GENDER AND LEADERSHIP

Gender and Leadership



Gender and Leadership

Introduction

Biological/genetic sexual differences impact gender orientation significantly. Although researchers have directed considerable debate towards the nature/nurture question, certain differences in biological sex are well defined and accepted as factual. How these differences influence perception, interaction, and ultimately leadership styles is an interesting area of study and somewhat more difficult to define.

A review of such differences serves as a starting point in the study of gender differences in behavior and leadership and why women may offer unique strengths essential to healthy growth and operation in an organization. According to Saunders (2007 pp.25-30), studying hormones and biological dissimilarities, men and women experience the world differently based upon hormones. These researchers do not deny the impact of culture, but resolutely state: “Men and women seem to experience the world differently, not merely because of the ways they were brought up in it, but because they feel it with a different sensitivity of touch, hear it with different aural 1 responses, puzzle out its problems with different cells in their brains.” (Collis 2009 pp.45-48) He believes implicitly that hormones are the basis for such differences, and play a role far greater than simply contributing to external sexual characteristics.

Discussion

There has long been an argument over the dissimilarities in leadership methods between men and women. Although there are couple of investigations that affirm that there gender dissimilarities in leadership methods, most study points to their nonattendance. However, powerful and broadly held insights of their reality extend (Saunders 2007 pp.12-15)

        Most study in the locality of gender and leadership function stereotyping in the workplace has concentrated on either self-perceptions or subordinates' insights of male and feminine leaders' behaviors. Significant dissimilarities have been discovered between the insights of these two groups. In most situations, previous researches have demonstrated that leadership behaviors were described more often by subordinates than by the leaders themselves. On the other hand, a breakthrough meta-analysis of leadership methods discovered leaders' self-ratings of their task and interpersonal methods to be considerably more gender function stereotypic the subordinates' rankings. These discrepancies in study propose the significance of revising distinct perceptual causes of leaders' behaviour and may supply more sensible interpretations into the environment of gender function stereotyping in organizations.

        Many mangers both male and feminine acquiesce that there are dissimilarities in administration styles. Interestingly, both male and feminine mangers recount women's dissimilarities in affirmative terms. According to the Myers Briggs Type Indicator male managers consistently arrive out predominantly as Traditionalists. In compare to feminine managers who appear as considerably more "˜intuitive', blended with either considering as visionaries or feeling as catalysts. The natural power of the visionary is being strategic, while that of the catalyst is fostering higher productivity by in person inspiring people. However, when Cranfield in evaluation peak male and feminine managers in the personal and public part it apparently displayed that women are no better or poorer than men in the perform of administration and leadership. “It all counts on the man or woman in ...