Our Findings | leadershipsexgender

Kommanding Kommunicators

Statistically, CEOs are primarily two things: white and male (Martelli & Abels, 2010). The majority of CEO's are bred from Ivy League schools, whose student population is demographically typically white and male (Fitzsimmons, Callan, & Paulsen, 2014; Martelli & Abels, 2010; Oakley, 2000). Dominance, leadership, powerfulness, and emotionless decision making skills are listed as traits of top CEOs (Martelli & Abels, 2010; Pillemer, Graham, & Burke, 2014).

Our group set out to examine the trend of predominantly male CEOs by tying in the research on effective leadership styles, gender, and sex (as they pertain to leadership).

While it remains that most CEOs are male, there are women in the field. The percentage of female CEOs has hovered between 16% - 17% since 2011 (Van Vugt & Spisak, 2008). One study by Cuadrado, et al, (2012) set out to find if this was becuase men and women traditionally use different leadership styles.

Early and widely accepted views on leadership state that men and women lead in essentially the same ways (Eagly & Johnson, 1990). This thinking, according to Eagly & Johnson (1990), needs to be "very substantially revised." Historically and traditionally, men have been considered more autocratic and task-oriented, while women have been seen as more democratic and socioemotional leaders (Cuadrado, et al., 2012). While there may be bits of truth to the notion that women tend to lead in a more stereotypically feminine way and men in a more masculine way, it is not necessarily always the case.

A leader's effectiveness is only as good as others' perceptions of them as a leader. Along with autocratic/democratic and task/socioemotional styles of leadership, other things can be taken into consideration when identifying the characteristics of an effective leader. Some of these may include their organizational structure, problem-solving style, and view of work-related conflict (Van Emmerick, Wendt, & Euwema, 2010). One more contemporary study actually found that women were perceived to be more autorcatic leaders than the men in the study (Cuadrado, et al., 2012). Emotional intelligence, conflict management, and agreeableness have also entered the realm of traits to study when it comes to effective leadership (Mandell & Pherwani, 2003; Cellar, Sidle, Goudy, & O'Brien, 2001). Since emotional intelligence is closely related to relationships, it tends to be a predominantly feminine trait. One highly successful female CEO, Meg Whiteman (eBay), is said to be the "secret of eBay's success", exhibiting a leadership style that is "consultative, open, empowering, and visionary" (Van Gut & Spisak, 2008).

In short, some of the findings in recent research are changing traditional thinking as it pertains to effective leadership styles. Essentially, the literature tells us that no matter what your sex or gender, androgynous styles of leadership prove to be most effective. It would seem that a combination of the traits that were found to be the strongest amongst the predominantly masculine and predominantly feminine create the most effective leader. Given that women were often perceived negatively when taking on a more masculine style, this may also imply that staying true to your personal style of leadership is also a factor in effectiveness; that is to say, trying to be someone you aren’t won’t do you any favors. From this review, we can conclude that autocratic and democratic leaders can be deemed equally successful when accompanied by strong emotional intelligence, conflict management, and agreeableness.