Gender and Leadership. Gary N. Powell
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they behave regardless of their human capital. The book concluded by basically saying “it's up to all of us” as to which scenario would be more likely to prevail in the future (Powell, 1988). However, given all the workplace changes that had occurred in the 1970s and 1980s, the overall message of the book was hopeful.
Since then, subsequent editions of Women and Men in Management (Powell, 1993, 2011, 2019; Powell & Graves, 2003) as well as subsequent articles in what came to be my research program on issues regarding gender and leadership have offered regular assessments of the state of affairs regarding these issues. However, as I have researched and written about this topic for over four decades, my perspective on these issues has gradually evolved from being more optimistic (e.g., “Sex discrimination in leadership positions favoring men has traditionally existed. However, there has recently been considerable growth in the proportion of women in management, a positive sign.”) to being more pessimistic (e.g., “Sex discrimination in leadership positions favoring men persists, although its nature has evolved. Further, growth in the proportion of women in management, including in top management positions, has stalled.”) If the social goal of research on the linkage between gender and leadership is to eliminate the need for such research (i.e., to foster achievement of the positive scenario described above), I do not anticipate that this goal will be attained anytime in the foreseeable future.
Hence, this book. I believe that we still need to talk about the linkage between gender and leadership. Something troubling and problematic is still going on regarding this linkage that calls for our unwavering attention as scholars.
Organization of the Book
The next four chapters of the book explore research questions regarding specific aspects of the linkage between gender and leadership. Chapter 2 addresses the frequently researched question, “Why do leader stereotypes emphasize masculinity?” Chapter 3 addresses a complementary question, “Why are there so few women in top management positions?” Chapter 4 addresses a question that has emerged in recent years, “Is there a female advantage or disadvantage in the managerial ranks?” Chapter 5 addresses a question ripped from today's headlines: “Why do (some) men in top management feel free to sexually harass women?”
The latter question is seldom addressed in the literature on the linkage between gender and leadership. However, I believe that it belongs in this book because it focuses on a type of behavior directed by mostly male leaders in positions with considerable power towards mostly lower-level female employees or job applicants with less power that is especially problematic, thereby rendering it a question pertaining to gender and leadership.
Chapter 6 serves as the concluding chapter of the book. It addresses the question, “What actions would work toward undoing the linkage between gender and leadership?” In raising this question, it responds to the notion that if social systems can become gendered or “do gender” (West & Zimmerman, 1987), they can also take steps toward “undoing gender” (Deutsch, 2007).
2 Why Do Leader Stereotypes Emphasize Masculinity?
The linkage between gender and leader stereotypes has been one of the most researched topics in the field of gender and leadership. Research on the topic began in earnest in the 1970s, or at the time of the women's liberation movement that was exhibited in many nations (Binard, 2017; Magarey, 2018; Yelton-Stanley & Howard, 2000). Its purpose was to seek to explain why there were so few women in management positions worldwide (Powell, 1988). Although the proportion of female managers has increased in virtually all nations since those times (Powell & Graves, 2003), this linkage has continued to receive a considerable amount of scholarly attention; Koenig and colleagues (2011) conducted separate meta-analyses of research following different paradigms of the linkage that incorporated almost 200 effect sizes.
In this chapter, I first consider why gender stereotypes, leader stereotypes, and the linkage between them are important to examine. Next, I review the research into and theories of the linkage between gender and leader stereotypes, including my own research since the 1970s, followed by research with new results included and theories of change in this linkage. I conclude with the implications of the linkage for individuals who aspire to or already occupy leader roles.
Stereotyping
Stereotypes are defined as “beliefs about the characteristics, attributes, and behaviors of members of certain groups” (Hilton & von Hippel, 1996, p. 240). Stereotyping is a ubiquitous human phenomenon (Fiske, 1998), partly because stereotypes are so easy to use. When people are identifiable as members of a larger group, stereotyping makes it convenient for others to remember and categorize them. Stereotypes may be accurate or inaccurate, and positive or negative, in their depiction of the average group member. However, a stereotype of members of a particular group (e.g., women, men, leaders) is unlikely to characterize all group members accurately.
Stereotyping is a cognitive activity, related to learning (or imagining) and remembering distinctions between various groups of people. People who display prejudice, or a negative attitude toward members of other groups, are engaging in an emotional activity. Discrimination, a behavioral activity, is exhibited in how people treat and make decisions about members of other groups (Fiske, 1998). We have reason to be concerned about all three of these phenomena in the workplace. All of us may be targets of these phenomena, as well as engage in these phenomena. Further, negative stereotyping of members of a group may lead to prejudice and discrimination directed towards them. In this chapter, we focus on stereotyping on the basis of both gender and the leader role.
As noted in Chapter 1, gender stereotypes represent beliefs about the psychological traits that are characteristic of females vis-à-vis males. They are typically characterized by two independent dimensions, masculinity and femininity (Bem, 1974). According to gender stereotypes, males are high in “masculine” traits (also known as agentic traits) such as independence, aggressiveness, and dominance; in contrast, females are high in “feminine” traits (also known as communal traits) such as gentleness, sensitivity to the feelings of others, and tactfulness (Ellemers, 2018; Kite et al., 2008). Gender stereotypes may affect workplace outcomes by serving as the basis for differential treatment of and decisions about women vis-à-vis men solely because of their group membership (i.e., discrimination on the basis of gender) (Heilman, 2012; Koch et al., 2015; Perry et al., 1994).
The masculinity and femininity dimensions of gender stereotypes may be further divided into independent constructs; that is, there may be multiple masculinities and multiple femininities (Broadbridge & Simpson, 2011; Lewis, 2014). For example, masculinity may be subdivided into a personal dimension that focuses on independence and a social dimension that focuses on aggressiveness and dominance (Choi et al., 2009); further, there may be many variations of “hegemonic masculinity,” or patterns of practices that go beyond stereotypes to maintain men's dominance over women (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). However, the terms masculinity and femininity refer to meaningful concepts for people and are an important part of their gender schemas (Bem, 1993). Thus, although the concepts themselves may be broken down further, I will refer to masculinity and femininity as global constructs in the book.
Gender stereotypes evoke strong reactions. For example, after the American Psychological Association (2018) issued its first-ever guidelines on counseling boys and men, some praised the guidelines as “reimagining boys in the 21st century” (Way, 2019, p. 926) while others criticized the guidelines as defining masculinity as an illness (Komisar, 2019). A poll of British young men found that although most had a negative view of masculinity, they felt pressured to “man up” by conforming to the male gender stereotype (Petter, 2018). Still others have argued that masculinity receives too much attention and the importance of “doing femininity” needs to be recognized (Fondas, 1997; Lewis, 2014).
Leader stereotypes represent beliefs about the traits that are characteristic of leaders or managers. In the leadership literature, leader stereotypes are often referred to as individuals’ implicit leadership theories (Junker & van Dick, 2014), or beliefs about leadership in general. They evoke less strong reactions than gender stereotypes. However, they may also significantly affect workplace outcomes,