Leadership Styles in Male Dominated Organizations: A Mixed-Methods Study

Abstract

Women continue to be under-represented in senior leadership positions, particularly in male dominated organizations. Despite this gap, popular literature including the New York Times and the Harvard Business Review have espoused the benefits of hiring female leaders. Women, more so than men, are thought to exhibit the nurturing and empowering characteristics of the transformational leadership style that is the popular method of leadership sought by today’s organizations. Academic researchers have tended to argue against gender differences in leadership style. However, some scholars have found that women tend to be more transformational than men, except in the presence of moderators such as a predominately-male sex composition of the organizational hierarchy. Using the constructs of transformational and transactional leadership, this mixed-methods study employed the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire and semi-structured interviews to explore the leadership practices of male and female leaders in a male dominated organization. The theoretical paradigms of role congruity theory and social identity theory allowed for the examination of stereotypes and prejudices against female leaders that influenced their leadership styles and provided insight into the evaluative differences between male and female leaders. The quantitative results reveal that both male and female leaders rated themselves as more transformational than transactional, with men just as likely as women to use a transformational leadership style. A thematic analysis of qualitative data reveled two overarching themes, which were applied to the research questions. The results indicate that some women alter their leadership behaviours when leading in a male dominated environment and perceive they are evaluated differently when leading in a transformational manner in male dominated roles.