Do women do leadership differently?

Although increasing numbers of people are asking whether women do leadership differently the answer is anything but clear cut. It also begs a number of additional questions like: What is leadership? Does a feminine leadership style exist and if so how do we define it and what are its implications for women and for organisations?

According to Stuart Clegg, leadership is one of the most over theorised, over researched, and empirically messy areas of management and organisational study. Over a decade ago Nancy J. Adler noted that there are hundreds of definitions of leadership and no generally agreed upon one, even though most dictionaries suggest that to lead is to guide on a journey, to direct on a course, to go at the head of.  

Yet despite this very clear emphasis on movement and action, the view on leadership that emerged during the early 20th century focused on innate and universal traits that differentiated the ‘great man’ from the masses. Subsequently, this focus was outmoded by empirical research because it was virtually impossible to identify a constant set of leadership traits that separated leaders from followers.

As the 20th century continued, scholars began instead to focus on leadership styles, although I would argue that assumptions about inherent traits continued to linger, below the surface, firmly rooted in social expectations and cultural norms and very much on the surface of business practice. As a result, the model of successful leadership continued to be associated with masculine traits.

Synonyms listed in our dictionaries for the term to lead, such as to steer, to pilot and to engineer give us some insight into the masculine characteristics implicitly associated with leadership; characteristics that have been depicted as rational, management-oriented, male, technocratic, quantitative, cost-driven, hierarchical, pragmatic, focused on the short-term and on command and control.

Such associations with traditionally masculine activities and occupations have contributed to the exclusion of women from many occupations and also from leadership roles, a state of affairs that is still evident in the latest figures from the Australian Census of Women in Leadership produced by the Equal Opportunity for Women Agency (EOWA), which indicates that Australia's top 200 companies have made little progress in increasing the numbers of women in their boardrooms or ranks of executive managers.

By sheer force of numbers the model for successful leadership remains a male one, this despite the increasingly accepted view promoted in the media, scholarship and practice-based publications that organisations led by women or boards with higher numbers of women are better performers. In short, it is increasingly being argued that a distinct feminine leadership style can be identified and that it has positive virtues for business.

This view builds on ideas about leadership that emerged in the 1970s, when scholars began to distinguish between management and leadership adding the concept of vision as a defining characteristic of the effective leader. It was in this context that a distinction was made between transactional and transformational leadership.

Put simply, transactional leadership refers to an instrumental, goal-setting approach, while transformational leadership refers to broad, visionary activity which relies on and promotes motivation, participation, engagement and commitment focused on a common purpose.

Studies conducted during the 1990s soon linked these two styles to gendered stereotypes mainly because men surveyed tended to describe themselves in ways consistent with transactional leadership, while women saw themselves as transformational leaders (Rosener 1990). 

Such findings were supported by numerous studies not only in the USA but also in Britain and they promoted the view that a feminine style relies on such characteristics as: good listening skills, empathy and nurturance, preference for collaboration, participation, engagement and teamwork.

As I see it we should be cautious about using these gender stereotypes because not all women leaders, past and present, conform to these characteristics. Some studies have indicated that many women adopt the much more task-oriented focus that is associated with the transactional model. This is certainly the case in more traditional industries and occupations, such as nursing, at one extreme, and manufacturing and mining at the other.

It is important to note that a transformational style tends to respond to and fit the more dynamic needs of the rapidly expanding service sector. It is also worthwhile to recognise that leadership is not simply about the leader but also about the followers and the interaction between the two.

Despite the alleged growing popularity of feminine styles, we still find the ‘macho’ leadership archetype prevalent in organisational life, and reflected in the business news as well as in other cultural media. More significantly, masculine stereotypes continue to affect how strong women leaders are perceived and represented, as the nicknaming of such women cogently demonstrates.  

Although we all now associate the ‘iron lady’ nickname with Margaret Thatcher, it was actually Golda Meir, Isreal’s first female Prime Minister who first attracted this title and who was also referred to as "the only man in the cabinet". More recently Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, was dubbed "the iron frau, according to an article in the Washington Post. Such ‘unpleasant monikers’, commented Australian journalist Paola Totaro, ‘would not have been applied to male politicians tackling the same problems’.

What is to be made of this phenomenon?
As scholars from a wide range of disciplines have pointed out, nicknaming provides a cultural signal about appropriate gendered behaviours and roles. In relation to those I have mentioned, it is worthy to note that all the nicknames combine masculine and feminine dimensions, which highlights the de-stabilising effect that women in prominent leadership roles have on social norms, cultural expectations and assumptions about appropriate female roles and behaviours.

According to organisational psychologist, Madeline Heilman, the reason people see a highly competent woman as less likable than a man with precisely the same qualities is that such women are automatically perceived to have lost their feminine, caring side.

Perhaps the time has come to develop a new, synergistic, androgenous leadership style that moves beyond gendered stereotypes. Perhaps this will be the best means to ensure success in the 21st century not only for male and female leaders but also their subordinates.

 

Associate Professor Lucy Taksa, PhD
Organisation and Management
Australian School of Business
The University of NSW
lucy.taksa@mq.edu.au