825: Gender and Leadership: Bringing Communal Gender Stereotypes Into Theoretical Focus (10688)

Organizer(s)

• AM

  Anyi Ma

  U. of Wisconsin-Madison, United States

Participant(s)

• MS

  Meir Shemla

  Erasmus U. Rotterdam, Netherlands

Presenter(s)

• JL

  Jun Lin

  Stanford Graduate School of Business

Participant(s)

• AM

  Ashley Martin

  Stanford Graduate School of Business, United States
• ZF

  Zhiyu Feng

  School of Business, Renmin U. of China, China

Organizer(s)

• YT

  Yixin Tian

  Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management U., Singapore

Presenter(s)

• KB

  Katherine Bae

  U. of Michigan, Ross School of Business, United States

Participant(s)

• DM

  David Mayer

  U. of Michigan, United States
• CT

  Charlotte Townsend

  Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, United States

Presenter(s)

• SM

  Sonya Mishra

  Dartmouth College, Tuck School of Business, United States

Participant(s)

• LK

  Laura Kray

  U. of California, Berkeley, United States

Presenter(s)

• JG

  Julia Grgic

  EBS Business School EBS U. für Wirtschaft und Recht, Germany

Participant(s)

• TH

  Tanja Hentschel

  Amsterdam Business School, U. of Amsterdam, Netherlands

Despite some advancements, women continue to be significantly underrepresented in leadership roles across various sectors worldwide, notably in the senior management levels of organizations. An impressive body of research has sought to understand the drivers of this gender disparity in leadership. According to gender and leadership scholars, one reason this inequality occurs is due to the stereotypical belief that women lack the masculine, agentic traits that are deemed as important for leaders to possess (Eagly & Karau, 2002; Schein, 1973; Heilman, Caleo, & Manzi, 2023). When women become leaders, they also risk experiencing social and economic reprisals when they enact the agentic behaviors that are often considered necessary in leadership because agentic qualities are also perceived as socially undesirable in women (Akinola, Martin, & Phillips, 2018; Mishra & Kray, 2022; Rudman et al., 2012; Prentice & Carranza, 2002). Perhaps due to a cultural emphasis on prototypes of leaders tend to be masculine and agentic in nature (Koenig, Eagly, Mitchell, & Ristikari, 2011; Vial & Napier, 2018), the literature has focused on how agentic perceptions contribute to gender disparities in leadership. A comparatively smaller body of work has examined how communal qualities that are more strongly ascribed to women, such as being “affectionate, helpful, kind, sympathetic, interpersonally sensitive, nurturant, and gentle,” influence the leadership aspirations, behaviors, and outcomes of men and women (Eagly & Karau, 2002: 574, although see Hentschel et al., 2018 for an exception). Nonetheless, communality plays an important role in many illustrious theories of gender and leadership. For example, role congruity theory posits that the under-emergence of women leaders occurs because people presume that communal women tend to lack agency and agentic women experience social and economic backlash because they are perceived to lack desirable communal traits that are prescribed for their gender role (Eagly & Karau, 2002). Therefore, the goal of this symposium is to deepen our understanding of how communal traits and stereotypes contribute to gender and leadership disparities. The first three papers focus on the experiences of men and women prior to the leadership selection process by examining how communality influences gender dynamics in career choice and leadership aspirations (Papers 1 to 3). The final two papers focus on the experiences of women and men after they have become leaders, examining the role of communality in understanding of differences in how male and female leaders communicate after they have become leaders as well as how perceivers react to communal male and female leaders (Papers 4 and 5).

Presentations:

• 13:15 – 14:45 CT (GMT-5/UTC-5)

  825: Leader Communality and Employee Leadership Aspiration: Gendered Cognition and Identity Perspectives (10688)
  

  Author: Katherine Kay Bae – U. of Michigan, Ross School of Business

  Author: David Mayer – U. of Michigan
• 13:15 – 14:45 CT (GMT-5/UTC-5)

  825: Not All Power is Created Equal: Gender and Pathways to Social Hierarchy (10688)
  

  Author: Charlotte Townsend – Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley

  Author: Sonya Mishra – Dartmouth College, Tuck School of Business

  Author: Laura Kray – U. of California, Berkeley
• 13:15 – 14:45 CT (GMT-5/UTC-5)

  825: Prescriptive Self-Stereotypes Explain Gender Differences in Career and Leadership Aspirations (10688)
  

  Author: Julia Grgic – EBS Business School EBS U. für Wirtschaft und Recht

  Author: Tanja Hentschel – Amsterdam Business School, U. of Amsterdam

  Author: Meir Shemla – Erasmus U. Rotterdam
• 13:15 – 14:45 CT (GMT-5/UTC-5)

  825: Break the Mold, Embrace the Dilemma: Women Adopt Communal Communication Styles after Success (10688)
  

  Author: Jun Lin – Stanford Graduate School of Business

  Author: Ashley E. Martin – Stanford Graduate School of Business
• 13:15 – 14:45 CT (GMT-5/UTC-5)

  825: The SPaCE Model of Communality for Gender and Leadership (10688)
  

  Author: Anyi Ma – U. of Wisconsin-Madison

  Author: Zhiyu Feng – School of Business, Renmin U. of China

  Author: Yixin Tian – Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management U.