Gender differences in Business Leadership Style - Thesis Example

? Gender differences in leadership Introduction: With the changing global context, and with women increasingly coming out of the shadow of men, more and women are moving into supervisory positions and becoming leaders. In general, they tend to be different kinds of leaders and conform more to a collaborative leadership style as opposed to the top down, hierarchical, controlling style of leadership. The structure of the brain in men and women are different and these differences produce different leadership styles among the two sexes, both of which have implications for organizational activity. Brain differences between men and women: Much research exists on the differences between men and women; gender differences are evident from a very early age. Gelman et al have studied the differences between men and women and offer the view that while cultural differences may play a role, in general it is the differences in hormonal composition that makes them experience the world in different ways (Gelman et al, 1981:72). The lateralization of the brain is different between men and women, with women being able to transition more rapidly between the right and left side functions of the brain because the structure of the brain is such that men’s brains are more specialized and less well interconnected than women. Hence, women are able to use both sides of the brain more easily than men can. This has implications in terms of their communication styles of men and women. As Anne Campbell points out, because brain functions in women are spread over both the sides of the brain, “the female brain is better organized for communication between its two halves” (Campbell, 1989:90). The ease in shifting functions from one side of the brain to the other means that women are much more skilled in verbal functions as compared to men. Campbell articulates it by saying that if women are better communicators than men, it is based “at least partly on differences in the brains” and “these differences probably exist at birth.” (Campbell, 1989:90). The differences in the structures of the brains make women more sensitive to the general context and can pick up the subtle cues associated with a situation. This makes women more intuitive and skilled at picking up others’ feelings and they are also more verbally fluent than men are. This makes them better communicators, more sensitive to other peoples feelings, while their verbal fluency makes them better able to communicate speak well and influence others. Differences in leadership styles: Leadership has traditionally been associated with management, but this may not necessarily represent an accurate view because managers think incrementally while leaders think radically. Moreover, leadership involves a transformation in individuals, according to Spencer, ““transformational leadership is a process that changes and transforms individuals”. (Spencer 1). According to Warren Benis, leaders are “able to express themselves fully. They also know what they want', why they want it, and how to communicate what they want to others, in order to gain their co-operation and support. Lastly, ‘they know how to achieve their goals”. (Bennis 1998: 3). As detailed further below, the brain structure in women which provides them more communicative ability may be more conducive to transformational leadership. Three different leadership and decision making styles have been identified, namely (a) authoritarian (b) democratic and (c) bureaucratic, based upon decision making patterns of the leader(Burns, 1977). When the leadership style is authoritarian or autocratic, then the leader seeks to retain as much of the decision making power as possible, exercises authority and control and retains the responsibility for decisions (Burns, 1997). The advantages of this leadership style are faster decision making and a work group that functions in a structured manner. The disadvantages however, are that team members may not respond well to being ordered around or may become too dependent on the leader and helpless to function in an emergency. The democratic style of leadership promotes the sharing of responsibility for decision making and consultation among team members in arriving at those decisions (Wright, 1996:36-7). The most significant advantage of this leadership style is that team members are generally much happier and there is a reduced employee turnover because the working environment is perceived as being positive. This leadership style also fosters more creative thinking because all members of the team are involved in the decision making process (Burns, 1977). The disadvantage of this style of decision making is that consulting everyone can be a time consuming process and opportunities may be missed along the way. The bureaucratic style of leadership requires managers to be in control, but the roles of other team members are also more clearly defined and employees are expected to adhere to a definite set of rules. Managers have the authority and make decisions but employees are rewarded for their ability to follow the rules perfectly (Burns, 1977). The benefits of this style of decision making are tight management control over decision making and the running of the firm and quality work, because employees can be made to conform to the rules. The disadvantages of this kind of leadership style may be poor motivation in workers and managerial obsession with power. Other disadvantages are the hindering of creativity and poor communication between managers and team members. Tucker (1989), in an article on brain lateralization has stated that in women’s brains, the nerve centres between the left and right sides of the brain are about twice the size that they are in men; as a result information can be transmitted more rapidly between the left and the right sides of the brain. The significance of this aspect lies in the fact that while management might fall under the purview of the left side of the brain, which directs the more controlling, logical approach, good, visionary leadership requires a greater exercise of the right side of the brain that deals with the more intuitive functions. Women are more sensitive to context and intuitive as compared to men, due to their ability to transmit between the left and right sides of the brain and such visionary leadership capability is likely to make women the leaders of the future rather than men, whose logical controlling side may not be as effective. The lateralization of brain functions in women also makes them more effective when working with small groups and when working in situations where attention needs to be paid to individual cultural contexts. According to Dimmick and Walker (2000, p 144), making simplistic assumptions that due to globalisation, a uniform leadership structure can be imposed with a similar degree of effectiveness in every situation would be seriously wrong. Rather, effective leadership in practice means that a one size fits all policy rarely works out as such and leadership policies must be designed such that cultural and contextual appropriateness must be taken into consideration. Women may be especially good leaders, especially in situations such schools, for example, where each institution is unique and a leader would be required to assimilate the contextual elements inherent in the school or small organization with all of its complexities. Since women are so much better at reading the emotional undertones and contexts that are applicable in a situation, they are likely to be much effective at dealing with the complexities that leadership of such institutions would present, where a strictly logical leadership approach cannot be successfully applied. Leadership and decision making: Another aspect that may be quite important in the context of effective leadership is the manner in which moral judgments and decisions are made. Good leadership also involves the dispersing of justice and equality in the organization. When a leader is able to demonstrate these qualities, employees are likely to be more strongly motivated. The differences in moral judgments between men and women was first highlighted by Gilligan, opposing the position adopted by her teacher, Kohlberg, in a study they conducted together to evaluate the basis upon which participants made moral decisions (Gilligan, 1982). There was a distinct gender difference in the decisions taken by men and women and Kohlberg sought to explain those differences by ranking men and women on a moral scale and placing women at a lower level than the men, who were purportedly at a higher level of moral development. However, Gilligan challenged the basis upon which he was making his evaluations. She contended that the difference between men and women is inherent in the manner in which they are brought up rather than being attributable to their levels of moral development (Gilligan, 1982). Studies have shown that girls enjoy a close relationship with their mothers from an early age and develop feelings of emotional attachment, however in the case of boys, they must first achieve a gender identity that is separate and distinct from their mothers before they can develop as individuals in the emotional sense and in terms of their attachments (Chodorow, 1974, p 43-66). As a result, girls are generally more resilient in the case of any disruption in familial ties, similarly they are also more closely connected with others and in tend to be governed by their connectedness with others in the conduct of their affairs and in their decision making as well. As a result, the focus for boys is on autonomy, for girls it is connectedness and attachment. Therefore, when confronted with a moral decision, the male tendency veers towards autonomy and the perception of people as individual, separate beings. Therefore, on this basis, he will make his decisions irrespective of any ties with others, based on the contention of impartiality, separateness and autonomy. However, from a woman’s perspective if she is confronted with a moral decision that could cause harm and pain to a loved one, she would not necessarily allow the love done to be sacrificed in the interest of justice, rather her decision will also factor in the connectedness with others. Gilligan pointed out this discrepancy, stating that while men made moral decisions on the basis of the ethics of justice, women were inclined to make their decisions on the basis of the ethics of care (Gilligan, 1982). Applying this in the context of moral decision making, it could be noted that when confronted with a moral issue, men would approach it strictly from a right or wrong perspective. It would be a black or white issue, with no gray areas in between. In the context of an act that is being judged from a moral perspective, men would unilaterally slot it into one of the two categories – right or wrong – hence their approach would purely based upon the ethics of justice. Women on the other hand, being raised to be caring and nurturing, tend to look at moral issues more on the basis of whether or not someone they love is involved. On this basis, when they have to make a decision on a moral issue and someone they love is involved, they will not judge the question of right and wrong as strictly or as much of a black and white issue as the men do. Rather, there will be shades of gray to their moral decisions. For example, if someone they love is involved in a wrongful act, their judgments will be tempered with mercy, i.e, they will tend to examine the background factors and reasons for the wrongful actions before arriving at their decisions. Applying Gilligan’s theory, it may therefore be noted that since women tend to be more loving and nurturing, they are less likely to favour an autocratic, cruel or hard leadership approach in making decisions and more likely to be inclined towards a collaborative leadership style. Men would tend to adopt a black and white approach in making their decisions; women would favour peaceful solutions that take into account the rights of all parties, because of their higher levels of empathy and their reluctance to cause any harm to anyone. Positivist versus constructivist approach to leadership: The positivist paradigm of inquiry is referred to as a scientific method because it is based on rationalist principles, i.e, that the social world can be studied in the same manner as the natural world.(Mackenzie and Knipe, 2006). In the context of research, Goles and Hirschcheim (2000) have also pointed out that most research efforts, especially those in the field of Information Systems, appear to be guided by the philosophical assumptions of positivism. The positivist research approach focuses upon the testing of a theory or an experience through the tools of observation and measurement, on the basis of which predictions can be made about the object of the test. A positivist research approach requires that a theoretical framework be available and this conforms to the strictly logic based, hierarchical approach to leadership favoured by men. This approach was perhaps applicable and relevant in the era of modernism and post modernism, where female input and participation in leadership activity was minimal. As opposed to this, a contructivist paradigm suggests that “reality is socially constructed”. (Mertens, 2005:12). The approach utilized under this theory is the intent to understand that which constitutes human experience. As a result, it places greater emphasis on the views offered by participants and womanly intuition would be much more relevant and applicable in this area. In the context of information systems, it could be argued that the smooth operation of even logical IT systems would ultimately rely upon the directions from human elements that are subject to emotion and subjectivity. As a result, women who are more sensitive to the sub text and context of situations and imbued with womanly intuition are more likely to be effective in a modern day organizational environment. Conclusions: In a globalizing world, where organizational activity involves interactions with individuals and companies of various cultures and different contexts, a collaborative or transformative leadership style is likely to be much more effective. The traditional, top down hierarchical models of leadership are much less likely to be effective in the present day and age, where team work and the need for cooperation among diverse cultures, organizational and management styles call for a leadership style thta is much more suited to women, because their brain structures and function make them much more able to respond appropriately in such situations. References Bennis, W. (1998) “On Becoming a Leader”, London: Arrow. Burns, J. M. (1978). “Leadership”, New York: HarperCollins Campbell, Anne, 1980. “The Opposite Sex: The Complete Illustrated Guide to Gender Differences in Adults and Children”, Salem House, 90. Chodorow, N (1974). "Family structure and feminine personality," IN “Woman, Culture, and Society”, M. Z. Rosaldo and L. Lamphere (eds), New York International Publishers Gelman, David, John Corely, Eric Gelman, Phyllis Malamud, Danny Foote, and Joe Canteros, 1981. “Just How the Sexes Differ,” Newsweek, (May 18): 72. Gilligan, Carol (1982). “In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development“, Cambridge: Harvard University Press Goles, Tim and Hirschheim, Rudy, 2000. “The paradigm is dead, the paradigm is dead……long live the paradigm: the legacy of Burrell and Morgan”, Omega, 28(3): 249 MacKenzie, Noella and Knipe, Sally, 2006. “Research dilemmas: Paradigms, methods and methodology”, Issues in Educational research, Vol 16 Tucker, Don M, 1981. “Lateral brain function, emotion and conceptualization”, Psychological Bulletin, 89(1): 19-46 Stogdill, R. (1974) Handbook of Leadership (1st Ed.). New York: Free Press. Wright, P. (1996). “Managerial Leadership”, London: Routledge. Read More