Think Leader, Think Deep Voice? CEO Voice Pitch and Gender

Abstract

Several studies in evolutionary psychology, political science, and some in management have established that followers prefer their leaders to have lower-pitched voices. While most studies have explored male leader voices, the follower preference for lower-pitched leader voices has been found to be robust across a number of decision domains ranging from selecting aboriginal tribal leaders to paying CEOs. Drawing upon the follower-centric theories of leadership, we argue that gender will moderate this relationship with the effects of pitch becoming weaker, first, (1) when leaders are female, and second, (2) when followers are female. In a forced-choice lab study where followers (i.e., respondents listening to male and female CEOs’ voices) must select the most trustworthy-sounding CEO among three choices, we replicate the main finding that followers perceive lower-pitched leader voices as being more trustworthy. However, this relationship is moderated when assessing female top executive voices with the effect of voice pitch being much lower than when assessing male CEOs. This finding suggests that followers may have a different leader prototype of what makes a female business leader trustworthy.