Gender Differences in Leadership Styles and Behaviour

Andersen, JA & Hansson, PH 2011,"At the end of the road? On differences between women and men in leadership behaviour", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, vol. 32 no. 5 pp. 428 – 441

leaders. However, more people prefer male than female bosses. That has made it more difficult

Leadership can be defined as the ability of a company 's management to make sound decisions and inspire others to perform well (Investopedia, 2014). From the beginning of time, in the middle of all the major changes and historical events there where effective and motivated leaders having a wide sphere of influence and inspiring other groups of people to be creative and efficient. A leader is defined as a person or thing that holds a dominant or superior position within its field, and is able to exercise a high degree of control or influence over others (businessdictionary,2014).Leaders have always played a major role in the evolution of technology as well as in forming the very lifestyle of today’s society. Effective leaders are able to set and achieve challenging goals, to take swift and decisive action even in difficult situations, to outperform their competition, to take calculated risks and to persevere in the face of

For thousands of years, established gender roles have been a part of our society. Women are commonly known as sensitive, emotional, or passive. On the contrary, men are described as rational, competitive, independent, or aggressive. Believing women are more emotional than men is stereotyping. However, the stereotype is not entirely untrue. Development of gender roles is often conditioned more by environmental or cultural factors than by hereditary or biological factors. The development of gender roles between men and women involves the inference of peer community of each gender, the communication style of male and female and the intimacy or connection level of men and women.

The feminine and masculine approach is typically how the prototypical female and male think and act. In terms of ambition and success, the masculine perspective is who has more of it; the more, the better and occasionally having power over others. The female perspective is built around is more about how power is shared. Role and rank matter less; the preferred structure is a network. Ambition from a masculine perspective is about competition and winning. It is about getting to the top of the heap, to the “Alpha” position in a hierarchy (Forbes). These approaches can be devastating, potentially undermining women’s capacity to lead, and create obstacles en-route to women’s career advancement.

To start off, the leadership characteristics mentioned by Chin were intelligence, dominance, confidence, masculinity, and charisma. According to her quotation male leaders, all have those characteristics which made them be great conductors. Therefore, there have been more male leaders than female leading characters. As a group, we usually assume that man should always be the leaders because of what we are accustomed to seeing. For example, the president of the United States all males and when there was a female candidate running for presidency she clearly lost. However, many people are not aware about the fact that females are usually working behind the scenes and they let man be “on the spotlight” because if the roles were to reverse the female leaders will not be taken as seriously as the man since females are categorized as “emotional individuals” as if being emotional would impair them from being a good leader.

For years in our society there has been a lot of controversy over the differences in men and women. Are they equal? What exactly are the real differences? Do these differences affect what each gender is capable of doing in their everyday lives? A philosopher of the nineteenth century, Wilhem von Humboldt once wrote,

heard it said that men are leaders by nature more than women. The question of the century still

Thesis statement: Leadership depends on the leader’s leadership style and there way of communicating ideas rather than the leader themselves. Both women and men believe in similar leadership styles however women prefer a more participative leadership approach.

According to Business Dictionary.com, leadership is defined as the individuals who are the leaders in an organization, regarded collectively. It also can be define as the activity of leading a group of people or an organization or the ability to do this. Leadership involves the establishing of a clear vision, sharing the vision with other so that they will follow willingly, providing the needed information, knowledge, and methods to realize the vision and coordinating and balancing the conflicts interests of all members and stakeholders.

Women tend to be more emotional and rational then men, whereas men are far less emotional and react on impulse. The different understanding of the ways that each sex communicates is still to be studied. Women tend to react more emotionally than men, resulting in submerging themselves, mind body and soul into making decisions. Meanwhile men, impulsively react to situations for the sake of having a reason to do so. Men see women as less competent to making decisions that involve a lot of thought, and this is due to women’s

In corporate America the term used to describe a person in a position of power is “Manager”. A leader can be a manager, but a manager is not necessarily a leader. Leaders motivate, challenge, and influence others to achieve goals. Great leaders have the necessary skills and attributes which allow them to connect with the team and organization. Being a leader is not the same as managing an organization. Leader’s posses the interpersonal skills needed to influence others to achieve a goal willingly. Leading is a major part of a manager’s job. Leaders do not need to be a manager to lead people, but managers must know how to lead as well as manage.

As the author points out, the figures on women in leadership is staggering in disparity. The article takes time to focus on identifying and highlighting reasons what makes a successful leader. Having an opportunity to attend a leadership meeting, in which we discussed improving inclusion at my company, this article presented many of the same reasons that as a company we tried to understand, “Why do we not have more women in leadership?” This article really underscores that in order for a business to survive and grow or for that matter, any organization to flourish you need to find individuals that embody the above-mentioned leadership traits not just seniority.

In the United States, our concept of gender, and the differences between men and women, have deep traditional roots. Men are supposed to be strong individuals, who support and defend their families. Women are seen as nurturing, and motherly, more gentle and tame. We believe so strongly that the two genders are entirely separate, with such completely different traits, that it almost seems that men and women are just born with different qualities.

The purpose of this article was to examine women’s and men’s leadership styles, the effectiveness of the different leadership styles, and the true determination of effectiveness as a woman leader (Appelbaum et al, 2003, p. 43). The article present research conducted for theories examined. Comparing this week’s work assignment to this article, I notice a linkage to a few items. The comparable list that is closely related to parts of theories in the reading assignment are gender stereotypes; different leadership style effectiveness; developmental opportunity, and experience. All of these different topics are related to the Leadership Labyrinth.