Periodic Reporting for period 1 - WOMLEAD (Closing the Gender Gap in Leadership: Using Research to Inform Practice)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2022-03-01 do 2024-08-31
Despite the fact that women account for approximately half of the workforce, they occupy only 17% of senior executives in the European Union. While the paucity of women in senior roles may be attributable to multiple factors, gendered perceptions of leadership is among the more strongly supported explanations for the gender gap in leadership. That is, we have historically associated leadership with masculine characteristics because we often measure only masculine characteristics of leadership. However, much of the more recent scholarly literature in the leadership area emphasizes the importance of feminine and/or androhynous leadership characteristics. One such measure, servant leadership centers on engaging followers in relational, ethical, and emotional dimensions and on fostering the development of followers. As these leadership attributes are less masculine in nature, I posit that relying on servant leadership to assess followers may help decrease the gender gap in leadership.
Societally, this is important, as one of the EU Prioties is "An economy that works for people – ensuring social fairness and prosperity" and the UN Sustainable Goal #5 is to "Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls."
The overall objectives are to examine whether managers who are seen as higher in servant leadership by their followers are more equitable in their evaluations of male and femaile subordinates. Further, I examine whether training peole in soft skills has the potential to make people see servant leadership as more aligned with their perceptions of an "ideal leader."
Societally, this is important, as one of the EU Prioties is "An economy that works for people – ensuring social fairness and prosperity" and the UN Sustainable Goal #5 is to "Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls."
The overall objectives are to examine whether managers who are seen as higher in servant leadership by their followers are more equitable in their evaluations of male and femaile subordinates. Further, I examine whether training peole in soft skills has the potential to make people see servant leadership as more aligned with their perceptions of an "ideal leader."
1. Collect multi-source data on supervisors’ servant leadership. While leadership scholars have frequently lamented the limitations of single-source assessments of leadership, given the evidence that women’s self-ratings of leadership are lower than others’ ratings of their leadership, heeding the call for multi-source data is particularly important in understanding gender differences in leadership
2. Examine the path model from supervisors’ servant leadership to subordinates’ soft skill development and servant leadership and ultimately, to service delivery. In light of the evidence that other forms of leadership (e.g. ethical leadership) are learned through role modeling, I expect a similar social learning effect for servant leadership. Moreover, I will test whether previously-observed links between servant leadership and customer service are mediated by subordinates’ soft-skill acquisition and servant leadership
3. Examine the extent to which the aforementioned relationships between servant leadership and subordinate outcomes and service delivery vary by gender. Given what is currently known about women’s leadership, soft skills, and customer service, the proposed model seeks to let science lead the way in making the business case for increasing female representation in leadership.
4. Create a vehicle for disseminating the findings of this study and other studies of women’s leadership. Toward the end of my grant period, I will host a conference at Universidad de Sevilla, that brings together researchers and practitioners, to share the findings of this study as well as findings of others who do research in this area.
2. Examine the path model from supervisors’ servant leadership to subordinates’ soft skill development and servant leadership and ultimately, to service delivery. In light of the evidence that other forms of leadership (e.g. ethical leadership) are learned through role modeling, I expect a similar social learning effect for servant leadership. Moreover, I will test whether previously-observed links between servant leadership and customer service are mediated by subordinates’ soft-skill acquisition and servant leadership
3. Examine the extent to which the aforementioned relationships between servant leadership and subordinate outcomes and service delivery vary by gender. Given what is currently known about women’s leadership, soft skills, and customer service, the proposed model seeks to let science lead the way in making the business case for increasing female representation in leadership.
4. Create a vehicle for disseminating the findings of this study and other studies of women’s leadership. Toward the end of my grant period, I will host a conference at Universidad de Sevilla, that brings together researchers and practitioners, to share the findings of this study as well as findings of others who do research in this area.
A plethora of empirical studies have pointed to the pervasive tendency to associate leadership requirements with traditionally masculine traits more than with traditionally feminine traits. Whereas masculine stereotypes focus on agency – i.e. goal achievement (competence, assertiveness, decisiveness), feminine stereotypes emphasize communal content -- the maintenance of relationships and social functioning (benevolence, trustworthiness, morality). While the think-manager-think-men perspective continues to receive empirical support, as the stereotypes regarding men and women have changed, so too have advantages accorded to male leaders decreased over time. For example, a recent meta-analysis demonstrated that stereotypes of women and men have been changing over time, with male leaders seen as more effective in older studies and female leaders seen as more effective in newer studies. Indeed, a recent study found that women are rated better than men on 17 of 19 attributes that distinguish excellent leaders from average or poor ones . Yet, the gender gap in leadership points to a critical disconnect between research and practice that this project seeks to address; namely, by linking women’s leadership to customer service outcomes, I will develop and test a model that examines ways in which organisations can capitalize on women’s superior leadership attributes to create leadership paths that will ultimately decrease the gender gap. As this research indicates that women’s self-assessments of leadership lag behind others’ ratings of their leadership, this project goes beyond the state-of-the-art by heeding the call of recent scholars, to “triangulate this rating.”
Testing whether servant leadership increases followers’ soft skill development and servant leadership represents an additional state-of-the-art aspect of this project. Moreover, because of the overlap between feminine stereotypes and servant leadership, this relationship is expected to be stronger among women leaders than among men leaders. Thus, an additional state-of-the-art contribution is the examination of gender differences in these trickle-down leadership effects. Further, I test whether subordinates’ soft skills training and servant leadership positively impact customer service and whether these variables mediate the relationship between supervisors’ servant leadership and customer service. Given recent evidence that servant leadership increases subordinates’ customer service performance , I go beyond the state-of-the-art by testing this mediated effect.
Testing whether servant leadership increases followers’ soft skill development and servant leadership represents an additional state-of-the-art aspect of this project. Moreover, because of the overlap between feminine stereotypes and servant leadership, this relationship is expected to be stronger among women leaders than among men leaders. Thus, an additional state-of-the-art contribution is the examination of gender differences in these trickle-down leadership effects. Further, I test whether subordinates’ soft skills training and servant leadership positively impact customer service and whether these variables mediate the relationship between supervisors’ servant leadership and customer service. Given recent evidence that servant leadership increases subordinates’ customer service performance , I go beyond the state-of-the-art by testing this mediated effect.