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.
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| Jill after we finished the paper you are about to read 1/532rd of! |
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| 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.” 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.
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.”
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.
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.
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”
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.
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. In the end, “It
ultimately comes down to aspiration, and the desire to lead.”
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.
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>.
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.
