THE EFFECTIVENESS OF FEMININE AND MASCULINE LEADERSHIP STYLES IN RELATION TO CONTRASTING GENDER'S PERFORMANCES

Abstract

This paper focuses on the impact and effectiveness of feminine and masculine styles of leadership on contrasting genders in four different economies namely; India, Canada, Pakistan, and United Kingdom's IT Sector. By combining probability and non-probability sampling techniques, the data has been gathered from 248 respondents via semi-structured 5-points scale survey questionnaire. The findings have shown that employees irrespective gender are significant positively affected by feminine leadership style. Additionally, in developing countries; Pakistan and India there is significant use of feminine leadership while developed economies namely; Canada and the UK have higher preference for masculine leadership style. Nevertheless, overall male workers do not have higher preference to work under masculine leadership style while females have higher preference for both masculine and feminine leadership styles. Interestingly, feminine style of leadership is highly demonstrated by males in Pakistan while in other three economies, it is exhibited by female line-managers. Moreover, female line-managers in the UK have shown higher masculine style of leadership in contrast to other economies. There is significant positive relationship between style of leadership and contrasting genders in distinctive economies. Additionally, feminine leadership style is more effective than the masculine leadership style. Feminine leaders demonstrate higher people-orientation and participative style of management whereas masculine leaders rely on task-orientation and autocratic style.