A new study presented in the Washington Post points out that a meta-analysis (an integration of a large number of studies addressing the same question) carried out by researchers from Northwestern University shows that today's leadership continues to be viewed as culturally masculine.

The project “Are Leader Stereotypes Masculine? A Meta-Analysis of Three Research Paradigms” is in the July issue of the Psychological Bulletin. Alice Eagly, Professor of psychology and faculty fellow in the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, Besides Eagly, Anne M. Koenig, University of San Diego; Abigail A. Mitchell, Nebraska Wesleyan University; and Tiini Ristikari, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland are co-authors.

The study points out that "Women are still often viewed as less qualified or natural in most leadership roles, the research shows, and secondly, when women adopt culturally masculine behaviors often required by these roles, they may be viewed as inappropriate or presumptuous."

These reactions to women leaders reflect gender stereotypes. Previous research found that predominantly “communal” qualities, such as being nice or compassionate, are associated with women, and predominantly “agentic” qualities, such as being assertive or competitive, are associated with men.

It is these agentic qualities that are believed to be essential to successful leadership. Because men fit the cultural stereotype of leadership better than women, they have better access to leadership roles and face fewer challenges in becoming successful in them.

The good news for women is that the project’s analyses indicate that this masculine construal of leadership is weaker now than it was in earlier years. Despite this shift toward more androgynous beliefs about leadership, it remains culturally masculine — just not as extremely so as in the past. However, this masculinity lessens somewhat for lower-level leadership positions and in educational organizations.

The implications of the meta-analysis are straightforward: “Cultural stereotypes can make it seem that women do not have what it takes for important leadership roles, thereby adding to the barriers that women encounter in attaining roles that yield substantial power and authority” .

The meta-analysis incorporates studies from three different paradigms of research to examine the cultural masculinity of leadership stereotypes and the conditions under which such masculinity is more or less pronounced. The paradigms are characterized as think manager-think male; agency-communion; and masculinity-femininity.

An advantage of the Northwestern project is its use of these three research paradigms, which provide independent tests of leader stereotypes. Most of the data came from the United States, with some from Canada, Europe and East Asia. Few studies of leader stereotypes were available from other nations. 

“Women’s experiences will differ depending on their culture,” she said. “We would like to have more data from different nations, and also sub-cultural data within the United States that takes race and social class into account, but that’s something to look to in the future.”

The study also points out that "Women employ a more participative leadership style, are more likely to share information and power, and have strong relational skills that make them seem empathic to their staffs." In both laboratory studies and observations of real leaders, the opposite was often found with men. Male leaders tend to be more transactional in their business dealings, favor a more hierarchical and directive approach, and appear more typically to convey formal authority.

Research at the University of Southern California may offer one explanation for this, as it found a striking gender difference in brain function when under stress. The distinction appeared in the brain regions that enable people to simulate and understand the emotions of others. According to the research, stress seemed to increase the capacity for empathy in women while reducing it in males.

Generally speaking, female leaders tend to be more interactive, wanting to keep an encounter going until the emotional content has been played out. Conversely, men’s discomfort dealing with emotion (and their brain’s innate response to it) leads them to immediately search for solutions, rather than understanding that sometimes people—including colleagues and employees—just need to be heard.

Read the full article in Washington Post

For more information contact: Hilary Hurd Anyaso, law and social sciences editor, e-mail