Saimaa University of Applied Sciences

Linnala campus, Imatra

Degree Programme in Tourism and Hospitality Management
Leadership skills

Anica Jovanović #1800042

Does the gender affect leadership style?

Spring 2018
Table of contents

1 Introduction........................................................................................................3
1.1 Summary of previous meeting.................................................................3

1.2 Hypothesis.................................................................................................3

2 Evolution of leadership...................................................................................4

2.1 Leadership through history.........................................................................4

2.2 Gender and leadership style.......................................................................4

2.3 Gender and effectiveness...........................................................................6

3 Male vs Female..............................................................................................7

5. Conclusion.....................................................................................................9

6. References..................................................................................................10

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1 Introduction

1.1 Summary of previous meeting

Our second PBL (Problem based learning) started on previous meeting, held on
21st of February 2018. Our problem was given by teacher and this time it was
text. We formed group of people for discussion, with Milena Radović as
chairperson, Sarah Crepin as observer and me as scribe.

Our discussion started and we came out with so much ideas, such as
leadership through history, female leaders, our favourite leaders, culture and
leadership. At the end we had to make decision and create PBL question. Just
like in our fist PBL we came out with our thesis for report by voting – Does the
gender affect leadership style?

1.2 Hypothesis

At the beginning of my report I am going to form few assumptions and

questions. During the research on this questions I will try to find answers, and
prove or disprove my assumptions. Hypothesis:

- Gender affects leadership style.

- Through the history female leaders existed.
- Male leaders have more predisposition, made through evolution, to lead
better.
- Male leader have better psycho-physical skills.
- Gender affect productivity.
- There is equal employment of both genders.
- Female leadership not common.
- Direct communication is strength of female leaders.

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2 Evolution of leadership

2.1 Leadership through history

Even in period of prehistory, people, used to have organized life. Always existed
need of living in groups (families), because or surviving. Primary need was food,
and people have had to organize hunting, ’’transport’’ of animals, storage and
food preparing process. Men were always doing physically harder parts of this
process while women were organizing and preparing food, taking care of homes
and children, and waiting for their men.

This fact made men more durable, faster, stronger, agile, with sharpened
senses. They were exposed to raw nature and this made them need to make
tools for hunting, easier life, wars etc.

As women were cooking they always needed to improvise, connect, reorganize

and find the way to deal with different situations which have changed so often.

Moving on first civilisations such as Egypt, East civilisations, Antic Greek and
Rome. People became to organize life on higher level. Bigger number of
politician leaders were men, but few of the most interesting and famous leaders
in Egypt were ladies, such as Cleopatra and Nefertiti.

Leadership was always topic of interest, but studies of management and

leadership started to develop in 30 th century. And in this period of time, we do
have absolutely different kind of management and leadership. Almost all type of
organizations, firms, schools, governmental institutions, need leaders and
managers.

2.2 Gender and leadership style

According to ‘’Work in the 21th century’’, 99.6% of all top executives of Fortune
500 companies are men, while just 0.4% are women. 1

1
Work in the 21st Century: An Introduction to Industrial and Organizational
Psychology”; Frank J. Landy and Jefferey M. Conte; 2007

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Based on my research I found some differences between female and male
leadership style. To sum up my findings I am going to describe firstly female
and them male leadership characteristics.

Female leaders tend to be task oriented and focused on completing tasks at the
right time making sure that everything is going smoothly. Female leader
organize time in a good and productive way. They care about people and know
how to motivate them to do tasks on time. This focus helps organization to run
properly.

Eagly and Cali in their article ‘’Women and Labyrinth of Leadership’’ have noted
that woman are good in transformational style of leadership “Transformational
leaders establish themselves as role models by gaining followers’ trust and
confidence….Such leaders mentor and empower followers, encourage them to
develop their full potential and….contribute more effectively to their
organizations”. 2

In my oppinion this is extremly important, because transformational style of

leadership gives the opportunity to leaders to make necessary changes to a
bussines model.

Women prefere friendly atmosphere and more collegial relationships. This is

useful when it comes to creaing new prduct or service. Cooperation and
collabortion are also strong characteristic of female leadership, an this can be
useful in large geographically dispersed teams.

On the other hand, men tend to have transactional leadership style. In this style
job is performed as set od transactions that are going to be done and rewarded
or disciplined. Leader is one who gives tasks and reward employees for
meeting objectives or correcting if falling to meet objectives. 3

2
Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership, Alice Eagly, Linda L. Carli, 2007
3
Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership, Alice Eagly, Linda L. Carli, 2007

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Men prefere hierarchical leadership structure. This means that employees do
not have enough freedom to take initiative to solve problems by them selves,
but decisions are made by senior menagement.

Direct communication is one of the stongest characteristics of male leaders.

Leader clarifies subordinate responsibilities and provides precise instruction.

They love to compet, a litle bit of competition is welcome in an organiyation.

Well-known leaders, like Steve Jobs, used to set up competitions between
departments and it resulted with good ensuring.

2.3 Gender and effectiveness

When I analysed this topic almost all my research ended with same answer.
Just like it is said in article ‘’Gender and the effectiveness of leaders: a mata-
analysis written by Eagly Ah, Karau Sj and Makhijani MG: ’’Aggregated over the
organizational and laboratory experimental studies in the sample, male and
female leaders were equally effective. However, consistent with the assumption
that the congruence of leadership roles with leaders' gender enhances
effectiveness, men were more effective than women in roles that were defined
in more masculine terms, and women were more effective than men in roles
that were defined in less masculine terms. Also, men were more effective than
women to the extent that leader and subordinate roles were male-dominated
numerically. These and other findings are discussed from the perspective of
social-role theory of sex differences in social behavior as well as from
alternative perspectives.’’4

Effectiveness is extrimely important feature, everybody can be effective in their

own way. But, always, there is something that is characteristic of one gender
only. In this case it is hardly connected with culture. If women would lead in
more masculine societies they won’t be effective as men would. Just because of
culture one gender would fail. In these ages of globalization, I belive this is
going to change so much.

4
Gender and the effectiveness of leaders: a meta-analysis, Eagly AH, Karau SJ,
Makhijani MG, Psycho Bull, 1995

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3 Male vs Female

Being emotional, confident, supportive, productive, likeable, decisive are some

personal attributes that do not completely depend on gender, but there is so
many differences when it comes to expressing this characteristics.

One of fundamental barriers for female leaders are emotional present. In order
to be successful leaders women have to identify how hard their emotions are,
how much emotions should be displayed and which kind of emotions should be
displayed. Being emotionally closed can also be threat, because this way
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women can be seen as failing to fulfil their warm, communal role as woman.

When we talk about confidence men have an easier time when they talk about
their selves, achievements and all of their important skills. While women are shy
when it comes to talk about themselves, and so often they feel like not team
players when they have to talk about them as individual.

Productivity is something that all leader find out how to deal with, but way is
different. Women prefer sensitive and dynamic at work, since male leaders are
authoritarian.

When it comes to decision making women, with much lower fraction, are willing
to make the group decisions than men. The amount of risk taken for the group
is generally lower than in the case where subjects decide for themselves only.
Women won’t take more risk for group then for themselves, since, man who
would like to lead tend to take more risk on behalf of the group. 6

When it comes to social relationships female leaders are much more

collaborative, cooperative and caring, while male leaders are more aggressive,
competitive and controlling.

Nature have so much to do when it comes to these social behaviours. Females

are made to be mothers and their nature is about taking care of children, this is

5
Brescoll, V. L. (2016). Leading with their hearts? How gender stereotypes of emotion lead
to biased evaluations of female leaders. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(3), pp. 415-428.
6
Ertac, S. (2012). Deciding to decide: Gender, leadership and risk-taking in
groups. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 83(1), p. 24.

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inborn in female humans to be much more caring, sensitive and appreciate
people.

On the other hand, male human beings were made to protect family, make sure
that they are safe, have enough food and good life. This made men more
aggressive, competitive and controlling.

As it will be
shown in picture
men think more
rationally, but
women are more
meticulous. Men
make decisions
faster and are
stress resistant,
since women are
way more
autonomous and
socially
confident.

Picture 1 - the impact of gender on leadership styles

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5. Conclusion

There are unique differences between leadership style of men and women in
work place. Each gender has its own (dis)advantages, by every human being
have its own leadership style that can be ideal. Moving back to hypothesis from
beginning of my report:

- Gender affects leadership style. 

Gender do affect leadership style globally, as all people are different, also their
style of leadership is different, and something personal. Leadership skills can be
modified and modelled, but naturally genders are different, not just in
appearance, but in way of doing things, behaving and leading, of course.

- Through the history female leaders haven’t existed. ×

Female leaders existed, even in early ages. Cleparta and Nefertiti are ideal
examples of great and loved female leaders in Egyptian civilization.

- Male leader have better psycho-physical skills. 

Nature and every situation that men had to deal with through history made male
stronger, faster, more agile.

- Gender affect productivity. ×

Gender do not affect productivity. All genders proved that they are equally
productive, just the way of getting productive is different.

- There is equal employment of both genders, when it comes to leading. ×

There is not equality in employment. Even so many researches showed that

women are better leaders, employment data doesn’t show same.

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6. References

1. Frank J. Landy and Jefferey M. Conte, 2007, Work in the 21st Century: An
Introduction to Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Accessed on 28 th of
February 2018
2. Alice Eagly, Linda L. Carli, 2007, Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership,
Accessed on 28th of February
3. Eagly AH, Karau SJ, Makhijani MG, 1995, Gender and the effectiveness of
leaders: a meta-analysis, Psycho Bull, Accessed on 1 st of March 2018
4. Brescoll, V. L. (2016). Leading with their hearts? How gender stereotypes of
emotion lead to biased evaluations of female leaders. The Leadership
Quarterly, 27(3), pp. 415-428, Accessed on 2nd of March 2018
5. Ertac, S. (2012). Deciding to decide: Gender, leadership and risk-taking in
groups. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 83(1), p. 24,
Accessed on 2nd of March 2018
6. http://au.hudson.com/latest-thinking/infographics/impact-of-gender-on-
leadership-styles Accessed on 2nd of March 2018

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