Women, Leadership, and Empowerment

Abstract

This paper is a review of leadership research, focusing primarily on women as leaders. The more recent perspective of studying leaders by examining followers is included; but research is sparse as to how leaders are perceived as empowering by their subordinates. A study in progress, conducted by Denmark, Nielson, and Scholl, indicates that stereotypes were more typically held by women against female leaders. However, a leader's ability to be empowering varies with status. The higher the status, the more empowering that individual is perceived, whether female or male. Yet, more men than women held higher status positions. More women are needed in high‐level positions to better assess leadership and empowerment.

Does the Presence of Women in Management Impact Gender Inequality?

“…That is, if "title infl ation," (Jacobs 1992 ) or other processes that preserves (or even widens) the gender gap in workplace authority among managers are salient, then female managers may not have the organizational power to act upon, their managerial titles notwithstanding. If female managers tend to cluster in low-power managerial ghettos, they may be unable to bolster the careers of other women (Cohen and Huffman 2007 ;Denmark 1993 ). Also, as Charles and Grusky ( 2004 ) point out, the desegregation of management occurring after the 1970s was accompanied by increasing organizational bureaucratization.…”

Status and the Gender Stereotyped Personality Traits: Toward an Integration

“…Based on their observations of their behaviors over a wide range of situations in which men have higher status than women (Denmark 1993;Hollander 1985;Steil 1997), people make inferences about their own personality traits (Bem 1972). These inferences, along with other factors (Eckes and Trautner 2000), are reflected in the group averages for men's and women's self-reported traits in which men are more instrumental and women are more expressive (Bem 1974;Spence et al 1975).…”

How gender disparities drive imbalances in health care leadership

“…Leadership theory was first derived as the Great Man Theory, which says that the personal attributes of great men determined the course of history. 6 The Great Man Theory led to studies in the 1940s focusing on leadership trait theories that delineated the male characteristics needed for success. Researchers studied trait characteristic theories from a male perspective, because women occupied only about 4% of management roles at the time.…”