Differences Between the Genders in Leadership Ability or Approach? Essay

To start, when people compare various successful leaders such as Donald Trump, John Rockefeller, or Henry Ford, they always use words to describe their personalities such as being tough, diligent, competitive and ambitious. A person’s personality is a set of unseen characteristics and processes that underlie a relatively stable pattern of behavior in response to ideas, objects or people in the environment. (Daft, 2011) These personality traits define the leader and we all know people differ in many ways leading to various styles of leadership. Differences in personality, attitudes, values and beliefs will influence how people interpret an assignment or a task. Leadership effectiveness is broadly based on the leaders’ personalities and attitudes while also how effectively they interpret differences amongst employees. All of these factors affect the leader-follower interaction but will genders in leadership affect the overall leadership ability or approach? I believe that there are differences in genders in leadership abilities and approaches. If leadership is based on personalities and attitudes, I strongly believe that there are differences in leadership abilities and approaches when considering male and female roles. When considering the traits of males compared to females as leaders, men traditionally are more aggressive and assertive than women. Males tend to be subjective to competing, while in general women prefer a far less competitive environment than men. Those traits can essentially lead to various different perspectives on leadership approaches in respect to gender. Male leaders tend to be more individualistic and prefer working in vertical hierarchies relying on formal authorities and positions in their dealings with subordinates. Female leaders tend to be more collaborative, and are more concerned for relationship building, inclusiveness, participation, and caring. (Daft, 2011) So generally the differences in male traits compared to female traits will cause different approaches towards leadership styles. Gender will also affect abilities based on assumptions about the male and female traits. Research comparing leadership styles of women and men have been reviewed and there was evidence found for both presence and the absence of differences between the sexes. Stereotypical expectations that women lead in an interpersonal oriented style and men lead in a task-oriented style, was found to be false. They found results that female and male leaders do not have differences in these two styles of organizational studies. However in the research that assessed the leadership styles was consistent with the stereotypic expectations about different aspects of leadership styles. In the tendency to lead democratically or autocratically women tended to adopt a more democratic or participative approach and a less autocratic or directive approach than did men. (Eagly & Johnson, 1990) These findings can represent and can be interpreted in terms of a social role theory of sex differences. These stereotypes reveal that men are relatively dominant and controlling. There is a masculine mode of management characterized by qualities such as competitiveness, hierarchical authority, high control for the leader, and unemotional and analytic problem solving. (Loden, 1985) He also argued that women prefer and tend to behave in terms of an alternative feminine leadership model. This model is characterized by cooperativeness, collaboration of managers and subordinates, lower control for the leader, and problem solving based on intuition and empathy as well as rationality. He based his findings around the idea that women and men, including those who are managers in organizations, behave stereotypically to some extent. I would have to agree with this belief because men and women clearly act differently and the way they act will mirror the way they lead. There have been large numbers of laboratory and field studies performed by social psychologists based around female and male behav iors. Quantitative reviews of this research have established the presence rather than the absence of overall sex differences. (Hall, 1984) They also concluded that these differences, although not that large, tend to be compatible to most other findings. There have also been findings that the level of power will directly affect the type of leadership one will show. There are reasonable assumptions that suggest that male and female leaders who occupy the same organizational role should differ very little. They assume that managers of both sexes are more concerned with managing effectively rather than about representing sex-differentiated features of social gender roles. Kanter argued that there are apparent sex differences when there is a product of the differing structural positions of the sexes within the organization. (Eagly & Johnson, 1990) Because women are more often in positions of little power or opportunity, they will behave in ways that reflect their lack of power. Eagly and Johnson concluded that a mete-analysis could provide more insight on leadership styles of males and females. The overall trends showed that women were more concerned with maintenance of interpersonal relationships and task accomplishment. The main difference found was that women tended to adopt a more autocratic or participative style while men the opposite. They tried to make distinctions about the differences in that first, women who have managed to succeed as leaders might have more highly developed interpersonal skills. Another explanation is that women are not accepted as readily as men as leaders and, as a result, have to allow input into their decision-making. Eagly and Johnson’s results are corroborated by other research. Statham also found evidence of two sex-differentiated management styles. He reported that women used a more task-engrossed and person-invested style, while men use a more image-engrossed and autonomy-invested style. (Moran, 1992) In a study focused on gender differences in communication introduces a possible explanation of different approaches. Tannen, the researcher, focused on how men and women had different experiences while growing up which lead to valuing different things. He concluded that men are taught to prize status, independence, and the power of community. All of these values lead men and women to behave in different ways. The field of gender differences in leadership styles is still and area with great questions with out answers. Even with various studies devoted to the topic of gender, there will always be unanswered questions. More and more researchers continue to examine issues regarding any innate differences between leadership styles of males and females. Currently, with the evidence provided, suggests that there are differences in gender leadership abilities and approaches. Although there are minimal differences, there are differences in males and females perspectives on leadership. We can recognize that there are different leaders with different leadership styles, but we cant automatically associate one style to a particular gender. Men and women alike will be faced with challenges and will need to develop the correct leadership styles to become a successful leader. References Daft, R. (2011). The leadership experience. (5e ed., pp. 99-125, 341-344). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning. Eagly , Alice H. and Johnson, Blair T., â€Å"Gender and Leadership Style: A Meta-Analysis† (1990).CHIP Documents. Paper 11. http://digitalcommons.uconn.edu/chip_docs/11 Eagly, A. H., & Johndon, B. T. (1990) Gender and leadership style. Psychological Bulletin 108 (2), 233-256 Eagly, A. H., & Wood, W. (in press). Explaining sex differences in social behavior: A recta-analytic perspective. Personality and Social Psy-chology Bulletin. Hall, J. A. (1984). Nonverbal sex differences: Communication accuracy and expressive style. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Loden, M. (1985). Feminine leadership or how to succeed in business without being one of the boys. New York: Times Books. Mandell, B., & Pherwani, S. (2003). Relationship between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership style: A gender comparison . Springer, Journal of Business and Psychology, 17(3), 387-404.