When talking about the future demographics in the workforce, women were in the center of the discussion. It has been several decades since women flocked into the workplace, and demonstrated that they too deserve high managerial and c-level positions within an organization.
The more women obtain leadership roles that were traditionally reserved for men, the more that male and female leadership styles will be compared.
Some researches advocate for the existence of differences between men and women’s leadership traits, while others state that male and female organizational leaders do not differ.
Alice Eagly and Mary Johannesen-Schmidt, of Northwestern University, describe in their research ‘The Leadership Styles of Women and Men” that leaders act according to what others expect from them first for being male or female. These expectancies are constituted by gender roles, which are “shared beliefs that apply to individuals on the basis of their socially identified sex.”
Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt state that gender roles influence the leadership role, thus differentiating the female and male occupants of a same organizational role. This is true since there are specific aspects of gender roles that have a special incidence in leadership. Such attributes are called agentic and communcal attributes.
Agentic characteristics are more strongly ascribed to men, and include characteristics such as being assertive, controlling, and confident. Attitudes related to these characteristics also include being ambitious, dominant, forceful, independent, daring, self-confident, and competitive. Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt describe that in employment settings, agentic behavrios can be translated in “speaking assertively, competing for attention, influencing others, initiating activity directed to assigned tasks, and making problem-focused suggestions.”
On the other hand, communal characteristics are ascribed more strongly to women, and they describe a concern with the welfare of others. Such characteristics include being affectionate, helpful, kind, sympathetic, interpersonally sensitive, nurturant, and gentle. In the workplace, these characteristics translate into communal behaviors which might include “speaking tentatively, not drawing attention to oneself, accepting others’ direction, supporting and soothing others, and contributing to the solutions of relational and interpersonal problems.”
These characteristics in men and women may influence how each gender takes on a leadership role, providing them with a different “style”, but it doesn’t determine their success as leaders.
Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman conducted a research in which they put together data from 360 evaluations of corporate leaders. These evaluations tracked the judgment of a leader’s peers, bosses, and direct reports. These individuals were asked to rate the leader’s effectiveness overall and also judge how strong she or she is on 16 specific competencies. The 16 competencies were drawn from 30 years of research that show which are the most important overall leadership traits.
The data concluded that women score higher than men in “nurturing” competencies such as building relationships and developing others, while also showing strength in other levels. More women were rated by pears, bosses, associates, and direct reports, as better overall leaders than their male counterparts.
A McKinsey&Company 2008 study, “Women Matter: Female leadership, a competitive edge for the future,” provides findings that show that men and women differ in the frequency with which they use different leadership behaviors essential to boost organizational performance.
The nine leadership behaviors that McKinsey used as parameters in the study are:
- Participative decision making
- Role model
- Expectations and rewards
- People development
- Intellectual stimulation
- Efficient communication
- Individualistic decision making
- Control and corrective action
After identifying these traits, McKinsey analyzed how often men and women apply them and found out that women apply five of these nine leadership behaviors more frequently than men. The five behaviors used more frequently by women are: people development, expectation and rewards, role model, inspiration and participative decision making. Particularly, the first three, have a higher incidence than all of them.
On the other side, men adopt two of the nine behaviors more frequently than women: control and corrective action, and individualistic decision making.
In the two other behaviors (intellectual stimulation and efficient communication), there was no significant difference found in the incidence of them among men and women.
The following chart illustrates the findings:
McKinsey’s research also highlights that even when the gaps are small, they do reflect a genuine difference of behavior between men and women. Because women apply more behaviors more frequently than men, they contribute the most to a stronger organizational performance.
This occurs because the leadership behaviors more frequently applied by women improve organizational performance by specifically strengthening three dimensions: accountability, leadership team, and work environment and values.
The chart below illustrates the dimensions strengthen by each leadership behavior:
Leadership styles between men and women, as different research show, might be different. Not all women and not all men necessarily share the same behaviors and characteristics. It is up to every individual to become the best leader they can and nothing can be completely determined by gender, cultural background, or any other element of an individual’s profile.
Understanding an individual’s leadership style can help predict their decisions, reactions and general behaviors. For this it is helpful to carry personal assessments of one’s own style to identify areas of opportunity for becoming better each day.