Women in a Man's World: Gender Differences in Leadership at the Military Academy

Abstract

This study responds to a deficiency of research on military leadership gender differences in spite of widespread interest in women in the military in policymaking and academic circles of various fields. Although scholarship in the field of women's leadership in recent years has asserted that there are stylistic differences between male and female leaders, there were few major differences in this study of 12 specific areas of leadership rated by 3 types of raters. Of the 36 possible occurrences of a statistically significant gender difference, only 6 manifested themselves in the cadet leader ratings. As a whole, evidence supports minimal gender differences in leadership performance or style in the West Point Class of 1998.