Alice Eagly, Northwestern: Women As Leaders: Leadership Style Versus Leaders’ Goals

The following are my notes from Eagly's presentation at the HBS Gender & Work Conference, February 28 2013

Interest in differences for psychologists stems from interest in nature v. nurture.

Articles about women as leaders (Sargent, 1981; Loden, 1985; Helgesen, 1990; Rosener, 1990 etc.) saying women are different as leaders, more cooperative, less hierarchical provided an appealing message that many women found affirming, but that was consistent with stereotypes.

Eagly interested in whether social science data could confirm these generalizations, and if so, does women’s participation make groups more effective & companies more profitable?

Do women pursue different goals as leaders, have different values?

1990 meta-analysis of classic forms of leadership – most robust difference confirmed tradebooks – women more democratic and participative; that difference was larger in female-dominated roles; women more like men in male-dominated roles; women not really more communal, except in female-dominated roles. Context really important.

Biggest sex differences look like [image of two highly overlapping bell curves to the left] – difference is only on the average, not large or meaningful.

2003 meta-analysis of transformational-transactional style; transformational style has both masculine (agentic) and feminine (communal) aspects, so androgynous; predicted women would do transformational leadership more than men, and women were more transformational, esp. in building good human relationships; men and women were equally transactional, women endorsed more positive rewarding strategies, men more negative threatening strategies; findings have replicated in 2 large-scale studies (Hunt et al., McKinsey study).

d scores [statistical effect sizes]: -.1 for all transformational etc., very small.

Causes unclear: selection effect v. gender effects (e.g., harder for women to get into the jobs, so have to be better leaders? women more androgynous? something about women?)

Men don’t accept transformational style as readily from women as from men (Ayman et al.,2009); social expectations that women will manifest certain aspects of transformational leadership, however.

Profitability of companies with more women:

Early data: more women = more profit (Catalyst, McKinsey European study); econometric studies, data becomes more “mixed” and sometimes shows negative effects (Adams & Ferreira, 2009; Matsa & Miller, 2012; Denzo & Ross, 2012).

Group performance and gender diversity:

Van Dijk, van Engen & van Knippenberg2012: null effects for objective performance and negative for subjective (subjective probably due to bias).

Social science data offer no simple “business case” such that merely adding women has positive effects. But of course, gender diversity can be welcome & supported, resisted & met with backlash and conflict, or passively resisted. Successful management requires managing these reactions.

Values:

Women’s attitudes and values are more benevolent & universalistic than men’s (Schwartz & Rubel, 2005; Adams & Funk, 2012, present among managers). Universalistic – caring about others beyond one’s own group; women are more socially compassionate (Eagly et al., 2004) – care more about poor people, children, education, healthcare, and are more morally traditional.

Do women leaders act on these differences in values? Women legislators (Wangnerud, 2009– women advocate more for public good), seems to be true cross-nationally and override political power; women on corporate boards (Williams, 2003) associated with more philanthropy and charitable giving; Norwegian corporations (Matsa& Miller, 2011): fewer layoffs with (quota-mandated) women directors; women-owned US private firms have fewer layoffs (Matsa & Miller, 2012); Beaman et al., 2008: female Indian village leaders (mandated by law): acted more for public good, such as clean water to villages, more than the men.

Are women leaders more ethical, less corrupt? Yes, but this finding is controversial; shows up in studies of business ethics; more women on corporate boards = more corporate social responsibility (Boulouta, 2012); more women in parliaments = less political corruption (various studies), Indian village leaders who were women took fewer bribes (Beaman et al., 2009).

Value divergences of women & men could complicate women’s leadership if their values converge with those of their colleagues or organization.

Steven Pinker: ascribes worldwide decline of violence in part to the rise of women [!]

World Bank: associates gender equality with greater economic productivity and national wealth (these relationships complex, causal arrows not clear).

In sum:

• Sex differences in leadership styles
• Value & attitude differences – more important, basic, should put our emphasis here
• More women leaders may lead to more world peace – only way to know is to move in that direction as fast as we can