Are There Gender Differences in Leadership Styles?
Research suggests that there are few differences in the way men and women lead. The slower career progression for women can be better accounted for by institutional biases and inaccurate stereotypes of women managers. It has been found that men and women perform at about the same level. Women managers have been found to be more achievement oriented, understanding, patient, relationship oriented, socially sensitive, and communicative than men. c. Situational Theories of Leadership • Fiedler’s Contingency Theory of Leadership: Fiedler used a least preferred coworker (LPC) scale to measure whether a leader who was lenient in evaluating associates he/she least liked working with was more likely or less likely to have a high-producing group than the leader who was demanding and discriminating. Three factors combine to determine which leadership style is more appropriate: position power, task structure, and leader-member relations. Fiedler concluded that if the situation is favorable or unfa
