Chapter 4 CONCEPT OF WOMEN AND MANAGEMENT
4.4 Women Leadership Styles
Does gender affect what type of leader one becomes? Are males or females better leaders than the other? What are the benefits of having a female or male leader in an organization? Sorenson, Ledema and Severinsson (2008:535-544) believe that women have a holistic worldview because they view business, family, community, and society
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as an integrated whole, not as a separate economic reality, as is the tendency among men. According to Lowe (2011: 315) women generally have the ability to connect inside and outside the organization stakeholders using collaborative strategies, creating networks based on internal and external contacts, and establishing networks of teams within an organization. The key to business success is the implementation of collaborative leadership. Women are generally more democratic in their approaches to leadership, Northhouse (2010:303) claims that the reality is that both men and women can be collaborative leaders, and it has been found that this style of leadership produces the most favourable evaluations.
Leadership styles are not fixed behaviours but encompass a range of behaviours that have a particular meaning or that serve a particular function, depending on the situation Rao (2009:93). The concept of situational leadership implies the inability of one person to leader effectively in all circumstances if their culture, personality and other factors are taken into consideration. There are eight qualities for good leadership, and these are;
intelligence, communication skills, technical skills, inner drive, energy, human relations, and teaching skills (Eagly, 2007:2). Effective leaders will be those who can vary their behaviours within the boundaries of their style. Joyce (2004:1-11) commenting on project leadership observed that different leadership styles are needed at different stages of the specific project, men and women manage differently implying that there are instances when women excel above men. Schaap, Stedham and Yamamura (2008:89) propose that the failure of women to ascend to higher levels of leadership is because women are not properly equipped to be successful managers.
Doherty (2004:433-452) admits that there is a different between men and women in their leadership styles and techniques and by derivation different competencies. Other studies dealing with female issues in the hospitality industry compared the management styles and techniques of women and men. Hanan (2005:239) compared between men and female managers regarding their adopted managerial styles, female managers self- reported a more interactive style than their male counterparts, although Bromley (2008:404-417) reported that female managers have a more centralized style, and being much less willing to delegate than males. Yun Yang (2011:3) added that female managers are more likely to pay close attention to subordinates’ feelings, having better skill of communication and listening, also getting on well with staffs and customers easily. Dhlomo (2008:1-4) believes women are flexible which makes them good leaders,
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they adapt at balancing strategy and tactics which is the essence of leadership, women express assertiveness as a combination of self-expression and a concern for the needs of others which is in turn a good leadership quality.
In Blayney and Blotnicky(2010: 233-255) research study found that the hotel industry demands the same skills of men and women but the career progression pathways can be different. They further postulated that men generally tend to view women as possessing fewer of the characteristics of successful managers, women tend to score higher on a leadership scale measuring an orientation towards product, holding high expectation for the self and others and the attainment of results women are higher on people orientated leadership skills .Appelbaum, Audet& Miller (2003:6) concurred that men on the other hand tend to score higher on scales assessing an orientation towards strategic planning and organisational vision.
Men are higher on business oriented leadership skills.An observation of differences on performance and managerial styles with respect to gender variable by Derya (2012:1- 15) revealed gender differences in performance attributions and reported that females believe that success originates from good luck. On the contrary, males believed that success originates from ability, in support of this finding, males rated themselves as having more ability and greater intelligence and saw ability as more representative of success than females.Koch, Luft and Kruse (2005:9-39) observed that women were described as communal associated with being feminine and exhibiting traits such as soft, sentimental, delicate, quiet, sociable, flexible and bold.
In contrast, men were associated with masculinity and exhibiting traits such as hard, strong, healthy, robust, tense, instinctive, aggressive, dominant and egoistic.
Additionally Schaap, Stedham and Yamamura (2008:90) explain that women tend to exercise personal rather than structural power. A female manager perceives her power to be based not on who she is and what her position is, but what she brings to the table, what she knows and how she can make employees feel part of the team and of what the team is doing. Therefore women’s power tends to be based on interpersonal skills, which become critically important when work is performed in an environment of much ambiguity and decisions have to be made quickly.
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A study by Appelbaum, Audet and Miller (2003:43-51) discovered that women were higher on people oriented skills and that they tended to employ a collaborative team approach that empowers employees and customers. By comparison men were higher on business-oriented skills. It was later found that a good manager, whether male or female, was distinguished by stereotypical masculine characteristics. Powell (2011:1-9) concurs in part and states that a good manager would possess both masculine and feminine traits and leadership styles (androgynous). By implication, if female managers use this androgynous trait they may have a better chance of rising up the corporate hierarchy and obtain leadership positions.The issue that needs to be addressed is: if women’s leadership styles are different from men, how can it be explained? De La Rey (2005:4) for example argues that differences can be attributed to gender specific socialization practices and life experience. He believes that while avenues to leadership are open to men, women have to get to leadership positions by following different
‘paths’ than men. While men’s career paths are often linear and uninterrupted women’s career paths are often interrupted because of caring for children, leading them to reach managerial positions much later in life.
Leadership styles of women and men are different according to Eagly and Linda (2003:807-34) probably because women are more cooperative and collaborative, but less hierarchical, than men. However, men and women have different social roles, for instance in the family and employment place. The main differences of men from women, is that men are assertive, controlling, and confident. Men are characterized as being aggressive, ambitious, dominant, independent, self-confident and competitive, and women are affectionate, kind, helpful, sympathetic, nurturing, interpersonally sensitive and gentle. Furthermore Zachary (2009:1) highlights that self-analysis of leadership styles may provide male and female leaders with insights regarding their leadership behaviours and the implications for their followers or subordinates.
What are the benefits of having a female leader in an organization? Northouse (2004:272) noted that in one meta-analysis of middle to executive leaders, women Outperformed men in 28 of the 31 areas. These areas included: conflict resolution, work quality, adaptation to change, productivity, idea generation, and motivation. Women also tended to have and portray higher social skills than most men which in turn is a good quality to have for a good leader. Men and women were designed differently and the biological and social difference would suggest the personality differences between
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men and women. Therefore the differences between the two genders will affect the different leadership styles they display (Semykina& Linz, 2007:2). Below in table 4.1 is a comparison of men and female leadership styles.
Table 4.1The differences in male and female leadership styles
Men Women
Structured Consideration
Transactional Transformational
Autocratic Participative
Instruction giving Socio expressive
Business oriented People oriented
Source: Appelbaum et al, (2003:48)
According to Jonsenet al (2010:550) male leadership styles are associated with instrumental, agentic or ‘transactional’’ qualities and female leadership styles with more communal, nurturing and people-oriented qualities. Supporting research by (Bass and Avolio, 1994; 100 Eagly et al., 2003;807Alimo-Metcalfe and Alban-Metcalfe, 2003:51) confirms that the notion of gender differences in leadership does exist , for example women tend to be slightly more ‘‘transformational’’, and democratic, participative and inclusive.
Syed and Murray( 2008:419) found that in a survey of male and female executives with similar jobs and education and of a similar age, women were found to be more transformational oriented than men. Similarly, female leaders were reported to emphasize the team approach more than men and were regarded as more people- oriented than their male counterparts. In contrast, Burke and Collins (2001: 250) agree with the previous findings as their research revealed that ‘‘the tendency of females to emphasize the highly effective transformational leadership style more than their male colleagues applied to all four of the transformational leadership style subcomponents.
Females were more likely than males to report doing the following: serving as positive role models for subordinates who aspire to be like them (attributed charisma); inspiring employees to believe in and strive for a common purpose (inspirational motivation);
encouraging followers to be creative in problem solving and to question assumptions (intellectual stimulation); and spending time developing, teaching, and coaching their
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subordinates (individual consideration).’’ Transformational leadership behaviors to a large extent exemplify feminine type behaviors built around female innate qualities such as nurturing, caring, participative, consultative, compassionate, concern, respect, equality and consideration (Jogulu and Wood, 2008:603). This pauses a new question;
if transformational leadership is what it is perceived to be, won’t the ‘rejection of women’
as leaders create doubt on the effectiveness of transformational leadership as an effective style?
According to the study of Women in Corporate Leadership by Catalyst (2003:1), when it comes to management or leadership, it is believed that social structures invalidate and influence women’s effort to being effective, influential and powerful leaders. Supporting the Catalyst study, Stewart, Malley and LaVaque (2007:58) indicate that women are expected to combine management with compassion. Women are required to soften their leadership styles to gain approval from the subordinates/constituents; otherwise they will risk being disliked or being rated less influential than men. Interesting to note that men face no such necessity when exercising power. Catalyst’s (2003:1) study confirmed that females who lead with an autocratic style are targets of disapproval while men who portray the same leadership style experience no such discrimination. The study also revealed that women from the study believed they had to employ a number of strategies to get ahead in their careers the strategies included:
Exceeding performance expectations;
Successfully managing others;
Developing a style which male managers are comfortable with;
Having recognized expertise in a specific content area; and Taking on difficult or highly visible assignments.
Therefore under these circumstances, it is evident that gender discrimination in leadership styles and the workplace seems to be an underlying threat to women’s career advancement. Langlands and Simpson (2004:36) postulated that women are underrepresented in leadership roles due to the glass ceiling while men are escalated to management positions. But when women attain these leadership positions they are heavily side-lined and under evaluated and their evaluation is not always so positive.
Ryan and Haslam (2005:81) adds that women tend to receive positive evaluations when their leadership roles are defined in feminine terms, on traditional, masculine measures of leadership, women’s leadership effectiveness is often perceived to be lower than that
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of men. With the attitude of workers it has been revealed that employees prefer male supervisors than female supervisors and many male managers are not convinced that females make effective leaders.
It is interesting to note that according to Judge (2003:21), in Britain the presence of women in most companies’ management and board of directors has been a hindrance in some of the companies and has weaken the company’s performance and share prices. The author believes the under performance of the companies is due to female leadership. Singh and Vinnicombe (2003:100) have confidence that the company’s performance could be a trigger to the appointment of a female leader, being women may be placed in a situation were they are already going to fail in a way they downfall has been planned. They are placed in leadership role already associated with increased risk of negative consequences. Females and males have or portray different leadership styles, Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt (2007:30) female leaders as compared to male are less hierarchy, co operative and collaborative more orientated to enhancing others self worth. One of the differences is that women are more participative and democratic then men leaders.
Men more than women adopt a command and control leadership style. Engen and Williamsen (2004:3-18) realised that in male dominated professions women adopt and portray the masculine leadership, unlike in less male dominated professions were women adopt the culturally feminine behaviour in their leadership styles. Women combine feminine and masculine leadership styles. Is it an advantage or disadvantage to be a participative leader or a directive leader? Well it all depends on the context.
Carter, Simkins and Simpson (2003:33) learnt that high levels of directive, assertive behaviour tend to damage social relationships, whereas low levels can limit goal achievement. Women are more transformational leader and men are more transactional leaders. According to Eagly (2013:8) women have better leadership style and the styles women uses are more effective. Women exceed men on the culturally feminine component of providing support and mentoring to the employees in the workplace.
In general, men can be characterised as more confident than women (Bengtsson, Persson, & Willenhag, 2005:199) Women’s lower confidence, especially regarding financial matters, is also reflected in the fact that businesswomen generally report lower
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levels of profitability (Robinson &Stubberud, 2011:26).Women are often stereotyped as being more apologetic. One interesting study by Schuman (2011:2) found that women do indeed apologize more but only because women judge themselves more harshly, and not because they are more willing to apologize. Women are perceived as great social risk aversive (Eckel and Grossman, 2008:1061)and this may be because of a greater social sensitivity, and women wanting to avoid risks causing uncertainties.
Women are better at recognizing subtle facial expressions (Hoffman, Kessler, Eppel, Rukavina, &Traue, 2010:278), even when these expressions are showed very briefly (Hall & Matsumoto, 2004:6). Neurological evidence corroborates that women have a higher activation of the mirror neurons when assessing the emotions of others (Schulte- Ruther, Markowitsch, Shah, Fink, &Piefke, 2008:392). A mirror neuron according to Rizzolatti (2005:419) is “a particular type of neuron that discharges when an individual performs an action, as well as when he/she observes a similar action done by another individual”. Although initially mirror neurons have been largely correlated to motor function, there is evidence that this also works in the domains of social cognition (Enticott, Johnston, Herring,Hoy, & Fitzgerald, 2008:2852). The mirror neuron system (Enticott et al., 2008:2853) helps us to understand and simulate not only another’s intentions, but also their state of mind. Through this, the mirror neuron system facilitates social interactions and empathy.
Cunningham and Roberts (2012:30), argue that men and women differ in their impulsive base-reaction. Where men are most likely to respond through action, and women are most likely to respond through feeling. The findings were that when the brain is at rest, different areas in the brain are activated for men and women. For men, this is a part in the reptilian brain most associated with the fight-or-flight response, for women this is the limbic system, which regulates emotions (Gur, Gunning-Dixon, Bilker, &Gur, 2002:998).
Thus, men’s immediate reaction is to act, whereas women’s immediate reaction is to feel. Charness and Gneezy(2012:110) compared across 15 experiments with the same underlying, contextual, investment game, and did find that women invest less in risky assets. Moreover, women have also been shown to have less preference for competitive environments than men (Niederle&Versterlund, 2007:5).