Theories of Gender Roles in Leadership Paper

I wanted to give you all a look into the type of stuff that I have been working on here in Italy while I have been studying abroad, mostly to prove that we don't just travel, but rather that we do a little bit of work as well!!

For one of my classes we had to do a final project worth 50% of our grade, and this paper is one aspect of that. 

We are also working on a video, so here is a preview of that as well.

Jill after we finished the paper you are about to read 1/532rd of!

Yes Matt, this project is really that intense!

And I leave you with a video of Jillian Blandino growling at Ryan... to be honest I am still not sure why!! My mom always taught me to play nice in the sandbox!!

WARNING, THIS PAPER IS LONG!!!!!!!

Shout out to my other group members especially Jillian Blandino for the hard work that she put! Thank you for making me lunch, cooking me dinner, and feeding me peanut butter while we worked on this paper! It was nice to work with someone who was willing to put in the effort to produce something like this. Be confident, because you do know what you are doing, and it has been awesome to be in a group lead by you!

PS - All rights reserved to our awesome group!

Leadership and Management Competencies in Business

Professor Fabrizio Dardo

Final Exam Paper

Theories of Gender Roles in Leadership

Ryan Ayres

Jillian Blandino

Nate Borowitz

Jessica Bremer

Matt Buchheit

Appendix:

Part I: Overview                                                       3

Part II: Nature vs. Nurture                                        5

Part III: Task-oriented Leadership                            8

Part IV: Relationship-oriented Leadership             12

Part V: Conclusion                                                15

Part VI: Works Cited                                             16

Part I: Overview

            This paper will be a representation of this group’s knowledge on gender roles in leadership positions. We will first review the basis of nature versus nurture. We will look at both absolute views as well as the idea of a balance amongst the two; something that we feel is needed to develop good leaders. We feel that this is relative to our paper on gender roles because just as society places women into glass cliff positions, we also feel that on the nurture side society favors men in attempting to produce stronger leaders. After, we will review task-oriented leadership, and the ideas behind some scholars such as Avolio, Eagly, Johnson, Bass, and philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. This will help distinguish a fundamental problem with society-based gender roles in positions such as the military. Following our analysis of task-oriented leadership we will analyze relationship-oriented leadership.  We will analyze relationship-oriented leadership on its own, and follow it with a combination analysis. This combination analysis will use the ‘feminization’ of leadership to prove a perceptual injustice that society is placing on genders and leadership positions. This paper will conclude with our overall view of leadership theories on gender roles and also our experience on what these theories look like in real business situations.

            Before moving forward in this paper it is critical to understand the components that make up gender. As a group we have decided to focus on two aspects: sex and social culture identities. A common mistake is to affiliate gender with a sex, for instance a woman or man, rather than looking beyond the physical. However, the second and crucial part is the social culture identities. This is where society commonly depicts women as nurturing and men as dominant. However society can also choose to accept nurturing men or dominant women.

Group Gender Graph

** This graph depicts our group’s idea of Gender. As you can see the problem lies when one tries to study gender and differentiate trait/behavioral theories based on sex alone. The key is recognizing social cultural identities as well. **

All cultures have different components, however in this paper we will use experience and the culture we are familiar with in order to not over generalize these rules. We feel that this distinction, gender not based on sex alone, is a key factor in fully understanding the application of the gender theories as well as task oriented and behavior oriented leadership styles. 

Part II: Nature vs. Nurture

When it comes to the nature vs. nurture argument, many scholars are able to provide valid points concerning leadership within gender related roles. The idea behind nature vs. nurture displays the differences of harsh realities of the world and the nurturing influences, or experiences, on one’s life. As defined by Francis Galton, “nature is all that a man brings with himself into the world; nurture is every influence that affects him after his birth.”[1] The debate has evolved due to the relative importance of one’s innate qualities. British philosopher John Locke as well as Thomas Hobbes believed that the human mind at birth is complete but represents a blank slate that through experience retains knowledge. This thus supports the idea of nurtures importance in one’s life. On the other hand, René Descartes made the conclusion that individuals possess certain ‘in-born’ ideas that support one’s approach to the world.[2] With support from A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Studying Leadership, researcher, psychologist, and business leadership expert Bruce Avolio came to a conclusion that the “born side of the leadership development equation accounts for, approximately 30% of leadership effectiveness. The ‘made’ side of the equation accounts for 70%.” He concludes that “[both] leadership and wisdom are made, even if both are built on the genetic abilities people are endowed with at birth like cognitive abilities, energy levels, and how attractive we are to others.”[3]

The debate between gender differences and nature vs. nurture is an ongoing struggle to differentiate. There are various examples that validate both sides, while there are others that prove both false by showing a need for both nature and nurture. With regards to gender roles, the book states:

The trait approach to leadership seems to say that men were better leaders than women. The behavioral approach now seems to suggest that women demonstrate better leadership then men do on average.[4]

This should not be confused that men will be better in trait oriented leadership or women in relationship oriented leadership. Rather, situations call for a gender to fill a leadership role. This can be either female or male depending on the gender they have embraced based on personal experience or the cultural identity. As college students we have learned that tough professors can be male or female. A part of this is due to the fact that talking about religion in school is forbidden. This means that schools do not discriminate based on religion or any other aspect, and therefore are accepting to all types of people. Another part of this is that teachers use their own person experiences to adapt their teaching styles to their classrooms and enables them to associate with one gender or another.

            To accurately research and understand the trait and behavioral approaches it would be unprofessional to not view them both as having strong possibilities. In fact, nature and nurture both play different roles on each gender, making it hard to provide a consensus to help generalize their leadership influences.  For this reason we feel that both the trait approach and the behavioral approach have legitimate derivation, and are both real solutions to the argument. This statement leads directly to our next point, which deals with task-oriented leadership and the differences on both male and female leaders.

 

Part III: Task-Oriented Leadership

            Task-oriented leadership was once thought to be the way to lead; mainly because the people who were running companies cared more about the bottom line than the people who work for them. For that reason they brought in managers who were task-oriented and got rid of employees that didn’t conform to their desires. This time was the late 1800’s to the 1920’s in America, and was known as the industrial age. During this time workers rights were non-existent and all that mattered at the end of the day was the bottom line and what was produced.

Today, although it is commonly understood that task-oriented leadership is not the best form of leadership for a long-term situation, there are some scenarios where task-oriented leadership can truly provide for a better final result. Some of these examples include the military, short-term company transformations, and also situations where the final output is all the managers and the employees care about, such as piece-rate work.

Task-oriented leadership can provide better results when working on short-term projects such as company transformations. This is because in a limited amount of time everyone is working towards a common end goal rather than the overall feeling of the people working on the project. Someone that has had great success with this is Donald Trump; a real estate tycoon who has made most of his money buying troubled high end properties or companies, coming in and transforming them into profitable assets, and then selling them off for a substantial profit. The book actually talks about Donald Trump as a narcissistic leader.[5] Although narcissistic leaders can be very sensitive to criticism and terrible about caring about their employee’s opinions or concerns, the reason that Donald Trump and other narcissistic leaders are good at short-term conversions is because of their ability to energize followers with a compelling vision. This is also one reason that most of the properties that Mr. Trump owns today are bankrupt and having financial troubles. He and other narcissistic task-oriented leaders have a hard time believing that anyone is smarter than them, and in the long run have a hard time caring about the views of their followers. This causes their long-term investments to suffer, and is exactly what is happening with some of Mr. Trumps properties today.

Although there is no true understanding of whether or not men or women are better at leading, societies view of men as better leaders plays into the reason why men often lead. In 2003 Bernard Bass, Bruce Avolio, Dong Jung wrote a book titled “Predicting Unit Performance By Assessing Transformational and Transactional Leadership”[6] where they studied and predicted performance of platoons based on the types of leaders; transformational or transactional. Through this book as well as other research on military leadership, there has formed the idea that in certain military situations when transactional leadership is needed, the need for a man to lead is stronger, however when situations that are more long-term and require a more transformational leader, a woman is desired. This is also why in the past 20 years that has been a strong increase in the number of women joining the military, as there has been an increase in the need for transformational leaders.

The military is traditionally a place where task-oriented leadership is sought out because of the need for short-term success of tasks, quick response of followers, and the need for rapid completion of tasks in life and death situations. Research has shown that situations like these benefit from a transactional leader, and because of this, traditionally the military has been lead by men. In fact, there are only five main female military leaders in history; Maatkara Hatshepsut of Egypt, Margaret Thatcher from England, Russian Empress Catherine the Great, Queen Elizabeth from England, and Queen Isabella of Spain. Although there have been other female leaders, these five are the most famous women to ever lead militaries. They would be examples of women that Tomas Hobbs and John Locke would use to support the idea of behavioral approach. Hobbs and Locke’s view on task-oriented leadership lies with the nurture side of nature vs. nurture.[7] They would suggest that women have just as great of a chance to be strong leaders in task-oriented situations as men would, and that if given the chance would prove this theory to be correct, and the nature side obsolete.

The only logical response to an idea like this would be to ask why? However the answer to that is as simple as it is complex. This is a great example of why even though stereotypical approaches to leadership in any form, although theoretically wrong, conclude in the same way more often than not. Both of these examples, the short-term projects and the military, display strong task-oriented leaders that would support the trait approach to leadership. Furthermore, in understanding both Hobbes and Locke’s research as well as Bass and Avolio’s research, we would have to state that the bigger discrepancy actually lies within the eyes of society and how society as a whole views leaders. This would be the reason why men and women alike from the military prefer a man as their leader. This would also be the reason why a country like America has still not conformed to voting a woman into the White House. The simple fact is that although a woman can do just as good of a job, if society does not give her a chance because they handicap her simply based on gender, then there is no theory, trait or behavioral, that can overcome that.

Part IV: Relationship-Oriented Leadership

Relationship-oriented leadership is a leadership style that displays communication, employee identification, and the concentration of the relationship between the leader and the follower. This style of leadership has been most affiliated with females due to society’s interpretation of gender roles. Though there are no rules limiting genders to specific styles of leadership, society falls back to these stereotypes, referencing female roles to be more relationship based while males are perceived to be more task-oriented. This is an example of the Self Fulfilling Prophecy; what you believe will come true because of subconscious and conscious acts that cause the event to happen.[8]  In the end, “It ultimately comes down to aspiration, and the desire to lead.”[9] This is something that can be interpreted in many different ways.

It is hard to state that one person has a visibly stronger desire to lead because there is always an alternative approach used by different leaders. To some leaders building relationships and forming bonds with their employees factors in to their desire to lead in a powerful and moving way. These types of leaders solely want to be inspirational to their followers, and thus draw energy from motivating others. This representation would be amplified in the theory of Hobbes and Locke. These theorists would claim that women and men alike can decide how they should lead, incorporating the various types of leadership, and what personal experiences impact their leadership styles. Through personal experiences one may have learned from former influences, helping to create a unique and personal leadership approach.

Throughout all of the different theories on whether leaders are born or made and if men or women are better leaders and in what situations, there is one theory that blends the two and is starting to be supported by scholars on both sides.

This approach is known as the ‘feminization’ of leadership;

The ‘feminization’ of leadership does not mean that women are better leaders than men. It means that leaders who conform to the feminized stereotype, that of a balance between relationship-oriented and task-orientation, will be the better leaders, irrespectively of whether they are women or men.[10]

This means that a good leader can be either a man or woman. In fact this idea would suggest that although fundamentally nature and nurture both play a role in the creation of a good leader, neither is more important than the other. Furthermore, a leader who focuses first on relationship-orientation, and couples it with task-orientation would make a better leader. This eliminates the concern of whether male or female, and therefore the argument of trait vs. behavioral or nature vs. nurture, because although this may come more naturally to women (trait view), it would also be possible for men to learn (behavioral view).  Both males and females would be able to lead in both task-oriented and relationship-oriented situations. However the problem lies with how society has assigned genders to specific types of leadership.

            The feminization approach to leadership, although somewhat controversial because it slightly implies women to be better leaders, is a good blend of both trait and behavioral theories because it accounts for a mixture of both. The only problem that we see in this theory is the view of which plays a larger role; nature or nurture. This is also the same problem that Bruce Avolio has. Because you cannot confidently say one way or the other, you are left with estimating to your best knowledge to which is more important, and to what percent.

  

Part V: Conclusion

            Through this research our group has discovered a new and greater understanding of the differences between the trait theory and the behavioral theory, as well as their application to gender roles inside of task-oriented and relationship-oriented leadership roles. In fact, the main reason that our group chose this topic was because of our incorrect answers about this on our test. After researching on this topic we have come to a few main conclusions that are both supported in the book. Beyond these conclusions our group feels that these behaviors based upon gender should be researched more in the future.
            We feel that there can be no definite answer to the question of which makes a better leader, a man or a woman, because there are too many differing theories that have surfaced, and have not been proven incorrect. Because of the complexity of researching something that is either genetically fabricated, environmentally cultivated, or a mixture of both, it is hard for any researcher to say without doubt that there is a definite solution to this idea. Keep in mind that gender is comprised of sex and social cultural identities, not just the physical sex of the leader. It is imperative to remember the importance of social cultural identity; otherwise there will be a biased interpretation of leadership. It is important to remember that although there is not a definite sex that produces a better leader, there can be a better gender for specific situations, because gender is both sex and social cultural influences.

Part VI: References

Works Cited

1. Bass, Bernard M., Bruce J. Avolio, Dong I. Jung, and Yair Berson. "Predicting Unit Performance by Assessing Transformational and Transactional Leadership." Microsoft Academic Search. Journal of Applied Psychology, 2003. Web. 07 Dec. 2011. <http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Paper/5668318.aspx>.

2. Jackson, Brad, and Ken W. Parry. "Chapter 2." A Very Short Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Studying Leadership. 2nd ed. London: SAGE, 2011. 25-44. Print.

3. Pawlik- Kienlen, Laurie. "Self-Fulfilling Prophecies in Psychology: How Negative

                Thoughts and Expectations Create Problems in Life | Suite101.com." Laurie Pawlik-

                Kienlen | Suite101.com. Psychology Suite 101, 10 Mar. 2007. Web. 12 Dec. 2011.

                <http://l-pawlik-kienlen.suite101.com/selffulfilling-prophecies-a15843>.

4. Somit, Albert, and Steven Peterson. "Human Nature and Public Policy." Google Books.

Palgrave MacMillan, 2003. Web. 07 Dec. 2011.

 <http://books.google.com/books?hl=en>.

---

[1] Somit, Albert, and Steven Peterson. "Human Nature and Public Policy." Google Books. Palgrave MacMillan, 2003. Web. 07 Dec. 2011. <http://books.google.com/books?hl=en>.

[2] Jackson, Brad, and Ken W. Parry. "Chapter 2." A Very Short Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Studying Leadership. 2nd ed. London: SAGE, 2011. 25. Print.

[3] Jackson, Brad, and Ken W. Parry. "Chapter 2." A Very Short Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Studying Leadership. 2nd ed. London: SAGE, 2011. 27. Print.

[4] Jackson, Brad, and Ken W. Parry. "Chapter 2." A Very Short Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Studying Leadership. 2nd ed. London: SAGE, 2011. 27. Print.

[5] Jackson, Brad, and Ken W. Parry. "Chapter 2." A Very Short Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Studying Leadership. 2nd ed. London: SAGE, 2011. 40-41. Print.

[6] Bass, Bernard M., Bruce J. Avolio, Dong I. Jung, and Yair Berson. "Predicting Unit Performance by Assessing Transformational and Transactional Leadership." Microsoft Academic Search. Journal of Applied Psychology, 2003. Web. 07 Dec. 2011. <http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Paper/5668318.aspx>.

[7] Somit, Albert, and Steven Peterson. "Human Nature and Public Policy." Google Books. Palgrave MacMillan, 2003. Web. 07 Dec. 2011. <http://books.google.com/books?hl=en>.

[8] Pawlik- Kienlen, Laurie. "Self-Fulfilling Prophecies in Psychology: How Negative Thoughts and Expectations Create Problems in Life | Suite101.com." Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen | Suite101.com. Psychology Suite 101, 10 Mar. 2007. Web. 12 Dec. 2011. <http://l-pawlik-kienlen.suite101.com/selffulfilling-prophecies-a15843>.

[9] Jackson, Brad, and Ken W. Parry. "Chapter 2." A Very Short Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Studying Leadership. 2nd ed. London: SAGE, 2011. 17. Print.

[10] Jackson, Brad, and Ken W. Parry. "Chapter 2." A Very Short Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Studying Leadership. 2nd ed. London: SAGE, 2011. 28. Print.