There are several key ways in which people respond differently to women and men who are leaders. I’ll outline these differences, identify the ways in which such responses affect women’s leadership, and propose some solutions to smooth the way for women leaders. Women and men must be aware of these differential expectations, know how they affect both leaders and constituents, and understand what responses may be useful.1. 1. Women in leadership roles elicit different responses than do men.
Power operates as a social structure, made up of numerous practices that maintain a cultural system of dominance. The practices that maintain a power system include patterns of discourse, shared understandings about and participation in a set of values, expectations, norms and roles. This social structure transcends, in some respects, the wishes or behavior of any particular individual and has a tendency to shape decisions, interactions, and social relations to fit it. Responses to women and men in leadership roles are conditioned by a social structure traditionally dominated by men.Researchers have identified four key ways in which female and male leaders elicit different responses from those around them. These different responses appear to be due, not so much to different leadership behaviors by women and men, as to the stimulus value of women or men in these roles. A woman leader stimulates a different reaction than a male leader because of learned expectations, shaped and supported by the surrounding social structure, that invalidate and undercut women’s attempts to be effective, influential, powerful.
2. Women are expected to combine leadership with compassion.
Researchers have long found that people think “male” when they think “leader,” and that this result transcends many cultural differences. Because of perceived incompatibility between the requirements of femininity and those of leadership, women are often required to “soften” their leadership styles to gain the approval of their constituents. Women who do not temper their agency and competence with warmth and friendliness risk being disliked and less influential; men face no such necessity to be agreeable while exercising power. Women who lead with an autocratic style are the targets of more disapproval than those who enact a more democratic style; men may choose the autocratic style with relative impunity, if they are effective leaders. When women demonstrate competent leadership within an explicitly masculine arena something that often requires the application of a “harder” leadership style, they are disliked and disparaged.
3. Women who promote themselves and their abilities reap disapproval.
Because they are stereotyped as less competent than men, women would-be leaders are sometimes advised to eschew feminine modesty and promote their own abilities, strengths and accomplishments. However, self-promotion can be dangerous for women. As noted above, women who act more confident and assertive than is normative for women run the risk of disapproval. Research demonstrates that when women promote their own accomplishments it can cause their audience to view them as more competent—but at the cost of viewing them as less likeable. Men who promote their own accomplishments do not reap the same mixed outcomes: as long as they do not overdo it, self-promotion brings them both higher evaluations of competence and likeability.
4. Women require more external validation than do men in some contexts.
Given the issues raised so far, it is not surprising to learn that, in order for women to be accepted in leadership roles, they must often have external endorsements. Particularly in competitive, highly-masculinized contexts, simply having leadership training or task-related expertise does not guarantee a woman’s success unless accompanied by legitimation by another established leader.Gender stereotypes interfere with observers’ ability to see women’s competence; it is sometimes necessary to for a high-status other to provide them with credibility.
5. Reacting to the reactions: How does leadership feel to women?
There is evidence that women may be more aware than men of the potential costs of leadership.Women do worry about the contradictions between acceptable feminine behavior and the requirements of powerful positions. Young women asked to imagine themselves in powerful positions rate such positions as be less positive than young men do. Furthermore, the women betray awareness of the possibility that relationship problems could ensue if they were to hold such positions. Some describe themselves as potentially very unlikable in such roles, using words such as “dominating, aggressive,” “opinionated,” “power hungry, ... mean,” “bossy, direct and aggressive.”Clearly, they recognize the near-impossibility of “softening” one’s image while yet maintaining the air of authority, determination and competence necessary to convince others that one can exercise strong leadership.
Women already in leadership positions—even those in male-dominated contexts—while acutely aware of the narrow path they must tread, find rewards in these roles: a sense of competence and of positive impactand the opportunity to empower others.These rewards, they say, help compensate for the heavy demands and the caution demanded by the contradictory expectations associated with their leadership roles. However, there is no telling how many women never get to this point—turned away from aspirations to leadership because of the difficulties and costs they anticipate.
6. A changed social structure changes the reactions.
An interview study of women leaders in France and Norway illustrated years ago that context could make all the difference to these leaders’ experience. The Norwegian women expressed joy and a sense of efficacy in their leadership roles; the French women, on the other hand, spoke of difficulties, conflicts, loneliness, and marginality.These differing experiences appeared linked to sharp contrasts in these women’s perceptions of their acceptance as leaders. In Norway, with its long and deeply-rooted history of women’s involvement in political leadership, women in such positions felt a strong sense of legitimacy in their leadership roles. In France, where women’s leadership was relatively new and rare, that sense of legitimacy was absent, and women were called upon to prove themselves repeatedly.Research has since made it abundantly clear that context makes a critical difference in the ease with which women can access leadership positions, their perceived effectiveness in these positions, and the difficulties they encounter. Women face the most resistance to their leadership and influence in roles that are male-dominated and characterized as masculine.As social attitudes have shifted to define fewer arenas as masculine, acceptance of women as leaders in the other arenas has grown.
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