Gender and Organizational Culture: Perceptions of Leadership Style and Effectiveness

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to demonstrate changes in the definition of effective leadership and present an argument for how the shift relates to evident changes in perceptions of women leaders. Perceptions of effectiveness estimations for female and male executives were compared, while taking into consideration organizational culture. Scenario methodology was used to manipulate gender, leadership styles, and organizational culture through an experimental online survey looking for differences in perceptions of effectiveness. Findings, in part 1, show that female executives were viewed as more transformational than male executives with no significant differences in perceptions of leadership effectiveness. Leadership style mediated relations between leader gender and perceptions of leadership effectiveness. In part 2, organizational culture was shown to increase the associations of gender and leadership style with expectations of effectiveness. Female leaders may over time be perceived as effective as male leaders, if the present shift in definitions of effective leadership styles continue to align with female gender roles and organizational cultures embrace collective practices. However, this paradigmatic change is slow and women continue to be stereotyped in leadership roles. This paper gives an explanation for why nil results are becoming more prevalent in the literature on gender in leadership.