main data (39%). Consistently with the results from the main data, we find that there is a significant gender gap in the willingness to perform on the board, with girls exhibiting lower willingness both in childhood and adolescence (13 percentage points and 16 percentage points differences in childhood and adolescence, respectively).

Table  6 presents marginal effects from a logit model of the probability of success in the board task. Looking at the unconditional proportions (columns 1 and 3), we see that there is no gender difference in performance, either in childhood or in adolescence. 19 These results do not change when we control for private self-confidence, social confidence, risk tolerance and maths ability for the children sample but a 19 percentage point gender gap in favour of girls appears in the adolescent sample. This result makes the observed gender gap in the willingness to perform the board task all the more concerning from an efficiency perspective. It provides strong evidence that despite the fact that they would do well if they are asked to attempt them, females shy away from rewarding tasks that are to be performed under public pressure. Interestingly, social confidence has no predictive power on actual success on the board.

Gender Gap in Board Success .

Notes : Reported estimates are average marginal effects from logit regressions where the dependent variable is the binary success at the board (supplementary data). The standard errors are clustered at the classroom level. * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01.

In this supplementary fieldwork, in order to better understand the role of social concerns in jointly determining leadership and board task choices, we conducted a survey in addition to the incentivised experiments. This survey involves a battery of questions that aim to elicit fear of embarrassment, assertiveness, anxiousness and fear of disappointing others, behaviours and attitudes which are likely to drive both leadership willingness and willingness to do the board task. 20 Using these questions, we construct standardised summary scores.

Table  7 shows how these summary scores correlate with leadership and board task choices. The signs of these correlations are quite intuitive. We find that leadership choice is strongly positively associated with assertiveness and negatively correlated with anxiousness: a one standard deviation increase in the assertiveness score increases the probability of leadership choice by 5 percentage points. Similar intuitive correlations are present in the board task choice as well: while a one standard deviation increase in the anxiousness score lowers the probability of leadership choice by about 9 percentage points, it lowers the probability of willingness to perform the board task by 13 percentage points. What is important in this table is that similar social concerns appear to influence both choices in the same direction—an observation that we will exploit when we discuss our proposed mechanism via a simple expected utility model that might help in interpreting our results.

Correlations.

Notes : Coefficients presented are ordinary least squares (OLS) coefficients obtained by running regressions of leadership and board task choices on the respective summary score. Presented standard errors are clustered at the classroom level. * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01.

2.4.1. A qualitative analysis of leadership willingness and social confidence

In the supplementary fieldwork, we also asked those students who declined to decide on behalf of a group and those who opted out of the board task to give us the reason(s) for their decisions. For this, we gave students a large number of options to choose from. 21

Figure  3 presents the distribution of the answers to the question ‘Why did you not want to be the decision maker for your group?’ for the sample that said no to leadership, in children and adolescents. In general, 42% of children and 53% of adolescents express at least one ‘social concern’ such as the fear of letting others down and not wanting to take the responsibility for a bad outcome as reasons for their unwillingness to be a leader.

Frequency of Stated Reasons for Avoiding Leadership.

Figure  4 presents the distribution of reasons given by students who chose not to perform the board task. Here, in the children sample, social anxiety is the major reason stated. In adolescents, believing that one is not good at maths emerges as an important predictor as well as a dislike of performing in public. Overall, the analysis in this section gives us qualitative evidence on the importance of social concerns that are likely to influence both leadership willingness and board task choice.

Frequency of Stated Reasons for Avoiding the Board Task.

2.4.2. Leadership choice and social confidence: a simple model

The idea is that similar psychological costs can drive different behaviours and choices, as documented empirically in Table  7 . Equally plausibly, different types of costs may govern different behaviours and choices but these costs may be correlated, generating a correlation between choices ex post . For example, in our context, subjects’ unwillingness to face their friends in the case of a bad outcome may primarily govern the decision of not becoming a leader. Alternatively, fear of being ridiculed by peers may govern the decision of not performing the board task. As long as these two concerns are correlated within individuals, the above model would yield a positive correlation between the two choices. As it is plausible to think that the importance of these concerns increases with age, the correlation may also become stronger in older ages.

In order to show that the above simple model can justify our empirical results, we perform a structural estimation exercise using its most stripped-down, fully parameterised form. We perform the matching exercise separately for boys and girls in the children and adolescent samples. After fitting the model (estimating the structural parameters via a simulated minimum distance estimator), we check whether the fitted model is able to generate the statistics we do not use for matching (a goodness of fit exercise), notably the correlation between leadership willingness and willingness to do the board task. Table  8 presents the structural estimation results, which are not of direct interest. Table  9 presents the fit of the model. Most statistics are matched quite closely, especially for the adolescent sample. The fit for the excluded statistic is very good in general for both samples and both gender, i.e., this simple and very restricted model is able to generate the positive correlation between the two experimental choices quite well. Combined with the empirical evidence, the results of this exercise suggest that incorporating social concerns into decision making is important for understanding choices that subjects perceive as consequential for others and those related to performance in public contexts. The details of the estimation procedure are given in the Online Appendix.

Estimated Structural Parameters .

Notes : Structural parameters are estimated by matching five access points (APs) obtained from the model with those obtained from the main data by minimising the criterion |$\chi =(a^{sim}-a^{data})^{^{\prime }}\boldsymbol{\Omega} ^{-1}(a^{sim}-a^{data})$|⁠ , where Ω is the variance-covariance matrix of data APs.

Goodness of Fit.

Notes : Table presents data and simulated APs. Simulated APs are calculated at the estimated structural parameters in Table  8 . The last row in each panel presents the correlation coefficients between leadership and board choice. This AP was not used for fitting the model so presents a goodness of fit.

Understanding the forces behind self-selection to leadership positions is an important step toward designing effective policies that can mitigate inefficient gender gaps in labour markets as well as in corporate or political decision making. This article focuses on decision-making responsibility in groups and social performance, which are central aspects of a leader’s job. The results highlight aversion to social scrutiny as a novel factor behind why women are less frequently observed in leadership positions. In particular, our results suggest that shying away from contexts that involve social pressure and/or scrutiny by others might explain why women often do not seek to rise to decision-making positions in groups, which require accountability for outcomes. Our results show that in a task performance context as well as a context where ability/effort is irrelevant and only preferences matter, sensitivity to social scrutiny arises as an important common thread that affects girls’ behaviour, i.e., leads them to refrain from situations that expose them to others’ scrutiny. Differences across girls’ and boys’ leadership willingness are particularly strong in adolescence, when gender may become more salient and sex-typed behaviour may be more likely to manifest (Hill and Lynch, 1983 ).

Given that many positions of leadership require social decision making or social performance, the results suggest that being comfortable with potential public failure as a result of decisions or performance can be seen as a non-cognitive skill that may be conducive to rising to top positions and earning high rewards. Policies and interventions such as exposure to female role models in leadership positions or in occupations subject to public scrutiny (as in Beaman et al ., 2012 ) may be especially effective for girls in adolescence, which is when social fears seem to arise and contribute to gender gaps in choices. It may be especially important to target early puberty to ensure that worries about public self-image do not culminate in permanent damage in self-confidence and prevent girls from seeking and assuming decision-making roles in groups, committees or organisations.

Two caveats are worth mentioning here. First, while our results are strongly suggestive of the role of social confidence in explaining the gender gap in leadership, our data do not allow us to make any causal claims. Further research is needed to pin down this relationship in a causal manner. Second, our sample represent a lower socio-economic segment of Turkey, therefore our results are not generalisable to the Turkish population. However, while Turkey is a Muslim country with strong gender norms all across, these norms are particularly prominent in the country’s low socio-economic segments. Hence, relevant policies may be more effective if they specifically target this sub-population.

Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online version of this article:

Online Appendix

Replication Package

The data and codes for this paper are available on the Journal website. They were checked for their ability to replicate the results presented in the paper.

We would like to thank the ING Bank of Turkey, University of Vienna and TUBITAK (Grant no. 111K444) for providing funding. Ertac thanks the Turkish Academy of the Sciences (TUBA-GEBIP grant) and the Science Academy (BAGEP grant); Alan thanks the British Academy for generous support; Kubilay acknowledges funding from the ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change at the University of Essex (ES/L009153/1). We are grateful to participants at the Conference on Economic Design in 2015, 2015 All-Istanbul Economics Workshop and the 2015 ISER conference at the University of Essex, Thomas Crossley, Armin Falk and Ragan Petrie for valuable comments and suggestions. We also thank numerous research assistants who helped us to collect the data. All remaining errors are our own.

Inter-Parliamentary Union and UN Women ( 2015 ), Catalyst ( 2019 ).

Leadership may also involve other components, such as acting first and leading by example. Voluntary leadership by example has been studied in, for example, public good contribution contexts (Arbak and Villeval, 2013 ; Rivas and Sutter, 2011 ; Cappelen et al ., 2016 ).

Responsibility has been identified as an important component of decision making related to the allocation of payoffs as well as risk taking on behalf of others (Charness and Jackson, 2009 ; Trautmann and Vieider, 2012 ; Füllbrunn and Luhan, 2015 ). It has also been documented that payoff commonality in groups affects individual behaviour in both strategic and non-strategic contexts (Charness et al ., 2007 ; Sutter, 2009 ). As related concepts, Bartling et al . ( 2014 ), Neri and Rommeswinkel ( 2017 ) and Ertac et al . ( 2019 ) study preferences for decision rights, autonomy and power.

Niederle and Yestrumskas ( 2008 ) show that women are less likely to seek challenges and may do so because they are less certain of their ability to succeed in a difficult task.

The average age of menstruation in a sample of Turkish girls in a recent study was found to be 12.2 (Bundak et al ., 2008 ), which is a major stage marker for girls in puberty.

A statistical comparison of teacher reported (SES) across our children and adolescent sample yields p -value of 0.26. We should also note that there were no public policies or interventions around the study period that specifically targeted children or adolescents.

How the uncertainty is resolved was a treatment variable in the elementary school sample. Specifically, in one treatment the decision maker was also responsible for drawing the ball that determines what happens to tokens invested into the risky option. In another treatment, an assistant would be asked to draw the ball rather than the decision maker, to test whether potential effects come from perceptions of individual bad luck. We do not find any differences in any behavioural measure ( p -value = 0.42 for leadership choices and p -value = 0.78 for allocation decisions) with respect to this treatment variable, and therefore pool the data. In the adolescent sample, the decision maker also had the responsibility of drawing the ball.

Ertac and Gurdal ( 2012 ) and Ertac et al . ( 2019 ) show that (adult) women are much less likely than men to give an affirmative answer to the question of whether they would like to be the decision maker for their group in this task.

Ludwig et al . ( 2017 ) show that women tend to downgrade their self-assessments if these assessments will be observed—that is, they are averse to overestimating themselves and others seeing this.

In unreported regressions we find that using difficult task board, easy task board, and refraining as three separate categories does not change the results, in the sense that once the subject chooses to do the task on the board, it does not matter whether she chose the easy or difficult version, for predicting leadership ( p -value = 0.43). This confirms that refraining from doing the task altogether captures the social aspect of the task better than the version chosen once the individual accepts performing in public. Tables A.9 and A.10 in the Online Appendix document the cohort and gender differences in the choice of doing the task on the board, respectively.

It is common in the literature examining the evolution of economic behaviour and related gender gaps over age to use gifts for younger children and money for adolescents (e.g., Sutter and Glätzle-Rützler, 2015 ; Kosse et al ., 2018 ).

In both elementary and middle schools, students willing to be leaders take significantly more risk on behalf of their groups than students unwilling to be leaders (2.85 tokens vs 2.42 tokens invested in the risky option in elementary school, with p -value = 0.02, and 3.03 vs 2.77 tokens in middle school, with p -value = 0.01). This suggests that the decisions made in leadership positions depend on the type of selection into these positions.

Our self-reported grit measures are factors extracted from a survey that contain statements related to grit. The following questions are found to have the highest factor loadings, i.e., explanatory power: questions 6, 8 and 10 in childhood and in questions 6, 7 and 10 adolescence. Survey questions are provided in the Online Appendix.

The coefficients plotted are obtained from the empirical model: y i = α + β 1 Male + β 2 Elementary + β 3 Male  × Elementary + ε i . The plotted coefficient is β 3 , which shows the change in the gender gap going from childhood to adolescence.

It may be that when forming beliefs, even after controlling for own performance, children in each gender group might give some weight to the perceived group mean of their gender to make predictions about own performance. In order to account for this, we use (1) the ratio of the average maths grade of girls to the average maths grade of boys in a particular class, (2) the actual ability level of girls with respect to boys in our specific task in a particular class, (3) the question from the gender roles survey, which captures beliefs about girls’ general maths ability with respect to boys. Our result that girls are less socially confident is robust to controlling for these factors (regression results available upon request).

However, we should note that even if this is true, we would expect one to at least choose the easy task on the board and get the one gift, since the probability of success is almost 100% in the easy task.

The probability that the students would be asked to do the task was set at 90%. This ensures that while the decision to perform or not perform on the board is incentivised, a large majority of students would actually be imposed the board task.

Despite a small sample, however, our results on the determinants of leadership willingness are largely replicated in these supplementary data. In Figure A.1 in the Online Appendix, we again see an emerging gender gap in leadership willingness going from childhood to adolescence. We also replicate the strong relationship between leadership willingness and the willingness to perform the board task for adolescents.

For one child in elementary school, the performance record is missing. Therefore, we have 59 observations instead of 60 in column 1.

All questions are provided in the Online Appendix.

Students were allowed to state multiple reasons for both questions. They were also allowed to write down their own answer if they did not think any of the options provided was applicable to them. Among the 26 (61) students who declined to be a leader in elementary schools (middle schools), none (1) wrote down their own reason. We do not include this student in this analysis.

In the actual experiment, there is randomness coming from the incentive structure, in the sense that (1) the group task may or may not be chosen, (2) the individual may or may not be selected as the decision maker. However, this randomness should not change the decision of whether to volunteer.

The actual probability of success may also depend on psychological factors. For our main elementary school sample, we have some additional data that can shed some light onto private vs public performance levels. Specifically, a random sample of these children were forced to do the difficult task privately. When we compare these children’s private task performance with the performance on the board of children in the supplementary sample, controlling for observable characteristics, we find that performance on the board is significantly higher, with no differences across boys and girls. This suggests that children may have extra motivation when asked to do the task on the board, and points to the fact that a myriad of psychological factors (anxiety, extra motivation) may be involved when one is engaged in public performance.

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How Women Manage the Gendered Norms of Leadership

• Ronit Kark,
• Alyson Meister

Based on interviews with 64 female executives.

A wealth of research shows that female leaders, much more than male leaders, face the need to be warm and nice, as well as competent or tough. The problem is that these qualities are often seen as opposites. Alleviating this double bind requires changing our deeply-embedded societal expectations for what it means to be a woman and what it takes to lead. But until we get there, women still have to navigate the many tensions that come with leading. Researchers wanted to know how successful women experience and manage these paradoxical demands on a day-to-day basis. They interviewed 64 top-level women leaders from 51 different organizations in the United States. They found these women have to confront a number of paradoxes that stem from the need to be tough and nice, and they identified a few strategies these leaders use to manage them.

A wealth of research shows that female leaders, much more than their male counterparts , face the need to be warm and nice (what society traditionally expects from women), as well as competent or tough (what society traditionally expects from men and leaders). The problem is that these qualities are often seen as opposites. This creates a “catch-22” and “double bind” for women leaders. Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of HP, depicted it this way :  “In the chat rooms around Silicon Valley, from the time I arrived until long after I left HP, I was routinely referred to as either a “bimbo” or a “bitch”— too soft or too hard, and presumptuous, besides.”

• Wei Zheng is the Richard R. Roscitt Endowed Chair Professor in Leadership at Stevens Institute of Technology. Her research, teaching, and practice focus on leadership and diversity. Her research work has appeared in top  scholarly  and practitioner outlets. She is currently co-leading  Stevens Inclusive Leadership Certificate Program  to train inclusive leaders and  Stevens Leadership Portal  that disseminates actionable insights at the intersection of leadership, technology, and inclusivity.
• RK Ronit Kark is a full professor of leadership and organizational psychology in the department of psychology at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and was the founder and director of the Gender in the Field Graduate Program. She is also a Distinguished Research Professor at the Exeter School of Business, UK, and an Anna Boyksen Awardee and Fellow for the Study of Gender and Diversity at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). She sits on different NGO boards to promote diversity and gender equity and is an academic nomad, traveling internationally to give keynote presentations and workshops on leadership and diversity topics.
• Alyson Meister is a professor of leadership and organizational behavior at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland. Specializing in the development of globally oriented, adaptive, and inclusive organizations, she has worked with thousands of executives, teams, and organizations from professional services to industrial goods and technology. Her research has been widely published, and in 2021, she was recognized as a Thinkers50 Radar thought leader.  

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• Women and Leadership
• Chapter 2: What Makes a Good Leader, and Does Gender Matter?

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: Women in Leadership
• Chapter 3: Obstacles to Female Leadership
• Appendix A: Survey Methodology

Whether they are heading a major corporation or serving in elected office, leaders bring a combination of traits to the table. In the public’s estimation, some traits are clearly more important than others. Honesty, intelligence and decisiveness are considered “absolutely essential” leadership qualities by at least eight-in-ten adults.

Roughly two-thirds of adults (67%) say that being organized is an essential quality in a leader. Somewhat smaller shares of the public say that being compassionate (57%), innovative (56%) or ambitious (53%) are essential for leadership.

Men and women tend to agree on the relative importance of the top tier of leadership traits. Nearly equal shares of each say being honest, intelligent, organized and decisive are absolutely essential, although women place somewhat more importance on intelligence and honesty than do men.

Larger gender gaps emerge on some of the other, less important traits. Women are much more likely than men to say that being compassionate is absolutely essential in a leader: 66% of women say this, compared with 47% of men. Women also place a higher value on innovation than men do. Some 61% of women consider this trait to be absolutely essential in a leader, compared with 51% of men.

In addition, women are more likely than men to say that ambition is an essential trait for a leader (57% of women and 48% of men say this is absolutely essential). This overall gender gap is driven by the younger generations—Millennials and Gen Xers. Fully 63% of Millennial women and 61% of Gen X women consider ambition an essential leadership trait, compared with 53% of Millennial men and only 43% of Gen X men.

Who Has the Right Stuff to Lead—Men or Women?

The public sees little distinction between men and women on several of these leadership traits. Large majorities say that when it comes to intelligence and innovation, men and women display those qualities equally. And solid majorities see no gender differences in ambition, honesty and decisiveness.

Still, many Americans do make distinctions between men and women on certain leadership qualities. Fully two-thirds of all adults (65%) say being compassionate better describes women than men, while only 2% say this better describes men than women. (An additional 32% say being compassionate is equally true of both men and women.)

The public is also much more likely to see women as being more organized than men, rather than vice versa. Fully 48% say being organized is more true of women than men, while only 4% say this quality is found more in men than women (46% say it’s true of both).

Women also have an advantage over men when it comes to honesty—one of the most crucial leadership traits, according to the public. Some 29% of all adults associate honesty more with women than men, while 3% say honesty applies more to men than women. A majority of adults (67%) say this characteristic is displayed equally by men and women.

While solid majorities of the public see no difference between men and women on decisiveness and ambition, among those who do draw a distinction on these traits, men have an edge over women. Some 27% of adults say that men are more decisive than women, while only 9% see women as more decisive than men. About six-in-ten (62%) say men and women are equally decisive. Similarly, while 21% of the public says men are more ambitious than women, half as many (9%) say women are more ambitious than men. (A 68% majority see no gender difference on this trait.)

Two additional leadership traits are clearly a gender tossup in the public’s mind. More than eight-in-ten adults (86%) say intelligence is equally descriptive of men and women. An additional 9% say women are more intelligent than men, and 4% say the opposite. Fully three-quarters of adults say men and women are equally innovative. Those who see a difference on this characteristic are evenly split over which gender has an advantage: 11% say innovation better describes women, and 12% say it’s more true of men.

Public Sees Few Gender Differences on “Essential Traits”

How much do these gender differences matter in the public’s assessments about who would make a better leader? Very little, according to the data. When the analysis is narrowed to those respondents who consider a specific trait to be “absolutely essential” for a leader, similar-sized majorities see no difference between men and women.

For example, among those who say honesty is an essential quality for a leader to have, 68% say that men and women are equally honest (among all adults 67% say the same). And for those who say intelligence is an essential trait for a leader, 87% say this trait is found equally in men and women (compared with 86% among all adults). The same can be said of decisiveness. Among those who say this is an essential leadership trait, 61% say men and women display this trait equally (compared with 62% among all adults).

Gender and Political Leadership

Compared to their share of the population, women remain underrepresented at virtually all levels of elected office, but the new Pew Research survey findings suggest that this is not due to a lack of confidence on the part of the public. A strong majority of Americans (75%) say women and men make equally good political leaders. Some 14% say men generally make better political leaders than women, and 9% say women make better leaders than men.

Views on gender and political leadership are remarkably stable across major demographic groups. Men are slightly more likely than women to say that men make better political leaders (17% vs. 12%), and women are more likely than men to say women make better leaders (11% vs. 7%). But strong majorities of both groups say men and women make equally good political leaders.

There is broad agreement across generations as well, although Gen Xers are somewhat less likely than younger or older generations to say that women make better leaders than men. There are no major differences across racial or socio-economic groups on this question.

Solid majorities of Republicans (75%), Democrats (74%) and independents (76%) say men and women are equally qualified for political leadership. Among those who see a gender difference, views differ by party identification. One-in-five Republicans (22%) say that men make better political leaders than women; only 3% say that women make better leaders. Democrats lean the other way, although their views are more evenly distributed: 16% of Democrats say that women make better political leaders than men, while 9% say that men make better political leaders. The views of independents fall between those of Republicans and Democrats (although slightly closer to Republicans).

When gender and partisanship are both taken into account, the differences become sharper. Among Republican men, 27% say that men make better political leaders than women. Only 1% of Republican men say that women make better leaders than men. Republican women also lean toward men, though less heavily so: 17% say that men make better political leaders than women, while 4% say women make better leaders than men.

The gender gap is smaller among Democrats. Equal shares of Democratic men and women say that women make better political leaders than men (16%). Among Democratic men, 11% say men make better political leaders than women. Some 8% of Democratic women say the same.

Executive vs. Legislative Leadership

In elected office, women tend to be more heavily represented in the legislative branches of government than in the executive branches, but the public doesn’t draw sharp distinctions in terms of where women can do the best job. Only 10% say women are better at legislative jobs like serving on the city council or in Congress, and 7% say women are better at executive jobs such as mayor or governor. The vast majority (82%) say there is no difference, suggesting that women can serve equally well in either type of position.

A similarly large majority of adults (83%) don’t see any difference in men’s capability to carry out executive vs. legislatives jobs in government. About one-in-ten adults (11%) say men are better at executive jobs, and 5% say men are better at legislative jobs. Men and women agree that executive and legislative jobs are not better suited for one gender than the other.

The Tools of the Trade

While most Americans think, in general terms, men and women make equally good political leaders, many do see gender differences in style and substance.

One area where the public draws fairly sharp distinctions is on the ability to work out compromises. Just over half (55%) say there’s no difference between male and female political leaders when it comes to working out compromises. Among those who see a difference between men and women on this dimension of leadership, the balance falls clearly in favor of women. Some 34% of all adults say women serving in high-level political offices are better than men at working out compromises. Only 9% say men are better at this.

Women also have an advantage over men on honesty and ethical behavior. A majority of all adults (62%) say men and women don’t differ in this regard. One-third (34%) say women in top political positions are more honest and ethical than men in top political positions. Just 3% say men are more honest and ethical.

Most adults (68%) say political leaders are equally good at working to improve the quality of life for Americans regardless of their gender. But many do see a gender difference: 26% say women in top political positions are better at this than their male counterparts, while 5% say men are better at this than women.

Similarly, women have an edge over men when it comes to standing up for what they believe in, despite political pressure. While most adults (63%) say men and women serving in high-level political offices are about equal in this regard, 25% say female political leaders are better at doing this, and 10% say men are better.

Opinion is more evenly divided on which gender is more persuasive. Overall, 60% of adults say there is no difference between male and female political leaders in their ability to be persuasive. Beyond that, only a slightly higher share say women are better at this (21%) than say men are better (17%).

Women See Clear Advantages to Female Political Leadership

There is a wide and consistent gender gap in opinions about the relative strengths of male and female political leaders. Across the board, more women than men say that female leaders are better at the attributes tested in the poll. The largest gap is on the ability to work out compromises. Fully 41% of women say that female leaders in high-level political offices are better at this; 27% of men agree.

Women are also significantly more likely than men to say that in politics female leaders have an advantage over male leaders in terms of standing up for what they believe in, despite political pressure. Three-in-ten women say female leaders are better at doing this; only 19% of men agree. There are significant gender gaps on the three additional items tested in the poll: being honest and ethical, working to improve the quality of life for Americans and being persuasive. In each case more women than men say that female political leaders do a better job.

Interestingly, while men are somewhat more likely than women to say that male political leaders excel in several of these areas, in most cases, even men give female leaders at least a slight edge.

There is a generational divide in views of men, women and political leadership. Baby Boomers and members of the Silent generation tend to have more a positive view of female leaders than do their younger counterparts. And because the gender gap on these issues is much wider among older adults, the generational differences are driven almost entirely by women.

About half of women from the Baby Boom (47%) and Silent generations (50%) say that women in high political office are better than men at working out compromises. By comparison, 33% of Millennial women and 37% of Gen X women say the same. Similarly, 39% of Boomer women and 35% of Silent women say that female leaders are better than their male counterparts at working to improve the quality of life for Americans. Younger generations of women are less likely to hold this view (22% of Millennial women and 24% of Gen X women).

Democrats More Enthusiastic about Female Political Leaders

Democrats express more confidence in female political leaders than do Republicans. On each of the attributes tested in the poll, Democrats are significantly more likely than Republicans to say that female leaders do a better job than men. For their part Republicans are not necessarily more likely to favor men in these areas, but they are more inclined to say there isn’t any difference between men and women.

For example, while 40% of Democrats say female political leaders are better than male leaders at working out compromises, only 30% of Republicans agree. Relatively few Republicans (10%) say men are better at working out compromises, but a majority (58%) say there isn’t any difference between men and women in this regard.

When it comes to standing up for what they believe in, despite political pressure, three-in-ten Democrats say female political leaders are better at this than male leaders. Only 19% of Republicans agree that women are better than men in this area. Some 67% of Republicans, compared with 59% of Democrats, say men and women are equally able in this regard.

Democratic women are among the most enthusiastic proponents of female political leaders. In most cases, they are more likely than both Democratic men and Republican women to say that female political leaders do a better job than men. This is true for working out compromises, working to improve the quality of life for Americans, standing up for what they believe in and being persuasive.

Political Leadership and Policy Expertise

Just as the public views men and women as equally capable on various leadership traits and characteristics, majorities see little difference between male and female political leaders in some major policy realms.

Handling the country’s economic conditions is often at or near the top of the public’s issue agenda. And most Americans (73%) say men and women in high political office perform about equally in this area. Those who do see a gender difference in dealing with economic policy split fairly evenly between men and women when assessing who generally does a better job: 12% say men are better at handling economic conditions, and 14% say women do a better job.

Environmental policy is another area where the public sees little difference between male and female political leaders: 71% say when it comes to handling environmental issues, men and women perform about equally well. Roughly one-in-five (18%) say women in high political offices are better at handling this issue; half as many say men do a better job in this area.

Bigger differences emerge on two additional policy areas—social issues and national security. Narrow majorities say men and women in high political office are equally capable in these areas: 57% for social issues and 56% for national security. But nearly four-in-ten have a clear gender preference in each of these issue areas. Some 38% say women in high political office do a better job than men dealing with social issues such as education and health care. Only 3% say men do a better job in this area.

Opinions run in the opposite direction on the issue of national security. Fully 37% of all adults say men are better at dealing with national security and defense; only 5% say women do a better job in this area. There is a large partisan gap on this question, with Republicans much more likely than Democrats to say that men are better at dealing with national security (46% vs. 32%). But even among Democrats, only 6% say that women are better in this area. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say that men and women are equally capable when dealing with national security issues.

The gender gaps in perceptions about male and female leaders are not as pronounced on these policy issues as they are for traits and attributes. Women are more likely than men to say that female political leaders are better at dealing with social issues such as education and health care, and they are somewhat more likely to say that female leaders are better at handling economic conditions. Very few women (5%) say that female leaders do a better job than their male counterparts in dealing with national security. A majority of women (59%) say that there isn’t any difference between male and female leaders in this policy area (54% of men say the same).

Gender and the C-Suite

The vast majority of the public (80%) says that men and women make equally good business leaders, but many feel businesses are not ready to hire women for top executive positions. Men and women agree that both genders are equally capable of leading in the business world, and there is general agreement on this across generations and partisan groups.

Looking at some of the specific attributes required to be successful in business, again, the public sees relatively few differences between men and women. Strong majorities say there is no difference between men and women when it comes to being an effective spokesperson for their company (77% see no difference) and negotiating profitable deals (73%). And solid majorities see no difference between men and women on providing guidance or mentorship to young employees (66%), providing fair pay and good benefits (64%), being honest and ethical (64%) and being willing to take risks (58%).

Among those who do draw distinctions between men and women on these leadership attributes, some clear gender patterns emerge. About three-in-ten adults (31%) say women in top executive positions are more honest and ethical than men; only 3% say men are better in this regard. Similarly, 30% say women do a better job at providing fair pay and good benefits, while 5% say the same about men. Women are also perceived to have an advantage in providing guidance or mentorship to young employees: 25% say women are better at this, while 7% say men are better.

The largest gap in favor of men is on the willingness to take risks. Some 34% of the public says men in top executive positions are better at this than women; only 5% say women are better than men. Men are also seen as having an edge in negotiating profitable deals. About one-in-five adults (18%) say men in top business positions are better at this than women, while 7% say women are better at this.

Neither men nor women are seen as having a clear advantage in serving as spokespeople for their companies: 9% say men are better at this, 12% say women are better and 77% see no difference between the two.

Views about men and women and their effectiveness in certain aspects of business leadership differ somewhat by gender. Women are more likely than men to say that female leaders are more honest and ethical than their male counterparts (35% of women say this, vs. 27% of men). Similarly, more women than men say that female business leaders are better at providing fair pay and good benefits (34% vs. 24%) and providing guidance or mentorship to young employees (28% vs. 21%).

Men are more likely than women to say that male leaders in business are more willing to take risks (37% of men say this, compared with 31% of women). In addition, men are more likely than women to say there is no gender difference when it comes to being honest and ethical and providing fair pay and good benefits.

Among women, opinions differ significantly on some of these items by generation. Boomer women stand out in their belief that female business leaders are more honest and ethical than male leaders. Fully 40% of Boomer women express this viewpoint, compared with 31% of both Millennial and Gen X women. Boomer women along with their older counterparts—Silent generation women—are also more likely than younger generations of women to say that female leaders are better than male leaders at providing guidance or mentorship to young employees (34% of Boomer and Silent women vs. 23% of Millennial and Gen X women).

Opinions on gender and business leadership also differ across partisan lines. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say that women do a better job on many of the characteristics tested in the poll, although in most cases majorities from each party say there is no difference between men and women on these dimensions.

Some of the largest partisan gaps can be seen on which gender does a better job of being honest and ethical (37% of Democrats say women, 29% of Republicans say the same), providing fair pay and good benefits (37% of Democrats say women, 24% of Republicans say the same), and being willing to take risks (44% of Republicans say men, 30% of Democrats say the same).

Gender Stereotypes and Business Industries

While the public believes that, in general terms, men and women are equally capable of running a business, that assessment changes somewhat when the question is posed about specific industries. Men have a clear advantage in two traditionally male-dominated areas: professional sports, and oil and gas. Some 54% of all adults say a man would do a better job than a woman running a professional sports team, compared with only 8% who say a woman would do a better job at this. An additional 33% say there is no difference between men and women in this regard or that it depends. 17 Similarly, 46% of the public says a man would do a better job running a large oil or gas company, compared with only 11% saying a woman would do a better job. Some 37% say gender would not make a difference or that it depends.

The share saying a man would do a better job running a computer software company is higher than the share saying a woman would do a better job at this. Some 47% don’t see a difference between men and women in their ability to run a software company or say it depends.

Women have an edge over men in hospital management and in retail. Among all adults, 37% say a woman would do a better job of running a major hospital, while 14% say a man would do a better job at this. A plurality (44%) say gender doesn’t make any difference in running a hospital.

The responses are nearly identical for a major retail chain: 37% say a woman would do a better job running this type of company, 15% say a man would do a better job and 43% say there is no difference or it depends.

Women also have a slight advantage when it comes to running a large bank or financial institution. About three-in-ten adults (29%) say a woman would do a better job running this type of company, and 19% say a man would do a better job. Roughly half (47%) say it would not make any difference.

Men and women tend to agree in their assessments of who could do a better job running companies in each of these industries. In the case of a professional sports team, women are somewhat more likely than men to say that a female leader could do better job (11% vs. 5% of men). However, even among women, half (51%) say a man would do a better job of running a pro sports team.

Do Female Leaders Make a Difference?

Many Americans see a broad societal value in having more women in leadership. Three-in-ten adults (29%) say having more women in top leadership positions in business and government would do a lot to improve the quality of life for all women. An additional 41% say having more female leaders would improve all women’s lives at least somewhat. About one-in-five (19%) say having more women in leadership would not do much to improve women’s lives, and 9% say it wouldn’t do anything at all.

Women are much more likely than men to see potential benefits in having more female leaders. Fully 38% of women say having more women in top leadership positions would do a lot to improve the lives of all women; only half as many men (19%) agree.

Similarly, Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to say that more female leaders would be beneficial to all women. About four-in-ten Democrats (39%) say this would do a lot to improve the quality of life for all women. Only 17% of Republicans say the same. Independents fall squarely in the middle: 28% say having more female leaders would do a lot to improve the lives of all women.

• This series of questions was included in a separate telephone survey. Respondents were not offered the option of choosing “no difference” as they were in the main survey, which was conducted online. They were, however, allowed to volunteer responses such as “no difference,” “both equally good” or “depends.” The mode of interview (telephone vs. online) may have had an impact on the share choosing a neutral category in this type of question. ↩

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The Benefits of Promoting Gender Diversity in Leadership

Emerging women leaders and senior leaders alike have an important role to play in ensuring the promotion of women from entry-level through the C-suite.

Mary Sharp Emerson

The key to achieving gender diversity at all levels of an organization is to ensure the success of women leaders in the earliest stages of their management career.

The corporate world has made progress improving gender diversity and bringing an increasing number of women into leadership roles at the executive and C-suite level. As of McKinsey’s 2018  Women in the Workplace  report, women comprise 19 percent of executive leadership positions. 

Despite this small step toward gender diversity in the C-suite, women of color continue to face significant barriers to entry into leadership roles. According to the same McKinsey report, women of color represent only 4 percent of C-suite positions. And as of a 2019  Harvard Business Review  study, there were no black women leading a Fortune 500 company.

Moreover, gender parity for all women remains elusive at lower and middle management, specifically within entry- and mid-level leadership roles. According to the most recent McKinsey data , women make up 48 percent of all entry-level hires but only 38 percent of first-level managers. 

What difference does that 10 percent make? 

A big one. Over the next five years, 1 million women will remain in entry-level or non-leadership roles while their male co-workers are promoted into more promising career paths. 

That long-term talent gap caused by the failure to promote women into entry- and mid-level management roles virtually guarantees that there will be a lack of qualified women for executive and C-suite leadership roles in the future. McKinsey refers to this talent gap as the “broken rung”  on the leadership ladder.

Closing that long-term talent gap will have long-term benefits for organizational success .

But doing so requires more than simply pointing out unconscious bias, identifying hidden stereotypes and common microaggressions, and paying lip service to gender and racial equality. 

Instead, it requires a prolonged and multi-faceted commitment by both men and women leaders to identify the obstacles facing women in leadership roles, especially for women of color.  

Here are some actionable tools and strategies to help women leaders achieve success at the same rate as their male peers.

Women in Leadership: Collaborative Program for Rising Women Leaders and Their Senior Managers

Senior Leaders Must Show the Way Toward Gender Diversity

The success of emerging women leaders depends heavily on the mid-level and senior managers (still predominantly white men) who are primarily responsible for their promotion. 

Thus, mid-level and senior leaders have an active role to play in ensuring that emerging women have the same opportunities for advancement, promotion, and career growth as their male co-workers.

Establish clear job performance evaluation criteria

According to  Women in the Workplace 2018 , women are less likely to get credit for successes and more likely to take criticism for failures. They often must provide more evidence of their competence and are more likely to have their judgement and decisions questioned.

These subtle barriers are even more common for women of color than for their white counterparts. For instance, women of color are significantly more likely than their white counterparts to be mistaken for someone in a more junior role. According to the  HBR , nearly 50 percent of black and Latina scientists report being mistaken for administrative or janitorial staff.

Ensuring that women are fairly evaluated compared to their male counterparts through the hiring and promotion process requires clear and unbiased evaluation criteria. Moreover, employees must have the opportunity to highlight bias and identify stereotypes when encountered. 

Analyze corporate HR data by gender AND by race

While many companies track pay and other HR data by gender or by race, very few track by both. Yet according to a recent  Payscale  study, women of color make less even than white women at the beginning of their careers, a trend which only widens throughout their careers. 

Tracking critical HR data by a full suite of metrics, including both gender and race, will highlight potentially hidden disparities and help ensure that women of color, in particular, do not “fall through the cracks” between gender and race. 

Actively prepare women for leadership roles

As with men, women are more likely to be promoted if they are actively coached on career advancement. Senior leaders must ensure that emerging women leaders are given the same opportunities as their male counterparts to showcase their abilities, stretch their roles, network with senior leaders, and promote their visibility at the executive level.

Develop nuanced strategies for sponsorship

Women tend to be over-mentored and under-sponsored. Many organizations have moved away from formal sponsorship programs because senior leaders can be wary of expending political capital on employees they may not be sure of 100 percent.

Mentorship versus sponsorship need not be an either-or proposition, however. 

As noted in a  2019 report  in Harvard Business Review, sponsorship, when done thoughtfully and strategically, can — and should — evolve authentically through a range of professional “support” roles.  

Discover the value of diverse leadership styles

Understanding the various ways in which men and women work, communicate, and lead is a critical step in promoting and achieving gender parity. Incorporating and encouraging those differences provides strength and flexibility to an organization’s leadership, and that diversity of thought can promote organizational success.

Be willing to engage in honest discussions of gender and racial bias

Enabling honest discussions about gender bias can be difficult for many managers. Adding factors of race into that discussion can make a difficult discussion feel impossible. 

Yet because women of color continue to experience specific microaggressions and hidden stereotypes at a rate greater than their white counterparts, diversity training programs must be designed to take an  “intersectional approach”  that incorporates open discussions of racial as well as gender bias in the workplace.

Make Gender Diversity an Essential Corporate Goal

Unfortunately, upward of  20 percent  of employees continue to feel that their organization’s commitment to gender diversity is little more than window dressing, while their commitment to promoting the leadership capabilities of women of color is practically nonexistent. 

For example, 41 percent of companies have specific targets for women leadership in senior and executive roles. However,  less than a third  have those same goals for gender parity at the level of emerging leaders. And corporate-wide targets designed to promote racial parity often neglect to incorporate gender. 

While many companies claim to be family friendly, women with children continue to pay a very real  penalty  for the so-called “second shift” of housework and child-rearing.

Thus, leaders at every level of the organization must share an ongoing commitment to actionable policies promoting gender and racial parity of all levels of leadership. They must actively work to identify and eliminate the very real obstacles that currently prevent talented and ambitious women, including women of color, from taking the next step into leadership.  

Without such decisive and critical steps, “the broken rung” will continue to inhibit women’s ability to lead and succeed, while organizations are left without the benefits and successes that stem directly from incorporating a true diversity of voices at the top. 

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Emerson is a Digital Content Producer at Harvard DCE. She is a graduate of Brandeis University and Yale University and started her career as an international affairs analyst. She is an avid triathlete and has completed three Ironman triathlons, as well as the Boston Marathon.

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Gender and Leadership: Exploring Novel Questions, Theories, and Boundary Conditions

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Impact of Gender Difference on Leadership Styles Essay

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Introduction

Difference in gender leadership styles, recommendation.

Societies are characterized by a number of identities that classify people into groups. Gender has been identified as one of the major basis upon which people are classified and treatments and recognitions are then accorded according to gender. Gender is defined as the identification of an individual as either a male or a female.

Establishment of norms in societies that over time defined the roles of each gender led to drawn lines on how each gender was to be treated and the kind of positions that could be held by each gender affecting relations even in workplaces. This paper seeks to discuss the Impacts of gender differences on leadership styles. The paper will look into leadership styles as employed by either gender to identify differences in application of the styles by both male and female leaders.

Leadership Model

The way in which both men and women operate in organizational set ups has been identified to differ with either gender experiencing different traits from the other. Leadership model has for instance been one of the avenues upon which the leadership styles between the masculine gender and the feminine gender has been realized.

Consideration of the leadership model also offers a view of the two genders as either dynamic or conservative parties. While the masculine gender is culturally associated with ancient leadership styles, the feminine gender has been significantly associated with a new approach to leadership. A review of the old model and the new model of leadership, for instance, gives a revelation of the difference in the styles.

Approach to how things are handled under the two genders is, for example, completely different. While a management headed by a man will be based on competition, that headed by a woman will be based more on cooperation. A masculine leader who is in most cases result oriented will establish his focus on individual personalities who can help the organization or the team to achieve its goals and objectives.

This can lead into individual focus with other subordinates being ignored. A feminine leadership is on the other hand based on effective coordination of all subordinates to ensure that any achievement that is made is attributed to the effort of each and every individual.

This thus establishes a major difference in the leadership styles that impact on the subordinates. While the masculine gender will lead to the development of the competitive individuals at the expense of the remaining population, the feminine gender ensures that the whole population grows together through interactions that promote interpersonal learning. The way in which managements are organized with respect to the two genders also illustrates a difference.

The masculine gender has for instance been associated with a clearly defined hierarchal leadership that illustrates positions in the structure while the feminine group is more of inclined to team work in which every person is considered to be equal with same input to the group. The main drives in leadership among the two groups are also different. The masculine group is normally particular of being identified as the winners in the dealings that they undertake.

They as a result can make sacrifices to attain this goal in most cases. Contrary to this opinion, the feminine group are more of focused on the output of the transaction rather that being considered as a winner in a process. This describes the man to be more of interested in quantity achievements that are publicly visible while the female gender is more of concerned with qualitative achievements that can be derived from undertakings (MacGregor, 2000).

The difference in leadership styles are also significantly realized in terms exhibited characteristics of the two groups that have been noted over time. Following their preference of the structure of leadership according to gender, the masculine are more of possessed with elements of control over their subordinates, an element that leads to a clear definition of power along a structure. This provides for submissive subordinates that are totally controlled by the leadership.

On the contrary, the feminine is not concerned with controlling people but rather on the influence that facilitates corporation into team work. Emotions also draw a line between the two managements. There is an established emotional attachment between a female leader and her subordinates that is normally associated with sympathy and even personal involvement of the leader on what the subordinates are going through.

This is further identified with a high level of team work cooperation leading to high standard output. Men on the other hand lack emotional attachment and handles subordinates on the basis of set standards upon which they are evaluated. The mode of application of authority also forms a basis for classifying a leadership as either feminine or masculine.

Though the element of power is normally associated with both leaderships, the masculine leadership uses the power to dictate how things are supposed to be done. It established an authority that is considered to be paramount. The feminine leadership on the other hand views power in terms of influence on people. In this way, a direction is established without dictatorship and motivational elements are realized (MacGregor, 2000).

Command and Control verses Interactive Leadership

The leadership styles that are have been realized among men and women differ across the line of command and authoritative approach. The leadership by men has been identified to be full of authoritativeness. Women leaders on the other hand form a base that depends on interaction with team members for the attainment of their objectives.

The interactive leadership style which has been associated with the general characteristics of the feminine gender has particular features that are culturally possessed by women and somehow lacking in men. Communication skills for example is instrumental in women as it enable them to pay attention, to listen to their subordinates and to eventually associate with the problems that are realized under them.

This offers them a leadership advantage that is derived from the confidence that they win from the subordinates and the subsequent level of influence that is obtained. Impatience in men on the contrary fails to induce this influence and in most cases, where authority fails to lead, the feminine leadership is realized to prevail. Apart from the difference realized due to communication skills, the capacity to reconcile conflicting parties is also realized to be more among women leaders as compared to men.

While playing a middle ground such as a mediator needs a soft approach that is rich in influence, the male approach to leadership will miss the objective of influencing the conflicting parties to hit a compromise through sacrifices from either side and authoritatively impose a decision on the individuals.

The male approach to leadership will contrary to reconciling the parties cause more rifts. The two genders are also different in the way in which they handle people. While women have a rich value in the manner in which they relate to other people creating a cohesive environment for collaboration, men leaders lack the concept (Muse, n.d.).

The interactive leadership that is associated with the feminine gender is also characterized with features that promote individual input into teamwork. The features that are illustrated about the feminine leader establish a ground on which every subordinate is made comfortable under the leadership.

The level of motivation that is achieved from personal relation with the interactive leader also empowers the team members to greater individual and collective output. While the masculine leadership was a traditionally developed leadership approach in its originality, feminine leadership approach is identified to have been pushed by the weak nature of women.

The fact that women are traditionally perceived to assume the features of being “cooperative, supportive, understanding, gentle and to provide services to other people” (Muse, n.d., p. 1), they were not able to adjust into the traditional leadership type that needed contrary characteristics to theirs. As a result, the interactive leadership developed as women got into leadership responsibilities. The history of the two leadership styles therefore also distinguishes them (Muse, n.d.).

Transformational verses Transactional Leadership

Leadership difference as realized between the masculine and the feminine groups can also be classified as either transformational or transactional along the gender lines. Following the passionate features of women, the female leaders adopts influence as a leadership tool that in turn changes team members to change their interest from being self centered into being focused on the achievements of the group.

Leadership by men on the other hand has a lot of formalities in which the subordinates are offered rewards based on what they give to the organization. It thus has a lot of formalities that may not encourage or inspire people out of the management’s normalcy. Punishments that are in addition realized over mistakes made under the masculine transactional approach also presents a lot of limitation to workers due to fear of making mistakes to penalties (Muse, n.d.).

Diversity to Feminine’s Advantage

The trend of results as illustrated by research has also been revealing a significant element over the difference in leadership among the feminine and the masculine.

The two groups are identified to have been different from each other on the natural basis of diversity. This difference which has been associated with both genetic and social factors shapes both the masculine and the feminine to adopting their diversified characteristics in the environment. Engagement in leadership by individuals thus reveals the diversity as properties of the leaders are forced into application.

The association of particular leadership styles by gender which also shapes the input which such leaders can make to an organization is also a factor for consideration in relation to leadership difference. Contributions that can be made by a woman in a given organization are thus different from those which a man can offer under similar circumstances. It is with this respect that leadership as offered by women has come to be realized in the corporate world.

The changing trends in business operations that has required particular leadership skills has indicated the difference in leadership styles across the gender lines since the leadership styles are similarly identified with particular management needs most of which are identified to be better performed by women. According to peter, philosophical views have in particular indicated that the leadership style that is currently required based on the needs by organizations are more of inclined to the nature of women.

The strategic approach to leadership that requires a long term visionary leaders is for instance more easily identified with women rather than with men. Other features of leadership as demanded for by the current environment that calls for the building of strong links between individuals working together has also been critical in the subject of leadership difference by gender.

There exists for this reason an element of natural selection into leadership along gender lines. An organization which has for instance identified its goals to be long term and teams being the basis for its success will most likely go for a woman in leadership in order to capitalize on attaining the organization’s objectives.

The emergence of women in leadership positions as realized in the currently developing trends is the result of such difference in leadership styles and the corresponding needs in management. This difference has been so significant with some experts claiming that under normal circumstances in which both men and women have same qualifications, then women will no doubt beat men out of leadership in professional fields, both public and private sectors.

The change in the environment that has required different leadership styles from those that have in the past been offered by men is thus shifting attention to the characteristics that are in general exhibited by women. Based of their natural values, the women have been favored by the current needs in leadership which has exposed the difference in character between the masculine population and the feminine group (Kelley, 1997).

Difference in leadership styles as illustrated according to gender is also attributable to the way in which gender has in itself affected leadership.

Though some researchers have established the ground that the difference in leadership styles as realized by the different gender is more of a consequence, there are opinions that it is the gender factor that has driven the changes that are being realized across the gender divide. Sociological factors have been significantly identified to have driven the change in leadership styles that has favored the feminine gender.

Based on their capacity to easily socialize, women have shown more tendencies to fit in the models that are outlined by organizations for their operations. This has made women to be more compatible with the currently developed structures and outlined behavior as required by organization. The difference as realized between men and women which has made women to be favorites in fitting into organizational structures have thus given women the opportunity to use their traits to transform leadership styles (Grant, 2008).

There is however still some researchers who believe that there is no significant difference in leadership along genders lines. They argue that roles that are stipulated by management are quite strong to allow behavioral elements to shape leadership (Chrisler & NcCreary, 2010).

Though the difference in leadership style exist between the masculine and the feminine on the basis of cultural considerations and individual personalities to exhibit the feminine category as a preference in the current leadership demand, gender sensitivity and balance still calls for inclusion of men in leadership. An integration of leadership is recommended to blend the features exhibited by the two groups as well as training the masculine group to adjust to the properties that are exhibited by the feminine.

The difference which is realized in leadership along gender lines are a result of cultural instilled properties on women according to norms of societies. Improvements can thus be made by training men on the same.

Chrisler, J & NcCreary, D. (2010). Handbook of Gender Research in Psychology, Volume 2 . Toronto, Canada: Springer.

Grant, K. (2008). Fourth European conference on management, leadership and governance . London, UK: Academic Conferences Limited.

Kelley, M. (1997). Gender difference and leadership, a study. AU.AF . Web.

MacGregor, M. (2000). Gender difference: a worksheet on leadership styles. Fasten Network . Web.

Muse, M. (n.d.). Leadership, barriers and styles. Google Docs . Web.

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Gender Differences in Leadership Styles Opinion Essay

1. introduction.

Successful leaders must first identify the gender of a person before deciding on which style to work with appropriately. People behave differently, regardless of their gender, and in this work, five aspects of leadership are explained. How women and men differ in their approaches to leadership, how women differ in leadership style from men, and the sources of these differences are also examined. As the reader progresses through this work, it becomes obvious that biological and sociological disparities in the two sexes create fundamental differences in the ways they lead, manage, and supervise others. In some cultures, it is common to refer to "mother nature," which suggests that women are responsible for feeding, caring for, and raising children. There may be a reason for women to have such characteristics in their nature, either a mother's nature or a caring nature. It may be that this nature of women depends on the interaction of biological and social factors that have evolved. However, it has become obvious that the real facts do not explain the whole story. There are some other differences that are seen as results. According to economic studies, there is a significant correlation between two important factors of successful businesses, and one of these is the participation of women in management positions. Numerous studies have been conducted in Western countries on this issue, and the results have shown that female leaders tend to participate in a more effective way. However, many studies have been conducted to prove this, suggesting that other features such as age are also influential in the effectiveness of a leader. In these studies, relationships have been dealt with in detail, but new studies are needed to show how women differ from men in terms of leadership style. This paper looks at five different aspects of leadership: differences between men and women in their leadership style, differences between women in leadership style, effective leaders' own attitudes and values, and differences in leadership style predictors.

2. Gender Differences in Leadership Styles

The critics are right. Most people have never lived in a world where there aren't major distinctions between men and women. But in industrial societies, men and women can do most tasks. Women seem to be getting jobs of all kinds, as long as they don't require a college or professional degree or considerable experience. In these categories, it is still very difficult to find jobs. While women are still employed in predominantly female jobs, organizations are beginning to realize some of the benefits of hiring them in both men's and women's jobs. Furthermore, women who are in other occupations often feel obligated to work harder than the norm so that they can be taken seriously - even when they start from a position of power. The new organizational needs are also redefining our traditional understanding of efficiency and effectiveness. Participation, power of devolution, and democratization are slowly replacing authoritarian leadership styles in all organizations. However, women have been found to have a distributor, participative, and empowering style of leadership more than men. Women have been found to give more considerate and attention consideration than men, whereas men have been found to be more autocratic, directive, and result-oriented than women. In fact, a number of these studies found a direct relationship between being feminine and being successful as a leader. In recent years, the world and India in particular have seen a number of women breaking into mainly male bastions.

2.1. Communication Styles

Studies have generally found that women are more likely to display a democratic or participative leadership style. Men may be more likely to use an autocratic or directive leadership style. Leadership style was examined in terms of two main types of behavior: the expressions of the leader's intention, either assessing the subordinates' reactions or giving orders to the subordinates. Significant findings emerged to indicate that gender was related to leadership style. Men rated themselves slightly higher than women in initiating structure and communication patterns, whereas women rated themselves slightly higher in other leader behavior. There is general empirical agreement that gender differences are not large. The difference is small and so is the effect size, indicating that less than three percent of the effect of leader behavior patterns is explained by gender. Carol Gilligan proposed that both men and women have different ways of thinking: boys are driven by the essential principle of achievement and dedicated to mastering the extremity principle, while girls measure and extend their network of social ties thanks to the essentials of compassion. These observations suggest that boys compete and seek independence, while girls cooperate and seek relation. Therefore, the prevailing theory is that men and women tend to exhibit different behavior when communicating: men compete while women collaborate. Numerous studies have suggested that such gender-based assumptions can be related to an individual's cognition and behavior. Women, for example, are generally more relational than men.

2.2. Decision-Making Approaches

The differences between male and female leaders gaining the most attention include the leadership styles, including decision-making, and the ongoing discussion about leadership. To date, most of the studies found that there are no completely opposite differences regarding leadership styles between males and females. However, the descriptive studies emphasize that women use more collaborative and shared decision-making styles, while men use centralized authority styles. These styles are the basis of the results obtained using different approaches in research. The following text will present various possible approaches of observing differences in leadership styles between men and women, scientific studies for each of them, and their similarities and differences. Descriptive and prescriptive studies report more differences based on style, leadership type, leadership behavior, leadership orientation, leadership effectiveness, and the culture in which leadership is determined. In gender-centered studies, research can be derived using three approaches. Men and women are not from a single planet, they are not from two planets that are opposite, and they are essentially different. The topic raises differences between men and women in their approach to decision making. Decision making refers to the act of choosing what to do. Decision-making occurs as a response to problem solving, with intelligence also required, yet there are aspects of decision making in which preference plays a key role in the choice. This approach divides the decision makers into two groups, those who consider decision making to be a rational act, the result of a cost-benefit analysis type reasoning process, and those who propose nonrational decision approaches. This section presents the principal schools of study in nonrational decision-making, the result of internal and external pressures that disturb the rational approaches initially expected. Decision making, as already anticipated in the perspective of nonrational decision-making approaches, will be aspects of personality. Decisions and preferences operate both cognitively and affectively, and the choice of behavioral represent different points of a degree between the two system/extreme.

2.3. Conflict Resolution Strategies

Women are often characterized as using a compromise conflict resolution style, while men are often characterized as using a competing style. A compromise style can be expected to view conflicts as opportunities for cooperation and treats winning or losing as less desirable outcomes, whereas a competing style can be expected to treat winning or losing as much more personal. This is borne out in research, with males endorsing compromise resolution more than females. Dominance on a conflict resolution task leads to a dip in scores for boys more than girls, and attempts at finding fixes for problems lead to a decrease in instability in boys' scores compared to girls'. Conflict styles were systematically examined using observation and self-report. Students were video recorded while making a contentious (but harmless and serious) end-of-year appeal for higher grades. It was separated into a group forum and a state of the state address forum. The competition (and some over-compromise) style emphasizes winning and seeks to establish an advantage. On the other hand, the compromise style reaches for a middle ground in order to smooth over differences. The ability of the two styles to reach an agreement is hampered by each other. Results indicated that males are more likely to use the competition style than females, and females are more likely to use compromise styles than males. Digman and Innes later refined these categories and added accommodation, avoiding, and collaboration. Males endorsed the compromise strategy to a greater extent, while older subjects endorsed a more competitive strategy. It is generally found that women value relationships and are more willing to share information, collaborate, and work towards closure. Women are more likely to approach restoration and significantly avoid regression more often than the opposite solution, while men use more competition.

2.4. Motivational Techniques

Motivational techniques: Men tend to use coercion and threat, as well as legitimate, reward, and expert power. These are all positional power techniques. Women use expert, legitimate, and reward-power bases to motivate followers. Consistent with previous research, these data indicate men prefer reward-based power techniques more than women. In addition, women use expert power bases significantly more than men. Women follow the theory that for a transformational style, they must be in a position of expertise or "in the know." This study also indicates that men and women influenced up to 50% of the followership through legitimate power bases. Social role theory suggests that both genders will seek to influence with traditional gender role means. Transformational leadership behaviors are both effective and gender neutral. In her initial research on transformational and transactional leaders, Bass (1985) found that females in first line supervision used more transformational leadership behaviors than males. This finding was later supported by Avolio and Gibson (1988). Bass (1986) simply asserted that "women are more transformational than men, when they think they can get away with it" (p. 34). Women are paid less than men in the same or similar positions, therefore, they do not need to have expert power. Women and men are using expert power in advantage to men and therefore expert power was found more important among female leaders. Furthermore, of the MMPI-2 personality scales that were correlated with leadership ascendance are masculinity or femininity of self-concept, masculine or feminine interests, and the femininity score was found to be the most important predictor for individuals that select themselves to a military setting.

3. Implications and Challenges

She was also convinced that women need compatible enabling environments to reach top positions, an environment in which men and women have the same career opportunities. "Both of us can be present for our families" and of course equally share the costs. Eastern-born persons often find that the continued prevalence of old roles is not utterly mistaken: "I can understand that the man wants to be the dominant leader, with all these possibilities for women there are not so many for men anymore," said one interviewee. "It leads to severe stress and identity problems." Also, career breaks have consequences for high-tech men who are left behind by more assertive and numerous career-making women. Their omnipotent image is admired and feared. According to students, in the future women are not accepted as leaders, only in jobs and positions in which they are used to. In addition, the risk that girls have little confidence in their career prospects is present. When looking for future leaders, surely people can bear in mind these discussions and surveys. Only then, awareness of the existence of gender image and stereotyping can lead to positive aspirations for change. But the stereotypes of management roles for women in particular are partly a huge stumbling block for ambitious, assertive, enthusiastic, leading qualities in meetings and also gentle dignified coaches! Studies have also shown that conflicting and masculine-oriented managers who communicate orders and treat participating employees have been dealing hierarchically and tenaciously, who emphasize dynamic, charismatic and stimulating skills, appear to be more effective today than equally perceived directing way that assertive and nurturing use feminine management skills. It may be true that in our hierarchical organization we have a functional requirement (and a daily practice) to emphasize globally on driving employee performance and task-oriented behavior (ensuring that results match at each stage), while simultaneously showing concern and professionally stimulating. We have to keep this focus and strive for the highest key goal, a safe, effective organization, while we preserve our beloved management skills.

3.1. Gender Bias in Leadership Perception

Recent research has revealed that leadership is gender-based or sex-based. Leadership traits are perceived through nonverbal behavior. Since "perception is often projection based on expectation," or the finding of what is expected is the only thing, it is generally perceived that nonverbal gestures reveal emotions, motivation, movements, and the person's social status. In 1981, Dr. Nancy Henley conducted an experimental study on leadership traits in relation to gender bias. Her study revealed that both male and female target participants expressed leadership tendencies. Before constructing a method for examining the impact of nonverbal communication as a gender stereotype, as a hero and an average (nonhero) prophet as perceived leaders in a group of male and female observers, a background of relevant findings will be presented. In a study of gender bias in connection with leadership, Henley (1977) reported the results of her earlier study. The concept explored was drawn from research conducted by anthropological studies, historical reviews in social psychology, historians, sociological studies, psychologists, and counselors. The method used by Dr. Nancy Henley in her study consisted of a set of social behaviors of a target individual, one female and one male. Each target performed five social acts. Three were identified as the same male and female individuals, given separate instructions. The first act illustrated the state of the individual in which the followers were to assist: helping hands to thank the target for a leadership act; who is to recognize as the savior of the task from the determined decision. It was described in a written scenario. The role of the target individual was accomplished by a co-worker of the instructor, as a 'follower' who was recorded in this scene. A 35-year-old mother who was part of her husband's corporation, the preschool teacher.

3.2. Overcoming Stereotypes and Prejudices

As we have learned from many researches, women can be better leaders than men in many situations. They are better in transformational leader qualities and also, they possess more interaction humanity-orientation leader characteristics. When a woman behaves as a leader should, she is viewed as "unlikable" or as having an "assertiveness problem". Moreover, when a woman is evaluated on competences, she is considered bad at the described in the beginning classic men's job, because according to the society-imposed standards, women cannot be good leaders. This can be changing, though. The contemporary boardrooms are very different from the past, as can be proven by the growth of women as board directors in large companies and researches, such as Catalyst. Today, this change in contemporary boardrooms is visible not because women have outperformed men in some way, but because women take advantage of the changes in corporate culture and the changes in women leaders' behavior. Women can both lead and be themselves. This, of course, is generation-based. The new college-graduate employees, under 40, are not thinking that men should take more money or wives should stay home. Another study shows that only 15% of working adults believe companies should provide more compensation for the traditional male role and the traditional female role, and 77% of working adults aged 18-29 believe that companies should value both women and men equally for their unique qualities, skills, and talents. Of course, there is a contradiction when things are put in question and assumptions and stereotypes tend to become weaker. When things are put in question or are unstable, the beliefs become strong. In a study on perceptions of leadership, it is found that male subjects have no beliefs about leadership or they change them. In a different situation, when no threat to males' beliefs or status (patriarchy) in the group is presented, their belief that men are leaders is stronger. Then, they attribute better leadership capability to men and, in this case, women are seen as more inadequate and their own leadership capability is lower when a masculine vs neutral job is presented. If a masculine vs neutral job is presented, women are seen as a better leader than men only after that, but only in the groups that have expressed their stereotypes.

3.3. Creating Inclusive Leadership Environments

The demand for individual self-fulfillment in the workplace, where trust, autonomy, flexibility, and challenge are sought after, contributes to demands for leadership styles that accept individual differences. For example, in the sustainability of human resources, leadership behaviors are mentioned. In this context, transformational leadership is defined as a strategic leadership approach that is employee-oriented and focuses on the management of organizational change to be more effective in today's dynamic and complex business environment and is associated with advanced high-performance human resources within organizations. With the rapid dissemination of technology, changes in how work is done, attitudes, and confidence in today's business environment require a change in today's leadership behavior. Gender diversity, especially in upper management positions in the business sector and throughout the organization, is necessary for performing the function of gender diversity. In today's complex business environment, adoption of an inclusive leadership style in the workforce is essential. In conclusion, the main motivation behind this study was to develop the concept of the inclusion-based paradoxical leadership framework and aimed to provide an opportunity to implement a new model through this study. In the framework developed in this study, the roles of leaders with paradoxical thinking in creating inclusive leadership environments in working areas, and the importance of a leader to create an inclusive working environment in terms of gender, are discussed. In this context, it is aimed to create a new model by synthesizing the basic form of what has been reported as the possible different views of male and female leaders in the relevant academic studies conducted. In line with this goal, the results of the present study provide a possible theoretical framework for gender expectations and resources offered by distinct leadership styles. It is strongly believed that the results of the study will benefit a large number of potential users, including managers at different hierarchical levels, business school students, lecturers, and researchers, as well as the introduction of a simplified methodology for transferring findings of leadership research to other fields.

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Gender Differences in Leadership

Updated 28 September 2023

Subject Management ,  Identity

Downloads 37

Category Business ,  Sociology

Topic Leadership ,  Gender

Leadership entails working with people in the fast-changing and complex world to make a difference (Pava 3). The society needs sustainable and flexible organizations constituting of individuals. Leadership concerns mobilization of people on tackling tough issues, and it is embedded in everybody. The key to leadership is an ability to unlock the personal potential that instills courage to attempt the uncertain. People have different perspectives on leadership in the male and females with distinguished gender-based differences or no differences in their styles (Paustian et al. 14). Historically, there has been a perception that men are better leaders than women. This negative perception has a traditional gender stereotype reinforcement. Studies demonstrate the value of masculine characteristics disregard to feminine characteristics (Handley et al. 96). It is critical to have recognition of how roles in diverse occupational settings in addition to positive reinforcement tendency, democracy, and competition influence both male and female leadership (Paustian et al. 16).

Leadership qualities

Research on leadership distinguishes gender from sex whereby the former is viewed as culturally labeled male and female qualities, while the latter is attributed to biological characteristics. Qualities of males in leadership include; aggressiveness, confidence, analytical, ambitious, logical, decisive, rational, assertive, impersonal, objective and opportunistic (Fergusion and Todd 411). They are distinguished from the feminine gender qualities that are as follows; emotional, intuitive, tactful, talkative, submissive, receptive to ideas, warm, cooperative, gentle, empathetic, sensitive, and expressive (Ferguson and Todd 413). Women believe less in their abilities as well as being capable to communicate confidence. For instance, research reveals that many females consider themselves to have similar capability as their subordinates, unlike the males who perceive themselves superior to their co-workers (Paustian et al. 16). Women are social risk takers due to high social sensitivity, and can easily deal with social uncertainty. They are good at facial expression recognition and can understand intentions of others. In addition, women show greater emotional intensities compared to men, especially when handling negative situations (Fergusion and Todd 414). In cases where men react through actions, women respond through feelings. Hence, men are considered overconfident and optimistic.

Leadership styles

Gender role is perceived to influence the leadership style. Task-oriented leadership style has been associated with masculinity and relationship-oriented leadership in the feminine. According to Alonso et al., (147), gender dimensions impact the essence of tasks in the lives of people. As the men show dominion in the positions of leadership, another research suggests that females occupying leadership positions, display differing styles to males (Ferguson and Todd 413). In a literature review on female leadership, Tate, Geoffrey and Liu Yang (78) concluded that among leaders, women had a tendency of democracy compared to men who demonstrated autocratic leadership style. They also reported the existence of transformational leadership within the females. The qualities of the male gender are oriented towards the transactional and task-oriented approach to leadership. Research supports femininity to positively correlate to transformational leadership developed by female values (Northouse 32). Women through their transformational leadership inspire, coach the subordinates and put emphasis on teamwork. Men usually order subordinates, solve problems when they are severe and are uninvolved in teamwork (Fergusion and Todd 415).

Leadership similarities in men and women

In contrast, some researchers have declared insignificance in gender diversity between men and women in their leadership behaviors. Handley et al. (100) analyzed previous research studies on leadership and found similarity in men and women leadership behaviors. Further Abubakar, Hassan, and Robert (18) having undertaken various studies summarized on the idea of 'no difference' in the leadership styles, competencies, and effectiveness in male and females. They demonstrated the presence of more similarities than differences; hence, they are equally effective in their research (Fergusion and Todd 417). Unlike other researchers, they found that women leaders delegate less in comparison with the men counterparts but their participative, directive and consultative styles of leadership were similar (Abubakar, Hassan and Robert 18). The approaches to gender reforms which the liberal feminism represents affirm that gender diversity is not based on biology. It further states that both male and females should be given similar opportunities (Pava 7).

Leadership is the act of working with individuals, teams or organizations through guiding them to accomplish a common task. There is a need for sustainable and flexible organizations aided by good leadership (Pava 3). The society perceives leadership differently in both gender categories. Traditionally men are believed to display better leadership compared to women (Paustian et al. 17). Male leaders have qualities such as; aggressiveness, confident, objective and assertiveness, while women are emotional, tactful, submissive, receptive to ideas, intuitive and talkative (Fergusion and Todd 413). This in-built disparity in qualities is what aids them in leadership. Many kinds of research indicate that females demonstrated relationship-oriented, democratic and transformational leadership styles, contrary to males who execute task-oriented and transactional styles of leadership (Northouse 32). Gender diversity has nothing to do with the form of leadership practiced. Men and women can lead equally and effectively.

Works Cited

Abu Bakar, Hassan, and Robert M. McCann. "Workgroup diversity: surface-level actual

similarity and deep-level perceived similarity in leader-member relationship communication." Corporate Communications: An International Journal just-accepted (2018): 00-00.

Alonso‐Almeida, Maria del Mar, Jordi Perramon, and Llorenc Bagur‐Femenias. "Leadership

styles and corporate social responsibility management: Analysis from a gender perspective." Business Ethics: A European Review 26.2 (2017): 147-161.

Ferguson, Todd W. "Female leadership and role congruity within the clergy: Communal leaders

experience no gender differences yet agentic women continue to suffer backlash." Sex Roles 78.5-6 (2018): 409-422.

Handley, Karen, Anne Ross-Smith, and Sue Wright. "The Same or Different: How Women Have

Become Included in Corporate Leadership in Australia." Inclusive Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2018. 93-124.

Northouse, Peter G. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications, 2018.

Paustian-Underdahl, Samantha C., Lisa Slattery Walker, and David J. Woehr. "Gender and

perceptions of leadership effectiveness: A meta-analysis of contextual moderators." Journal of applied psychology 99.6 (2014): 11-29.

Pava, Moses. Leading with meaning: Using covenantal leadership to build a better organization.

St. Martin's Press, 2015.

Tate, Geoffrey, and Liu Yang. "Female leadership and gender equity: Evidence from plant

closure." Journal of Financial Economics 117.1 (2015): 77-97.

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Closing the gender and race gaps in North American financial services

At the beginning of 2021, women in North America remained dramatically underrepresented in the financial-services workforce—particularly at the level of senior management and above. A new industry-specific analysis of data from the latest Women in the Workplace report, a McKinsey collaboration with LeanIn.Org, reveals a leaky pipeline from which women are falling out in greater numbers as they progress up the career ladder, resulting in significant inequality at the top. Consistent with previous years, women in financial services continue to experience a “broken rung” at the first step from entry level to manager—where they are significantly less likely than men to be promoted (for more about our research, see sidebar “About the research and findings”). At the same time, women leaders have taken on the additional responsibilities of supporting employees and investing in diversity and inclusion during the COVID-19 pandemic—but they aren’t being rewarded for this critical work.

About the research and findings

For the past seven years, McKinsey and LeanIn.Org have tracked the progress of women in corporate America. The latest Women in the Workplace report , released in September 2021, is based on data from 423 employers across the United States and Canada as well as a survey of more than 65,000 people from 88 companies. All data were collected between May and August of 2021.

To learn more about the financial-services sector specifically, we carved out the employer data of 27 asset-management companies (excluding private equity), 25 banking and consumer-finance companies, ten insurers, and nine payments companies, which collectively employ over 500,000 employees. We also isolated 8,470 survey responses from employees in the financial sector. 1 Industry-specific n sizes may differ from the Women in the Workplace report because of differences in groupings for analysis.

As demands continue to escalate, it is no surprise that women in financial services are more likely than men to report feeling burned out. Yet women do not always feel that they can request the support they need, including the flexibility to work remotely. As financial-services firms plan for a return to the office, they need to do more to create an equal and inclusive workplace where all women of all backgrounds feel supported, valued, and recognized for the full extent of their contributions.

A leaky pipeline for women—especially women of color

At the beginning of 2021, the representation of women and women of color in the financial-services workforce had increased across all ranks above entry level, compared with 2018 . While women have a slight edge at the entry level (comprising 52 percent of the industry workforce), their representation falls off at every step of the corporate pipeline. This slide is particularly steep for women of color (Black, Latina, Asian 1 “Asian women” refers to women who self-identify as East Asian, South Asian, or Southeast Asian. ): from entry level to the C-suite, the representation of women of color falls by 80 percent.

The highest levels of corporate leadership are still dominated by men, though women have made notable gains in the past three years. During that time, the share of women grew by 40 percent at the senior-vice-president (SVP) level and 50 percent at the C-suite level—though this increase is off a low starting point. Despite progress, 64 percent of financial-services C-suite executives are still White men, and 23 percent are White women—leaving just 9 percent of C-suite positions held by men of color and 4 percent by women of color (Exhibit 1).

Gender and racial diversity look different by industry

The representation of women and women of color varies across the different industries that make up the financial-services workforce: asset management, banking, insurance, and payments (Exhibit 2).

Asset management. The asset-management industry lags behind financial services in the representation of women across most levels. 2 Our analysis of asset management excludes private-equity companies. Of particular concern is that the representation of women of color has not meaningfully changed since 2018—and has actually gone down at critical levels of the pipeline. For example, the share of women of color in entry-level roles has decreased slightly in the past three years.

Banking. Gender diversity in banking reflects the reality in financial services overall, with an even split between men and women at entry level that declines with each rung up the ladder. Women make up 53 percent of the entry-level banking workforce but less than one-third at the SVP and C-suite levels. Notably, nearly one in four employees at the entry level is a woman of color, though this falls to one in 20 at the C-suite level—on par with both the financial-services and cross-industry average.

Insurance. Insurance continues to lead in gender diversity within the entry-level workforce, where 66 percent are women—though these women are predominantly White. The high share of women at entry level is mostly due to the larger, more diverse workforces of call centers and field-claims organizations employed by the insurance industry. Black women comprise more than 7 percent of the entry-level workforce—the highest among financial-services industries. However, this number drops precipitously along the corporate ladder and falls to zero at the C-suite.

Payments. Within the payments industry, gender diversity varies significantly by job level. Payments has the lowest share of women in the entry-level, manager, and senior-manager ranks, but among the financial-services industry, it is the closest to gender parity in the C-suite (where 39 percent are women). Women of color make up 9 percent of the C-suite in the payments industry—the highest representation among all financial-services industries.

Intersectional differences within the ‘broken rung’

As in many other industries, women in financial services continue to experience a broken rung at the first step from entry level to manager—where they are significantly less likely than men to be promoted. That results in a long-term negative impact on women’s ability to progress through the talent pipeline. When women are not getting promoted at the junior levels of the pipeline, it is challenging to equalize gender diversity at more senior levels—the gap is simply too large to catch up.

Within financial services, only 86 women are promoted to manager for every 100 men, which is on par with the cross-industry Women in the Workplace  findings. In 2020, women of color were promoted at even higher rates than women overall: 93 women of color were promoted for every 100 men. While this is an encouraging sign of progress, a closer look reveals granular and marked differences between the experiences of Asian, Black, and Hispanic women across financial-services industries (Exhibit 3).

Women in financial services reported more support in the past year

Financial-services companies helped many employees weather the COVID-19 pandemic—seemingly at higher rates than corporate America overall. While 47 percent of women surveyed for the 2021 edition of the Women in the Workplace study reported receiving increased support in the past year, 59 percent of women in financial services reported the same. And about 28 percent of women overall reported additional holidays or paid time off, compared with 42 percent of women in financial services. This is partly because the financial-services industry was well-positioned to transition to remote work and was able to avoid the worst of the economic fallout from the pandemic.

These differences and others could help explain why women in financial services are slightly less likely to consider leaving their company; 28 percent said they would consider it, compared with 33 percent of women overall.

Demands on women continue to escalate—but recognition doesn’t

Women in dual-career households.

Women in financial services are more likely than men to be in a dual-career household. According to the survey, 62 percent of men are in a dual-career household, compared with 81 percent of women. Furthermore, women are much less likely than men to say that their career takes priority over their partner’s career (exhibit).

As the pandemic has stretched on, women’s outsize contribution to taking care of homes and families—often while maintaining their careers—has continued to grow. Senior-level women are 57 percent more likely than senior-level men to have a spouse who works full time. Of those who live with a spouse, senior-level women in financial services are seven and a half times more likely than their male peers to say they are responsible for all or most of household responsibilities. This figure has jumped significantly since 2018, when it was four times more likely (for more, see sidebar “Women in dual-career households”).

In addition to these home-based responsibilities, women are also stepping up in the workplace and setting a new standard for leadership. Across industries, women leaders are more active champions of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives than their male peers. In financial services, senior-level women in particular are much more likely to feel a personal responsibility to promote DE&I, which usually falls outside formal job responsibilities—increasing their invisible workload without increasing recognition.

Women in financial services are also doing more than their male peers to support their teams, especially in manager and entry-level roles. Eighty percent of women in financial services reported consistently providing emotional support for a team member in the past year, compared with 72 percent of men. Women managers in financial services are also slightly more likely than their male peers to say they set clear work-availability boundaries, ensure employees’ workloads are reasonable, and organize team-bonding events. Employees recognize this difference. Financial-services employees with women managers are 50 percent more likely to say their manager provided emotional support and 25 percent more likely to report that their manager has helped them navigate work–life challenges (Exhibit 4).

This supportive leadership is also modeled by entry-level women in financial services. Half of these women said they provided emotional support for a team member in the past year, while 38 percent of their male colleagues said the same. Entry-level women in financial services are also 2.6 times more likely than their male peers to organize team-bonding events. And yet entry-level men are 67 percent more likely than their women peers to say the work they do to support the people on their teams is formally recognized. In many ways, this emotional support has provided the connective tissue that has been so critical during the upheaval of the pandemic. When managers support employee well-being , employees report feeling happier, less burned out, and less likely to consider leaving their company.

In addition, more than half of women in financial services (53 percent) reported experiencing at least one microaggression (such as being interrupted or having their judgment questioned) over the past year. This is slightly lower than women in corporate America overall (58 percent) but still high. And in both corporate America overall and financial services specifically, women of color are more likely to experience microaggressions. These experiences can have a profoundly negative impact on an employee’s motivation, job satisfaction, stress level, and desire to stay at a company.

Indeed, the survey confirmed what many expect: all employees are more burned out this year. In financial services, this is especially pronounced at the senior level, with 48 percent of senior-level women having reported being burned out, compared with 41 percent of senior-level men. However, burnout is not only at the senior level; almost three in ten entry-level women in financial services say they are burned out often or almost always.

What do women need in the return to work?

Simply put, women need two elements for a successful return to work: flexibility and managerial support. Women want to continue to work remotely after the pandemic, and they don’t feel like remote work has caused them to miss out. Forty-five percent of women in financial services say they want to continue to work remotely, 3 Defined as working remotely 91 to 100 percent of the time. compared with 36 percent of men in finance. When it comes to the broader effect on their career of working remotely, both men and women in financial services generally agree on the extent to which their careers have stalled, lost ground, or advanced over the past year (Exhibit 5).

However, women report feeling less able to request remote work when needed. Men in financial services are 76 percent more likely than their women colleagues to say they have the flexibility to work remotely, and women are more than two times as likely to say they have almost no flexibility to work remotely (Exhibit 6). And 29 percent of men say it’s not a big deal to request opportunities in work flexibility, compared with 19 percent of women—likely because women report being more likely to feel like a burden or to worry about the request hurting their career.

Of course, a hybrid working model isn’t a silver bullet. Even though women managers are recognized as more supportive than male managers, women aren’t getting that support in return. Managerial support is a crucial, high-stakes priority for improving women’s experiences in the financial-services workforce.

The importance of flexible working arrangements and supportive managers will be key: almost one in four women in financial services say that offering more flexible hours and ensuring managers were supportive of employees could have helped avoid attrition or downshifting.

Taking action

It is clear that financial-services companies need to do more to address the disproportionate effects of the pandemic on women and pave the way for a more equal and inclusive workplace. Specifically, companies can focus on four priorities.

Fix the broken rung

Achieving gender diversity across the pipeline will require financial-services companies to address the unequal promotion rates from entry level to manager—the broken rung. One direct solution is maintaining gender balance in promotion slates. The broader Women in the Workplace survey  revealed that while a majority of companies require diverse slates of similarly qualified candidates in their hiring processes, only 23 percent of companies apply those same policies to their performance reviews. By doing so, companies can hold themselves accountable to progress on diversity—across both gender and race—at the manager level and above.

Furthermore, financial-services companies should investigate their performance-review and promotion processes for areas where conscious or unconscious bias may limit the advancement opportunities of women and women of color. This means evaluating employees based on outcomes instead of subjective inputs and ensuring that employees—and especially women—are not penalized for taking advantage of flexible work options.

Create a flexible and supportive culture

Of course, improving gender and racial diversity is only part of the broader DE&I mandate. Leaders—both men and women—of financial-services companies also need to purposefully foster an inclusive culture where women of all backgrounds feel that their managers respect and support their needs.

Women in financial services are more likely to want flexibility in their work arrangements but less likely to feel comfortable asking for it. Companies can lower the barriers by spotlighting senior leaders, particularly women, who take advantage of the flexible work options that the company offers to all employees. Leaders should set clear expectations around remote work and provide specific examples to illustrate accepted working norms. And because women often look to their managers to interpret formal and informal company policies, it is particularly important for managers to respect company-wide boundaries around flexible and remote work—and to role model these values themselves.

Grow and reward caring people leaders

Women in financial services do more to take care of their teams, yet they receive less support from their managers compared with men. Companies should take steps to educate and train managers on how to provide emotional support for their colleagues (for example, setting regular check-ins and creating space for honest conversations around well-being). Requiring participation or providing incentives to attend these training programs can help to encourage widespread adoption. The responsibility of managers to support employee well-being should be formalized in performance-evaluation criteria that explicitly reward caring people leadership. This would also ensure that managers who already carry much of this “invisible” workload—mostly women—are recognized for their contributions.

Actively monitor and solve for burnout

To combat higher levels of burnout among women, financial-services companies could train managers and employees on how to notice and intervene when team members are at risk of burning out. Managers should play an active role in encouraging employees to set boundaries (especially in remote or hybrid environments) and reduce the expectation of being “always on.” The responsibility falls not only on direct managers but also on the entire company to provide adequate mental-health resources to employees and nurture a culture where everyone is willing to raise their hands and acknowledge burnout when it occurs.

The financial-services industry has made some progress in closing the gender and race gaps, but there is still a long way to go. As financial-services firms reimagine the future of the workplace, this moment calls for bold action to improve gender and racial diversity across the talent pipeline and create an inclusive culture where all women, and all employees, feel like they belong.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the partnership of LeanIn.Org and extend their thanks for its contribution to the thinking that appears in this report. The authors also wish to acknowledge the contributions of Kristen Cooper, Worth Gentry, and Tijana Trkulja to this article.

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Gender bias in sports is a longstanding issue that affects athletes and women in leadership positions across all levels of competition. Despite significant progress in gender equity initiatives, disparities persist in media coverage, funding, sponsorship, coaching opportunities, and leadership roles. The bias not only impacts the visibility and financial support for women but also influences their psychological well-being, career longevity, and overall experience in sports. This Research Topic aims to address the critical problem of gender bias in sports. It seeks to provide a platform for analyzing the effects of gender bias on athletes, leadership positions, and sports organizations. It aims to explore the role of media and cultural perceptions in perpetuating gender disparities, as well as evaluate and highlight effective policies and initiatives that have successfully promoted gender equity. By gathering diverse perspectives and evidence-based research, this collection strives to identify practical strategies for overcoming gender bias and promoting inclusivity within sports environments. The ultimate goal is to foster dialogue, inform policy-making, and inspire actionable solutions that will contribute to reducing gender disparities and advancing equity in sports at all levels. This Research Topic invites contributions that explore various aspects of gender bias in sports, including but not limited to: • Disparities in media representation and coverage • Inequities in funding, sponsorships, and resource allocation • Gender differences in coaching opportunities and leadership roles • Psychological impacts of gender bias on athletes • Economic analysis of gender disparities in professional sports, the Olympic Games, and the Paralympic Games • Intersectional perspectives on gender bias We welcome all types of manuscripts and papers focusing on underrepresented groups, innovative solutions, and practical applications are particularly encouraged.

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The Republican Strategists Who Have Carefully Planned All of This

By Thomas B. Edsall

Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality.

Republican leaders are now adopting increasingly autocratic measures, using the police powers of government to impose moralized regulations, turning private citizens into enforcement officers and expelling defiant elected Democrats just as county Republican parties, particularly in Western states, are electing militia members, Christian nationalists and QAnon believers to key posts.

Here’s one example. Last November, the Republican Party of Clackamas County in Oregon chose a new vice chairman, Daniel Tooze, a Proud Boy from Oregon City, and Rick Riley, the head of the county chapter of Take Back America, which denies the results of the 2020 presidential election, as chairman. Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that in central Oregon’s Deschutes County, the local Republican Party chose Scott Stuart, “a member of the county chapter of People’s Rights, a nationwide network of militia groups and anti-government activists founded by conservative firebrand Ammon Bundy.”

In June 2022, two of my Times colleagues, Patricia Mazzei and Alan Feuer, reported that “at least a half-dozen current and former Proud Boys ” had secured seats on the Miami-Dade Republican Executive Committee, including two facing criminal charges for participation in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol:

The concerted effort by the Proud Boys to join the leadership of the party — and, in some cases, run for local office — has destabilized and dramatically reshaped the Miami-Dade Republican Party that former Gov. Jeb Bush and others built into a powerhouse nearly four decades ago, transforming it from an archetype of the strait-laced establishment to an organization roiled by internal conflict as it wrestles with forces pulling it to the hard right.

“On the right, support for violence is no longer a fringe position,” Rachel Kleinfeld , a senior fellow in the democracy, conflict and governance program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in a November 2022 Politico essay, “ How Political Violence Went Mainstream on the Right .”

Those joining violent political events like the Jan. 6 insurrection, Kleinfeld continued,

are more likely to be married middle-aged men with jobs and kids. Those most likely to support violence on the right feel most connected to the Republican Party. This is not a marginal movement: It is people who see violence as a means to defend their values, an extension of their political activity.

Democrats are not driving today’s political violence, Kleinfeld argued,

but they are at least partly responsible for driving many people into the arms of the far right. Fear is a major cause of violence. As America undergoes immense change, from a fourth industrial revolution to remaking the concept of gender, many Americans are struggling to understand why they feel unmoored, anxious and behind. Snake-oil salesmen like Tucker Carlson offer the racist great replacement theory as an explanation. Rather than provide a better story, the progressive left calls people names if they can’t march to a radically new tune fast enough. No wonder that even people of color moved in 2020 toward a right that offers understanding and a sense of community.

At the same time, Republican leaders are showing a growing willingness to disempower both Democratic officials and cities run by Democrats if they defy Republican-endorsed policies on matters as diverse as immigration, abortion and gun control.

The expulsion of two Black state representatives by the Republican majority in Tennessee received widespread publicity this past week. (One has already been reinstated by local officials, and the other may be soon.) But their expulsion, as spectacular as it was, is just the most recent development in a pattern of attempts by Republicans to fire or limit the powers of elected Democrats in Florida, Mississippi, Georgia and elsewhere. This includes Gov. Ron DeSantis’s decision in August 2022 to suspend Andrew H. Warren, the elected Democratic state attorney of Hillsborough County, who had signed a statement saying he would not prosecute those who seek or provide abortions.

In defiance of public opinion, 22 Republican attorneys general and 67 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives filed amicus briefs that called on Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Federal District Court judge in Amarillo, Texas, to invalidate the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, which he promptly went ahead and did last week. A February Ipsos poll found that by three to one (65 versus 21 percent), American adults agree that “medication abortion should remain legal in the United States,” including a healthy plurality (49 versus 35 percent) of Republicans.

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