The Future of Leadership is Female (Part II)
This blog explores three questions that arise from the realisation that leadership has traditionally been construed as masculine and does not promote the qualities of relational leadership.
In my last blog I explored the importance and quality of relational skills required to enact relational leadership; a sine-qua-non for leading in the Knowledge era. My main argument was that the traits associated with relational leadership are predominantly female and encompass qualities such as empathy, community and vulnerability. However, as leadership has traditionally been construed as primarily masculine, embracing among other qualities-assertiveness, individualism and control-the feminine traits have been considered of lesser value, subordinate and suppressed with respect to masculine qualities.
This acknowledgment leads to two fundamental questions:
IS THE DESIRE TO LEAD RELATIONALLY SUFFICIENT TO INTEGRATE RELATIONAL SKILLS WITH TRADITIONAL SKILLS IN THE LEADERSHIP PRACTICE? IN OTHER WORDS, CAN AN OLD DOG LEARN NEW TRICKS?
WHAT DOES THE FACT THAT LEADERSHIP IS NOT A NEUTRAL CONCEPT BUT IS GENDERED, ENCOMPASSES A POWER DYNAMIC AND HAS A SEX IMPLY FOR THE WAY FUTURE LEADERSHIP IS PRACTICED?
In this blog I explore the following three questions that arise from the above and attempt to provide some answers.
COULD IT BE THE HIDDEN UNDER-EXPLORED NATURE OF THESE GENDER/POWER DYNAMICS THAT MAY ACCOUNT FOR MANY OF THE PARADOXES PEOPLE EXPERIENCE IN TRYING TO IMPLEMENT RELATIONAL LEADERSHIP?
CAN WE ENACT RELATIONAL LEADERSHIP IF WE DO NOT CONSIDER THE GENDER/POWER/SEX IMPLICATIONS OF SOCIAL INTERACTIONS AND NETWORKS OF INFLUENCE?
HOW CAN WE CHANGE BEHAVIOR OF OUR LEADERS IF GENDER-AND POWER-LINKED IMAGES EXERT IMPLICITLY POTENT INFLUENCE ON LEADER AND FOLLOWER BEHAVIOR, EXPERIENCE, AND EXPECTATIONS?
Let us start with Q1
Could it be the hidden under-explored nature of these gender/power dynamics that may account for many of the paradoxes people experience in trying to implement relational leadership?
I believe that this is the case. Social cognition theorists remind us that the interpretation of events is always contextual and is influenced by many factors, including the social identity (sex, race, class, organisational title, etc) of the actor as well as that of the observer. We filter behaviour through schema that influence and determine what we see, what we expect to see and how we interpret it (1).
Here are some examples from an endless list that explicitly demonstrate how the complex gender and power dynamics impact our perceptions and ultimately the transformative potential of relational leadership:
McKinsey & Company’s study on Diversity & Inclusion “Women at the Workplace” is the largest comprehensive study of the state of women in corporate America. In 2018 279 companies and 64,000 employees participated. One of their findings is that women think differently about top jobs. Specifically, compared to men of the same race and ethnicity, women are less likely to aspire to be a top executive. Women and men who want to be senior leaders see the benefits differently. Women are more interested in being role models than men are, while men are more motivated by the opportunity to impact the success of the company.
Research has demonstrated the power to recruit and reward in like-image, to include and exclude. Accordingly, gender differences in notions of what is the nature of desirable leadership behaviours can affect the criteria for selection, the behavioural guidelines against which women will be rated in a selection process, appraisal and evaluation activities and promotional schemes.
A recent academic study that examined how observers assessed professional women when they cried at work found out -among other- that observers perceived women’s crying as unacceptable in professional work contexts. In these settings, popular management writing has labeled crying as almost always unprofessional and associated with damaging outcomes, such as poor performance evaluations and career limitation (2).
Researchers have found that actors are evaluated more favourably when their emotional expressions are congruent with both their gender identities and their role identities (3) (4). Thus, because anger is consistent for both leaders and men, male professionals who express anger are perceived more positively than female professionals who express anger. Similarly, cultural expectations contribute to the notion that women should be polite in every situation (5).
Another study found out that male emotional displays are generally more strongly associated with emotional intelligence, sensitivity, and adequate social skills, whereas in women they are more often linked to lack of control, vulnerability, manipulation, and not being fit to do one’s job (6).
Being a successful woman in a male domain can be regarded as a violation of gender norms, warranting sanctions. For example, women in positions of authority are thought too aggressive or not aggressive enough, and what appears assertive, self-confident, or entrepreneurial in a man often looks abrasive, arrogant, or self-promoting in a woman. By the same token, when women performing traditionally male roles are seen as conforming to feminine stereotypes, they tend to be liked but are not respected. They are judged too soft, emotional and unassertive to make tough decisions and to come across as sufficiently authoritative.(7)
Let us move to Q2
Can we enact relational leadership if we do not consider the gender/power/sex implications of social interactions and networks of influence?
I believe that this is not possible. To truly capture the transformational potential of relational leadership would require:
To recognise how these deeply embedded, emotional and under explored ideas on idealised masculinity and femininity influence on leader and follower behaviour, experience and expectations.
To acknowledge how they challenge current power dynamics, the myth of individual achievement and related beliefs about what qualities are worth developing and rewarding.
Whereas male power dynamics is associated with “power over” the subordinates, female power dynamics enacts a model of “power within” (8). In a system of unequal power, the one having the “power over” imposes the relational practices to be adopted and distorts the equal exchange required in the self-in relation process (9).
Coming to the myth of individual achievement, a “logic of effectiveness” has traditionally underlain business practice and has been founded on masculine-linked images about how "to produce things” in the work sphere, while the logic of effectiveness underlying relational leadership is deeply rooted in feminine-linked images and wisdom about how “to grow people” in the domestic sphere (10). Similarly, research suggests that visible, individual work is recognised and rewarded, whereas equally vital, behind the scenes work (e.g. building a team, avoiding crises) more characteristic of women, tends to be overlooked.
Let us end with Q3
How can we change behaviour of our leaders if gender-and power-linked images exert implicitly potent influence on leader and follower behaviour, experience, and expectations?
We need to change the mental model we function from; or as Lama Shenpen Drolma eloquently expresses it: “Trying to change the world without changing our mind is like trying to clean the dirty face we see in the mirror by rubbing the glass. However vigorously we clean it, our reflection will not improve. Only by washing our own face and combing our own unkempt hair can we alter the image” (11) .
We need to put into practice a set of different beliefs and principles of how to exercise power and how to achieve workplace success and effectiveness. Women, for example, are expected to provide the collaborative environment that enables individual achievement, to empower others without getting anything in return, to work interdependently while others do not adopt a similar stance, to work mutually in non mutual situations, and to practice less hierarchical forms of interacting even in traditionally hierarchical contexts. They are also expected to do it invisibly, so that the “myth” of individual achievement is not challenged (12). In such cases, their behaviour is likely to be conflated not only with femininity but with selfless giving and motherhood. When the behaviour is conflated with mothering, the notion of reciprocity is much more difficult to communicate. Selfless giving is, by definition, non mutual.
We need to focus on developing different skills and competences at the individual level: shift from the skills and intelligence it takes to enact the traditional stance of self-as independent entity to adopt a stance of self-in-relation . The fact is that there is still emphasis on individual narrative. When leaders are asked on their successful practices, they often ignore many of the relational practices that account for their own success and effectiveness and present themselves as the achiever (13).
Selective Bibliography
(1) Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social cognition. Mcgraw-Hill Book Company.
(2) Elsbach, K. D., & Bechky, B. A. (2018). How observers assess women who cry in professional work contexts. Academy of Management Discoveries, 4(2), 127-154.
(3) Fischer, E. M., Reuber, A. R., & Dyke, L. S. (1993). A theoretical overview and extension of research on sex, gender, and entrepreneurship. Journal of business venturing, 8(2), 151-168.(4)
(4) Eagly, A. H., Karau, S. J., & Makhijani, M. G. (1995). Gender and the effectiveness of leaders: a meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin, 117(1), 125.
(5) Tiedens, L. Z. (2001). The effect of anger on the hostile inferences of aggressive and nonaggressive people: Specific emotions, cognitive processing, and chronic accessibility. Motivation and Emotion, 25(3), 233-251.
(6) Vingerhoets, A. (2013). Why only humans weep: Unravelling the mysteries of tears. Oxford University Press.
(7) Hellman, M. E., & Okimoto, T. G. (2007). Why are women penalised for success at male tasks? The implied communality deficit. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(1), 81-92.
(8) Fletcher, J. K. (2004). The paradox of postheroic leadership: An essay on gender, power, and transformational change. The leadership quarterly, 15(5), 647-661.
(9) Jost, J. T. (1997). An experimental replication of the depressed‐entitlement effect among women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21(3), 387-393.
(10) Rapport, N. (2004). I am dynamite: an alternative anthropology of power. Routledge.
(11)Lama Shenpen Drolma (Compiler) (2003) Change of Heart. The Bodhisattva Peace Training of Chagdud Tulku. Padma Publishing: CA
(12) Miller, D. T. (1976). Ego involvement and attributions for success and failure. Journal of personality and social psychology, 34(5), 901.
(13)Schein, V. E. (2001). A global look at psychological barriers to women's progress in management. Journal of Social issues, 57(4), 675-688.