An Analysis of Gender differences on

Leadership Styles: In the case of Hotel

Savoy Baur en Ville, Zurich

Katy Tran

Higher Diploma in International Hotel and Tourism Management

HTMi Switzerland
Introduction

Hotel Savoy Baur en Ville, a small organisation with less than one hundred rooms, is

situated on Paradeplatz, Zurich (Savoy-baurenville, 2014). Despite the equal

presence of both male and female employees, there are more male than female

leaders. However, leading this hotel are the GM and his wive with management’s

strategy is ‘’she is behind the curtain, I am in front of them’’ (Leaders Magazine,

2009). Gaining experienced by having an internship here, the author observed the

success as well as failure from both male and female traits in leading people,

therefore, desire to have better understanding of gender differences on leadership

styles by carrying out this study. Leadership today appears as one of the most

concerned problem that organisations have to deal with. Regarding that, choosing a

great leader is not an easy job for most of companies as there is many aspects need

to be considered. Therefore, gender differences have been brought to the scale for

ages to be investigated in their leadership styles. The rise in presence of female

leaders in academic institutions encourages this study to figure out their unique

ways of leading compared to men. For this reason, scholars always have been

investigating the differences between male and female, which are represented under

most commonly theories called ‘Transformational’ and ‘Transactional’. Researchers

have released many studies approaching to transformational leadership (Desvaux

and Devillard-Hoellinger, 2008; Bass and Riggio, 2006). Generally speaking,

transformational leaders build up concerns for the needs of followers by motivating,

helping and inspiring (James and Ogbonna, 2013), which is more suitable for

woman, pointed by Rosener (1990 cited Chengyan et al., 2013).

Nevertheless, man has traits to adapt Transactional leadership or “leaders-followers

exchange” (Woods and King, 2002), which can be described when leaders promote

their subordinates by reward and punishment. While some scholars claim to have

gender differences in the behaviour of male and female leaders (Kolb, 1999;

Shimanoff and Jenkins, 1991 cited Steven et al., 2003), others argue there are not

(Taleb, 2010). Helgesen (1990 cited Steven et al., 2003) and Bass (1990) insist that

feminine traits as communication and intermediary skills make more advantages for

woman than man in leading. Unfortunately, despite all the efforts and contribution

that woman achieve, they are not often selected as male leaders (Kolb, 1997).

Scholars has also released findings proving that different leadership styles leads to

different performances on subordinates (Tsai, 2008) and leadership styles are not

only based on gender but also from different cross-culture context (Dickson et al.,

2003). Leadership area has just attracted the concern of researchers over the past

century leads to the limitation in the number of existing studies. Consequently, the

author wishes to do more research about this concerned issue in order to provide

more clues on gender and leadership behaviour by analysing not only their

strengths but also weaknesses of both sexes.

Leadership - Theories, Concepts and Models

Despite the number of leadership researches, how to actually define leadership still

remains a certain problem. Stogdill (1974, p.259) claims there are “almost as many

definitions of leadership as there are persons who attempted to define the concept”.
Notion of leadership, therefore, is difficult to described in a short definition as the

understanding of leadership is depend on one’s theoretical viewpoint (Bolden,

2004). As of that, the author would like to stress more on leadership behaviour

theory. As there has been evolution in leadership theories, Northouse (2004)

indicates that most of them are based on followed common themes where

leadership is defined as a process, leadership includes influencing others, leadership

happens in a group context, leadership involves goal achievement and the

relationship between leaders and their followers. He thus defines leadership as a “a

process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a

common goal”. However, this definition has also been criticised by Bolden (2004), as

still locating the individuals as the origin of leadership. As a consequence, leadership

is about leaders and their followers in which both sides have responsibility to the

needs of each other (Goffee and Jones, 2007). Therefore, Tannenbaum (2002 cited

Andersen, 2005) insists that leadership is “interpersonal influence, exercised on a

situation and directed, thorough the communication process, toward the attainment

of a specific goals”. Regarding the concept of gender, Kawanar (2004 cited Taleb,

2010) indicates that gender is the differentiating naturally created attributes of male

and female. In addition to that, Fernandes and Cabral-Cardoso (2003) bring another

explanation to gender which are formed on masculinity and femininity

characteristics. Figure 1 below illustrates some main traits of masculine a feminine

paradigms of educational management. Female tends to react based on their

intuition, emotions and sensation while male lean toward rule, regulation and tends

to emphasize the goal by evaluating the competitiveness (Porat, 1991).

Normally, “masculine” is associated with men and “feminine” with woman (Gray,

1993 and Miller, 2005). However, reality has shown that man still can have feminine

behaviour, and vice versa (Costrich et al., 1975)

Figure 1: Masculine and feminine paradigms of school management (Taleb, 2010)

The thought that those masculine terms are far more suitable to leadership position

(Billing and Alvesson, 2000) is no longer appropriate when recent researches of

leadership have approved for more feminine behaviour. Feminine traits, which are

more adapted by female leaders, emphasize on consideration, which involves caring,

interaction, support and listening to individual differences. Those characteristics are

also believed to be potential traits for leading positions in hospitality industry (Eagly

and Carli, 2003).

Transformational and Transactional Leadership Styles

Transformational and Transactional leadership styles are the most popular

leadership theories recently attracting many researchers’ attention. The concept of

transformational was first introduced by Burns (1978) who later also argue that a

person can have only transformational or transactional leadership style. However,

another school of thoughts emphasize that a single leader can have both styles of

leadership (Bush and Coleman, 2000).

Figure 2: Distinguishing features of transformational and transactional styles of

leadership (Taleb, 2010)

Transformational leaders motivate and inspire followers to reach extraordinary

things, achieve a common goal and work effectively as a team (Kelloway et al., 2002).

In the theory, Burns (1978) and Bass (1985) state four I’s characteristics needed to

compose for a leader: Individualized consideration, Idealized influence, Inspirational

motivational, Intellectual stimulation.

To be more specific, individualized influence means the leader is seen as a model

with many good characteristic that deserver to be followed by the followers (Avolio

and Bass, 2002 cited Stone et al. 2003). Individualized motivation is determined as

leaders urge and inspire their followers by “providing meaning and challenges to

their follower’s work” (Avolio and Bass, 2002). Intellectual stimulation holds the

meaning that transformational leaders encourage other’s attempt to perform more

effectively, creatively in solving problems and reaching goal in affordable effort,

pointed by Bass (1990). Especially in the individualized consideration behaviours, it

stresses on guiding followers by listening to identify their needs and desires for the

growth of organization (Avolio and Bass, 2002). The theory is all about leaders build

positive changes in followers in order to make them act as a group (Warrilow, 2012

cited James and Ogbonna, 2013). However, the theory has shown some gaps that are

identified by Yukl (1999). Transformational leadership fails in explaining the

connection of leadership style and work outcomes, being too overemphasize the

influence on individual follower, not covering all the transformational behaviours,

providing “insufficient specification of situation variables” and assuming the heroic

leadership stereotype. Despite the number of criticisms that transformational

leadership has, its reputation has kept on growing recently (Yulk, 1999). To get

better understanding of transformational leadership style, Burns (1978) also states

the idea about transactional. Transactional leadership or “bartering” or “leaders-

followers exchange” (Woods and King, 2002) can be described when leaders

motivate others by putting rewards or punishments according to each performance.

In other words, transactional leaders tend to approach goal achievement and task

completion, not staff needed (Conner, 1992 cited Growe, Montgomerz, unknown

year). This leadership style emphasizes on the role of supervision, performance, and

organization and mainly highlights contingent reinforcement and rewards when

setting the goals or achievements. While transformational leadership stresses on

positive changes organisation’s future, transactional approach keens on remaining

things the same. Almost of the authors conclude that these two styles of leadership

are different. However, Bass (1985) presented the thought that these two leadership

styles are not facing each other but appearing as different concepts to help to clarify

each other.

Gender differences and Leadership styles

Although the relationship between gender and leadership styles which are

particularly transformational and transactional styles has not enough researched, a

school of studies already suggested that transformational leadership is more likely

to link with female leaders as they care more about subordinates, pay attention to

seek input from others (Powell and Graves, 2006; Rosener, 1990; Ross and

Offermann, 1997). Daft (2011) also contributed to this field with the finding that

woman leaders are conducting more idealized influence, inspirational motivation,

intellectual stimulation and being more individually considerate. Men, on the other

hand, adapt more transactional leadership style as they often stress on mistakes and

problems.
These differences may be explained that while men considering leadership as

leading, woman seeing it as facilitating (Schaef, 1985 cited Growe and Montgomery,

Unknown year). However, Vecchio (2002) argued that the impact of gender

differences on leadership styles is overstated. Evidently, there are studies indicate

distinctness’s in leadership attributable to gender do not exist (Brandt and Laiho,

2013). Kabacoff and Peters (1998 cited Taleb, 2010) support that assumption by

concluding that man and woman have different ways in leading, but either ways are

equally effective.

Leadership styles and employee’s job satisfaction in hospitality industry

Being the service industry, hospitality entrepreneur sees the important in improving

the competitiveness of them by satisfying customers with high quality service.

Consequently, employees are also considered as key factor as their valuable role in

communicating with customers. The author, therefore, being interested in the

connection of leadership styles on employee’s satisfaction in hospitality industry as

it directly influences customer’s satisfaction. The number of researches revealed,

however, did not meet the author’s expectation due to not enough attention given on

hospitality industry. Nevertheless, a school of studies have revealed some findings

which showed that transformational leadership has high rating of effectiveness as

well as creates subordinate satisfaction (Hater and Bass, 1988; Seltzer and Bass,

1990 cited Tracey and Hankins, 1996).

Chang (2003 cited Tsai, 2008) supports the idea with the assumption that in

international tourist hotels, a leader who has high consideration or transformational

style is more likely to be accepted by staff and high rated with employee’s

satisfaction. On the other hand, high construction or transactional leaders has a

significant negative impact on their subordinates according to Tsai (2008). Minett,

Yaman and Denizci (2009) follow the track with a similar finding, which is woman

leaders tend to adapt transformational styles more than men do, and this leadership

style works effectively in hospitality industry.

Conclusion

The hospitality industry has witnessed many changes for the last few decades

(Tracey and Hinkin, 1996). Consquently, the changes in cultural perception of

leadership styles which implements that transformational leadership is turning into

a trend. With a number of leadership definitions together with relevant theories, the

research has reached a better understanding. Gender differences leads to

characteristic differences, which creates the impact of gender distinctness on the

different ways they lead their subordinates. Also, specific attributes from both male

and female leaders were recognised to give a clearer comprehension about their

leadership styles as well as their effectiveness. Generally speaking, woman leaders

are proved to adopt more democratic - transformational styles as opposed to

autocratic - transactional leaderships taken by their counterpart.

Transformational leadership, with its typical features, aims to build positive changes

on followers with an effort to reach better changes in organisation, which suits more

for all kinds of business. As of that, in the context of this research, the author would

conclude that transformational leadership styles are way more efficient than

transactional approach on subordinate’s performance in hospitality industry.

Recommendations

This research has given a better overview as well as contributed more evidence on

the effect of gender differences on leadership styles. However, during the process of

researching, the author has met some limitations due to the lack of attention in

existing studies done on the relationship of gender and leadership styles.

Consequently, some aspects were not clearly clarified. Further research could be

emphasized more on leadership in cross-culture context, as this study is focus more

on European leadership styles not to mention the small size of the chosen hotel.

Therefore, the transferability of the results is limited, which can be improved in

future research. Another factor is worth evaluating in further paper is the size of the

location as well as its standard. By achieving those concerns, the credibility of this

research will be higher which leads to better trustworthiness of the topic.

Furthermore, as the collected findings in this study involve participant’s opinion and

their enthusiasm, the accuracy of those data might be affected due to lack of

contributors’ honesty. Regarding this issue, a solution could be reconstructed the

questions to be more easily understandable in order to improve the quality of

collected answers not to mention the author’s role in motivating the participants.
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