Gender, leadership, and the display of empathic anger

Abstract

Three experimental studies with different participant pools examined the effects of displays of empathic anger – anger that is caused by witnessing or learning of harm done to another person – on perceptions of men and women in leadership positions. In contrast to prior work, which focused on expressions of anger regarding personal failure and found double standards that favour men, the results in this study show that displays of empathic anger were significantly more beneficial for female leaders. In particular, female leaders who expressed anger about a harm done to a subordinate were perceived as possessing more agentic and communal characteristics, and as being more effective in their position, than their male counterparts. Moreover, the results showed that this effect was driven by observers’ tendency to attribute empathic anger expressed by female compared with male leaders more strongly to internal reasons like the leader's personality. Consistent with these findings, the different perceptions of male and female leaders were no longer present when attributions for the displays of empathic anger were clearly internal. Practitioner points To be effective leaders, female managers need to show qualities like determination and confidence, but unlike male leaders, they often find it difficult to do so without simultaneously been judged as lacking important attributes like warmth and kindness. The results in this study suggest that female leaders can overcome this problem by expressing anger about a harm done to others, which causes observes to judge them even more positively than male leaders who engage in the same behaviour. Overall, whereas female leaders should generally avoid expressing anger about a personal harm for which they are judged very negatively, they should not be reluctant to display anger about harm done to other members of organization when they have the opportunity to do so.

More than just an angry face: A critical review and theoretical expansion of research on leader anger expression

“…Similarly, Brescoll and Uhlmann (2008) found that followers tended to attribute female leaders' anger more to their personality trait (i.e., out-of-control individuals), and in turn, confer lower status to a female leader than a male leader who expresses anger. Keck (2019) found that observers tended to attribute female leaders' empathic anger to their personality trait and hence evaluated the leader as more agentic and communal, and thus more effective than male leaders who express empathic anger.…”

“…The majority of studies used a variety of subjective indicators to evaluate leadership effectiveness as an outcome variable (Brescoll and Uhlmann, 2008, Study 2;Callister et al, 2017;Davis et al, 1992;Eberly and Fong, 2013, Study 2;Fischbach and Lichtenthaler, 2018;Glomb and Hulin, 1997;Johnson and Connelly, 2014;Keck, 2019;Lewis, 2000;Lindebaum and Fielden, 2010;Lindebaum et al, 2016;Madera and Smith, 2009;Mai-Dalton et al, 1979;Schaubroeck and Shao, 2012, Study 2;Schwarzmüller et al, 2017, Studies 2 and 3;Shao, 2019b, Study 2;Shao and Martin, 2019;Tiedens, 2001, Studies 1-2;Van Kleef et al, 2010, Preliminary Study;. These indicators include judgment of effectiveness, likelihood of promotion, conferred status, leader-member exchange (LMX) and perceived situation improvement.…”

Contextualizing the think crisis-think female stereotype in explaining the glass cliff: Gendered traits, gender, and type of crisis

“…However, future research should also focus on more androgynous profiles of leaders, that is, leaders having communal and agentic traits. The modern leadership literature suggests that the ideal manager is one who can pivot between both agentic and communal behavioral and trait dimensions, and that women may have a particular advantage when it comes to displaying androgynous trait combinations (e.g., [ 66 ]). However, this literature has investigated these associations without considering organizational features such as performance [ 67 ].…”

(Özellik) Empatik Öfke Ölçeği'nin Türkçe Geçerlik ve Güvenirlik Çalışması

“…Bu yanıyla her iki duygu kişisel öfkeden ayrılmaktadır (Kişisel öfkede bireyler kendilerine ya da kişisel çıkarlarına yönelik bir haksızlık algılandıklarında öfke duymaktadırlar.) (Batson ve ark., 2007), ancak empatik öfke ahlaki öfkeden farklı olarak ahlaki bir ihlalin ardından "diğerini anlamayı" ve "soruna odaklanarak" empatik tepki verebilmeyi de içermektedir (Keck, 2019).…”

“…Görülebileceği gibi empatik öfke, olumlu ya da ahlaki toplumsal davranışların sergilenmesinde önemli bir işleve sahiptir (Hoffman, 1989(Hoffman, , 1990. Bu bilgiyi kanıtlayan çalışmalar empatik öfkenin cezalandırıcı (ahlaki normları ihlal edenlerin cezalandırılmasını isteme) (Dimitrof ve ark., 2019; Landmann ve Hess, 2017) ve onarıcı (mağdurun mağduriyetinin giderilmesini isteme) adaletin yerine getirilmesinde (van Doorn, Zeelenberg, Breugelmans, Berger ve Okimoto, 2018) ve olumlu kişilerarası ilişkilerin düzenlenmesine (Keck, 2019) kaynaklık edebildiğine işaret etmektedir.…”