Female leadership: Effectiveness and perception

Abstract

We ran a field experiment to investigate whether individual performance in teams was affected by the gender of the leader. About 430 students from an Italian University took an intermediate exam that was partly evaluated on the basis of teamwork. Students were randomly matched in teams of three and, in each team, we randomly chose a leader entrusted with the task of coordinating the work of the team. We find a positive and significant effect of female leadership on team performance. This effect is driven by the higher performance of team members in female-led teams rather than by an improvement in leader performance. In spite of the higher performance of female-led teams, male members tended to evaluate female leaders as less effective, whereas female members have provided more favorable judgments. Our results are consistent with stereotypically feminine personality traits influencing leadership style and the decision on the amount of effort to exert in a task where females are contravening stereotypical behavior and their traditional societal role.