The Debate: Do men and women have different leadership styles?
THE CASE FOR
By Susan Vinnicombe, Director of the Centre for Developing Women Business Leaders
Women do have different leadership styles from men. As Bodyshop founder Anita Roddick says: ?I run my company according to feminine principles ? principles of caring, making intuitive decisions, not getting hung up on hierarchy, having a sense of work as being part of your life, not separate from it; putting your labour where your love is, being responsible to the world in how you use your profits; recognising the bottom line should stay at the bottom'.
The problem with actually mapping these differences is that the successful male managerial stereotype is so strongly embedded in organisational life that female managers are pressured to conform to it, thereby confusing research results.
Interest in the impact of gender on leadership is relatively new. The first studies were conducted in the US in the early 1970s when male managers at nine insurance companies were asked to characterise ?women in general', ?men in general' and ?successful managers'. Successful managers were overwhelmingly identified exclusively with male traits. Many similar studies have been carried out since that time and all have demonstrated that the successful managerial stereotype remains male.
Women managers' perceptions of the successful manager are only slightly less conclusive. Unlike the women managers in the 1970s and 1980s not all female managers today sextype the successful manager as male; however, no one, male or female, ever identifies the successful manager as feminine. Male, and only to a slightly lesser extent, female, managers continue to desc ...