Critical Analysis on Gender In Leadership - Literature review Example

Critical Literature Review on Gender in Leadership Introduction The theoretical concepts and applications on leadership perspectives have transcended through time. As organizations become more developed in structure and process; and become more intricate through expansion of markets and clients, leadership theories adapt and adjust to the demands of the internal and external environment. The traditional leadership models and theories require updating in response to various interests and goals of stakeholders. However, due to the vast potentials for continued research on the subject, contemporary professionals in diverse endeavors persist in the quest to reveal interrelationships with factors and perspectives affecting leadership in organizations. Broadly speaking, when a leader motivates his subordinates, it means that one structures the work environment in such a way that their drives and needs are brought into play, instead of being neglected. This environment should be conducive to the satisfaction of those drives and needs so that workers may act in desired ways. However, leadership theories and concepts evaluate the effect of gender in leadership in terms of according the same prerogatives and benefits on equal terms. In this regard, the objective of the essay is to proffer a critical literature review on the topic of gender in leadership. Relevant research studies on the subject would be cited and significant points would hereby be highlighted, analyzed and evaluated in terms of presenting supporting or opposing viewpoints on gender in leadership. Review of Literature and Critical Analysis A study conducted by Christine R. Gedney, Major, USAF, entitled Leadership Effectiveness and Gender aimed to determine a correlationship between leadership effectiveness and gender through secondary sources of authoritative materials while seeking some explanation to her inquiry on identifying “why there is still a considerable absence in top military leadership by female officers” (Gedney, 1999, v). Initially, she provided essential qualities of effective leaders with the objective of indicating that “leadership effectiveness is not gender-specific, but there seem to be many attributes that are found in both males and females that lend themselves to becoming an effective leader” (Gedney, 1999, 2). Through her discussion of gender in leadership, the revealed that traditional views content a biased view of leaders to predominantly favor men over women. The author cited Kolb as indicating that “when we reviewed this literature we were struck by the prejudice against women. Research has demonstrated that there are far more similarities than differences in the leadership behaviors of women and men, and that they are equally effective. Still, women are less likely to be pre-selected as leaders, and the same leadership behavior is often evaluated more positively when attributed to a male than to a female” (Kolb, 1999, 371). Gedney’s research was based solely on secondary sources of information and gave little evaluation on applications in her work setting. Through the review of literature she included in her research, the general findings supported her original arguments that there are biases in gender in terms of leadership promotion on major organizations, including the US Air Force. As evidence, at the time of the writing, “of the 284 Air Force general officers on active duty today, there are only 7 females among them, for a 2% representation” (Gedney, 1999, v). The author presented barriers for women leadership in the military, to wit: attitude and perceptions of senior officers towards women in the military, the masculine culture, and stereotyping. Interestingly, Gedney cited Mitchell’s book as revealing that “were it not for the intense political pressure, there would be virtually no women in the military today” (Mitchell, 1998, xiii) - a proof of personal bias viewing women’s incapableness to excel in a field of endeavor dominated by men. However, since the author is a woman, it is understandable that her perception to the prejudicial nature of the book written by Mitchell could have been magnified. But, the statistics alone reveal the truth to her allegations. Marloes L. van Engen and Tineke M. Willemsen, in their study entitled Gender and leadership styles: A review of the past decade, the authors presented a more comprehensive review of gender and leadership in terms of providing a holistic approach combining research from a total of 80 authoritative sources. Their findings reveal that “sex differences in leadership styles still existed towards the end of the twentieth century. In general, however, male and female managers lead similarly; the overall effect size was .05, and only 27% of the comparisons resulted in a significant stereotypic difference in leadership style. Still, sex differences have not diminished or vanished” (van Engen & Willemsen, 2009, 19). The authors used the Eagly and Johnson study which indicated that “women were more interpersonally oriented, more task oriented and more interpersonally oriented on the bipolar interpersonal versus task orient leadership style than men” (Eagly & Johnson, 1990). They evaluated distinct differences using meta-analysis which is defined as “the statistical analysis of a large collection of analysis results for the purpose of integrating the findings” (Glass, 1976, 3). Van Engen & Willemsen’s approach was more quantitative in nature and structured their research through clear identification of sub-topics. Frequent referencing to various authoritative discourses provided ample proof to support balanced views on leadership styles according to gender. Despite the amount of supporting literature, the findings still indicate the existence of gender differences in terms of manifesting leadership styles: from the traditional task versus people oriented – to the more contemporary transformational leadership style. However, to prove that a balanced argument existed, the authors likewise indicated,that “research by Hackman, Furniss, Hills and Paterson (1992), however, showed that transformational leadership is associated with both feminine and masculine characteristics, which suggests that transformational leadership is a stereotypically gender-balanced style” (Van Engen & Willemsen, 2009, 9). Although there still exist gender differences in terms of leadership styles, the transformational style validated an equal footing in terms of application and execution among men and women in organizations. Finally, Lyons & McArthur in their article entitled Genders unspoken role in leadership evaluations (gender discrimination and leadership qualities, “illustrates the challenges that women face in accommodating themselves to male-defined executive roles and suggests how corporate leaders--men in particular--can make these detrimental effects discussable within their own executive suites” (Lyons & McArthur, 2007, 1). The authors conducted an interview with 44 senior executives from corporations of admired businesses in the United States. The basic questions about leadership were: (1) what are the executives strengths and weaknesses? (2) How good is she at strategic thinking? And (3) how effective is he operationally? The findings revealed that “gender is an active variable in the assessment of male and female executive leadership” (Lyons & McArthur, 2007, 3). The concept of stereotyping still emerged as indicated by the male executives’ belief that leadership is synonymous with male dominated culture. Further, gender alone (female) makes it a barrier to promotion to higher leadership ranks. In addition, when asked to comment on performance, male executives have greater tendencies to comment on a woman’s gender than their male counterparts. Accordingly, the authors averred that “no matter how she behaves, the fact that a woman is a woman puts her at odds with prevailing norms for leaders at the top of corporate organizations. A woman executive may exhibit many of the behaviors expected of someone in her role; nonetheless, her gender stands out and often works against her success” (Lyons & McArthur, 2007, 3). The presentation and structure of the authors’ study was clearly efficient in identifying the points and used authoritative sources to support and give credence to their statements. The method employed was objective and factual using equal gender as participants in the survey-interview (22 male and 22 female executives in senior management positions). The results validated the biased perception and treatment accorded to women as she strives to go up the hierarchy in any organizational structure. Despite the proliferation of organizations’ promoting workplace diversity and fair treatment, as regulated by law, sublime perceptions and behavior still attest that gender differences, particularly in leadership, continue to prevail. Conclusion Gender in leadership, as manifested in various literatures evaluated and critically analyzed in the essay showed that biases in terms of according recognition to women as leaders still prevail in contemporary times. An enormous amount of research studies have significantly supported the biased contentions using comparative mega-analysis methods, simple analytical review from secondary sources, and actual results of survey-interview methods evidenced by the cited authors. The resulting differences lay, not so much on attributes or essential elements for leadership; but more so, on the stereotyped masculine culture that continue to pervade contemporary societies in general. However, with increasing research indicating that leadership’s effectiveness and the ability towards goal accomplishment is highly influenced by gender differences, the findings must provide measures to address the bias and unjust stereotyping of women as effective leaders of equal capacities with men. Leadership theories continue to adapt and adjust to the demands of the times. It must be high time to acknowledge that gender in leadership should focus more on the accomplishments of identified goals, rather than on the personalities tasked with accomplishing them. Reference List Eagly, AH & Johnson, BT 1990. Gender and leadership style: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 233-256. Gedney, CR 1999. Leadership Effectiveness and Gender, [Online]. Available at: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/acsc/99-061.pdf [Accessed 02 November 2010]. Glass, G. V. (1976). Primary, secondary, and meta-analysis of research. Educational Researcher, 5, 3-8. Hackman, M., Furniss, AH, Hills, M., & Paterson TJ 1992. Perceptions of gender-role characteristics and transformational and transactional leadership behaviours. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 75, 311-319. Kolb, JA 1997.Are We Still Stereotyping Leadership? Small Group Research, Vol.28 No. 3, pp. 371 – 388. Lyons, D and McArthur, C 2007. “Genders unspoken role in leadership evaluations (gender discrimination and leadership qualities.” Human Resource Planning, [Online]. Available at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/169413774_3.html [Accessed 03 November 2010]. Mitchell, B 1998. Women in the Military: Flirting with Disaster. Regnery Pub, Inc. Van Engen, ML and Willemsen, TM 2009. Gender and leadership styles: A review of the past decade. WORC Paper 00.10.09. [Online]. Available at: http://arno.uvt.nl/show.cgi?fid=4218 [Accessed 01 November 2010]. Read More