Leadership Chapter 14 - Women and Leadership

When you meet a human being, the first distinction you make is “male or female?” and you are accustomed to make the distinction with unhesitating certainty.
—Sigmund Freud

Writers in the popular press have shown an enduring interest in the topic of gender and leadership, reporting stark and meaningful differences between women and men (Book, 2000; Bowman, Worthy, & Greyser, 1965). These differences turned from a view of women as inferior to men (e.g., some posited that women lacked skills and traits necessary for managerial success; Hennig & Jardin, 1977) to the more modern popular view that extols the superiority of women in leadership positions (Book, 2000; Helgesen, 1990). However, for a variety of reasons, including methodological hindrances, a predominance of male researchers largely uninterested in the topic, and an academic assumption of gender equality in leadership, academic researchers ignored issues related to gender and leadership until the 1970s (Chemers, 1997). The increasing numbers of women in leadership positions and women in academia, brought about by dramatic changes in American society, have fueled the now robust schol-arly interest in the study of female leaders.
 

Scholars started out asking, “Can women lead?” but that is now a moot point. In addition to the increasing presence of women in corporate and political leadership roles, we can point to highly effective female leaders including former prime ministers such as Benazir Bhutto (Pakistan), Margaret Thatcher (UK), Gro Marlem Brundtland (Norway), and Indira Gandhi (India), and current world leaders such as Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil. Beyond politics we can point to a number of highly effective female leaders including PepsiCo’s CEO Indra Nooyi, Avon’s CEO Andrea Jung, Four-Star General Ann E. Dunwoody, and the founder of Teach for America, Wendy Kopp. The primary research question now is “Are there leadership style and effectiveness differences between women and men?” which is often subsumed under a larger question: “Why women are underrepresented in elite leadership roles?” This chapter explores empirical evidence related to these issues of gender and leadership by first examining style and effectiveness differences between men and women, then discussing the gender gap in leadership and prominent explanations for it, and, finally, addressing approaches to promoting women in leadership.