4.07. Leadership: A comparative study of men and women executives.

Nureya Abarca, Nicolás Majluf.

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to present a model aimed at analyzing: (1) Leadership styles of men and women to establish the most important differences and similarities (2) The effect that male and female leadership styles have on subordinates, (3) The impact of subordinate’s gender in their perceptions of leadership styles of men and women, (4) The impact of subordinate’s gender in their perceptions of the effect that male and female leaders have on them.

A questionnaire was applied to 427 individuals from 37 large companies in Chile in a variety of industries. Results show that women tend to behave according to the transformational and transactional leadership styles more frequently than men, (especially intellectual stimulation, individual consideration and contingent reward), and are rated by subordinates as better than men in terms of effectiveness, satisfaction and extra effort. This study finds that the differential perception about male and female leadership style is mainly explained by the gender of subordinates.

 

KEY WORDS: Leadership, gender, subordinates, Full Range Leadership Model, effects on subordinates, gender of subordinates