TO WHAT EXTENT DOES TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP SUPPORT FEMININE NOTIONS OF

LEADERSHIP?

Submitted by: Shiva Kirti Garimella

to the University of Exeter

as a dissertation towards the degree of

Master of Science by advanced study in Human Resource Management

in October 2014

I certify that all the material in this dissertation which is not my own work has been identified and that

no material is included for which a degree has previously been conferred upon me.

…………………………..

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Abstract

This study was carried out with a focus on the concept of transformational leadership. The aim was to

see if women leaders generally lead in a transformational manner and if transformational leadership

is feminine in nature. Extant literature was collected, categorised according to a particular pattern and

analysed carefully for this purpose. A few examples of women leaders were also presented and their

leadership styles were compared and contrasted with the transformational style of leadership. The

literature review revealed that women leaders in general lead in a transformational manner, while the

study on specific women leaders found 3 out 4 women leaders to be transformational, supporting the

findings of the literature review. It was also concluded that the extent to which transformational

leadership is feminine, is difficult to judge due to a few imperfections in the methodology used by the

researchers in comparing the leadership styles of men and women with transformational leadership.

The findings of the study can be used to help drop the prejudices that people in general have held

against women, as regards their ability to lead.

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Acknowledgements

I would firstly like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Emma Jeanes for the advice and support that she

provided. I would especially like to thank my cousin Nida Faruqui, for pushing me to work faster on

the dissertation when I needed it the most. I would also like to use this opportunity to thank Dr.

Graham Perkins, Mr. Stephen Taylor, my friends at the University of Exeter, and most of all, my parents

and my brother for the encouragement they provided throughout the programme.

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Table of Contents

Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 5

Purpose ................................................................................................................................. 5

The specific research aims and objectives ...................................................................... 6

Description of Structure ...................................................................................................... 7

Research Methodology ........................................................................................................... 8

Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 8

Types of material used ........................................................................................................ 8

Data Collection Method and Source of Data..................................................................... 8

Type of data used................................................................................................................. 8

Categorisation of Articles ................................................................................................... 9

Analysis of articles ............................................................................................................ 10

Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 10

Limitations .............................................................................................................................. 11

Literature review .................................................................................................................... 12

Transformational Leadership ........................................................................................... 12

Measurement of Transformational Leadership........................................................... 13

The Effectiveness/Implications of Transformational Leadership............................. 14

The leadership style debate .............................................................................................. 15

Differences in leadership styles of men and women - literature comparing the

leadership styles of men and women .......................................................................... 15

Literature comparing men and women with the transformational style of

leadership ........................................................................................................................ 23

Critical viewpoints .......................................................................................................... 27

Summary Tables ............................................................................................................. 29

Examples of women leaders ................................................................................................ 30

Indra Nooyi.......................................................................................................................... 30

Mary Barra........................................................................................................................... 32

Anita Roddick ..................................................................................................................... 35

Sheryl Sandberg................................................................................................................. 37

Marissa Mayer..................................................................................................................... 39

Discussion and Conclusion.................................................................................................. 41

Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 45

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Introduction

Purpose

Transformational Leadership has captured the imagination of scholars over the past

few decades with most of the literature in leadership being dominated by this particular

style of leadership. This is perhaps because of the suitability of this style of leadership

to the present business context where change is endemic, and where an inspirational

and charismatic leader who can lead companies through such change is the need of

the hour (Bass & Reggio, 2006, pp. 3-16).

Transformational Leadership places an emphasis on intrinsic motivation. Edward Deci

and Richard Ryan define intrinsic motivation as “the doing of an activity for its inherent

satisfactions rather than for some separable consequence. When intrinsically

motivated a person is moved to act for the fun or challenge entailed rather than

because of external prods, pressures, or rewards” (Ryan & Deci, 2000).

Transformational leadership is about devoting time towards the personal development

of followers and about empowering and nurturing them. It provides followers with

creative freedom. The leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of

morality and their purposes are fused. The goals of the followers, the leader, the group

and the organisation as a whole are aligned. This style of leadership seeks to

transform organisations by encouraging, stimulating and motivating the followers to

accomplish more than what is expected of them, looking beyond their self-interest to

work for the company, developing their leadership skills in the process. This leadership

style is contrasted with and is seen as an improvement on the transactional style of

leadership. Transactional leadership is a leadership of exchange as the word

‘transactional’ suggests, with the leader rewarding followers, usually financially, for

successfully completing work that was agreed upon beforehand. The leader also takes

corrective action upon noticing deviations. Transactional leadership can be

categorised into three sub-groups. There is contingent reward leadership, where the

leader agrees with the followers about the work that needs to be completed, with

rewards being contingent upon the completion of the work. There is active-

management by exception, where the leader monitors actively, the performance of the

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followers, correcting mistakes on the way. Then there is passive-management by

exception, where the leader waits for mistakes to happen and then takes corrective

action in the form of negative feedback or reprimands. (Northouse, 2013, pp. 185-217;

Bass & Reggio, 2006; Humphreys & Walter, 2003; Bass B. , 1991).

There is a general perception, and a lot of research has been carried out in this area

by academics, that transformational leadership is feminine in nature, or that women

are more transformational in their leadership style compared to male leaders (Kark,

2003). While female leaders are seen as or have been found to be, more

transformational in the way they lead, male leaders are seen to follow a style leaning

towards the transactional style of leadership. Academics, based on their research,

have taken different positions on this debate. Some see no differences in the way

women and men lead, and hence on that basis say that women and men are equally

transformational or say that they lead in a similar fashion with there being more

similarities than differences in the way they lead (Wajcman, 1996). They don’t see how

transformational leadership is a gendered concept (Vecchio, 2003). Others see clear

differences in the way women and men lead. The differences they found through their

own research, led them to believe that women are more transformational in the way

they lead compared to men (Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). The purpose of this

essay is to investigate this debate without any pre-conceived notions and from a

neutral point of view, even though the ‘general perception’ has been stated.

This is an important debate to explore because even though for women nowadays

there is increased access to managerial positions, they fail to progress beyond a point

and this is attributed to the inadequacy of their leadership style and leadership skills

(Carless, 1998; Eagly & Carli, 2008). If women are more transformational or even as

transformational as male leaders, and transformational leadership is an effective form

of leadership, there should be no barriers, at least those that are associated with their

leadership styles, for their advancement to top leadership positions.

The specific research aims and objectives

To examine the concept of Transformational Leadership.

To study how women lead, by analysing existing literature with the concept of

transformational leadership in mind.

To look at examples of women leaders with an aim to study their leadership

styles and to see where they lie with respect to Transformational Leadership.

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Description of Structure

The dissertation is divided into six sections, namely,

Introduction- The first section is an introductory section and it briefly introduces the

topic, talks about the purpose of the study, and lists the aims and objectives.

Research Methodology- This section gives information about the kind of material that

was used in the study and explains how the material was collected, categorised and

then analysed.

Limitations- This section attempts to point out the shortcomings of the study conducted

which may have had an effect on the credibility of the findings.

Literature Review- The third section is the main section of the dissertation titled

‘literature review’ and involves a review of extant literature on the topic. It first covers

the concept of transformational leadership in general. Then there is a critical review of

articles which study and compare the leadership styles of male and female leaders

with a particular focus on women leaders. This is then followed by a review of articles

that study the leadership styles of male and female leaders in comparison to the

transformational and transactional styles of leadership. The articles in both these

sections are organised on the basis of the methodology used in the studies. Each of

these sections, importantly, has an analysis part that attempts to bring the findings of

the studies together, with the research aims in mind. Finally in the literature review,

there is a section titled ‘critical viewpoints’, which presents an analysis of articles that

critique the view that women and men lead differently and that women are more

transformational in the way they lead compared to men.

Examples of Women Leaders- This section presents a detailed analysis of the

leadership styles of five randomly selected women business leaders. The leadership

styles are studied in order to see where they stand with respect to the transformational

style of leadership. For each business leader, there is first a description of all the

leadership traits. These traits are then brought together to compare them with the

transformational style of leadership.

Discussion and Conclusion- The findings of the study are brought together in this final

section, discussed, analysed and the research questions are answered to the extent

possible.

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Research Methodology

Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to explain the methodology followed to collect, analyse and

interpret the data. The research is a review of extant literature on transformational

leadership and the leadership styles of women and men. The focus was on studying

the leadership styles of women in an effort to compare it with the transformational style

of leadership. The review of the literature was critical, with an aim to analyse the

arguments that the entire debate involves.

Types of material used

Since this is a dissertation that is based purely on literature, the focus was on collecting

as many articles as possible. The method of collection is explained in the section below.

A few text books were also used to study and explain briefly the concept of

Transformational Leadership in general. Otherwise, for the other sections of the

dissertation, articles were used.

Data Collection Method and Source of Data

The articles were collected using Google scholar. The key search words were

‘Transformational Leadership’, ‘women leaders or women leadership’, ‘the leadership

styles of men and women’ and ‘women leaders or women leadership and

transformational leadership’. The decision whether to save a particular article or

discard it was made after reading the abstract and conclusion of the articles. Except

for one or two instances, articles before the 90s were left out of the study.

Type of data used

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Data can be categorised into two types, namely, primary data and secondary data.

Primary data is raw data that can be collected through questionnaires, interviews,

focus groups and even through observations (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2007).

This is data collected by the researcher, first hand, for the specific purpose of the

research. Then there is secondary data. Secondary data is the collection of data that

is already in existence and is accessible. This dissertation was based on the collection

of secondary data. Secondary data can be both qualitative and quantitative. The data

in this case was qualitative. Secondary data can be categorised into three main sub-

groups, namely, documentary secondary data, survey-based secondary data and

multiple-source secondary data (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2007). The focus in the

case was purely on documentary secondary data, though some of these may be

reporting survey based data. The documentary secondary data included scholarly

articles majorly, journal articles on the internet, and also a few text books.

Categorisation of Articles

Articles that described or discussed the transformational style of leadership were

placed in a folder titled ‘Transformational leadership’. Articles that compared male and

female leadership through various research methods finding differences in leadership

styles in the process, were placed in a folder titled ‘Female leadership’ as the focus in

these articles was on female leadership. Articles that compared male and female

leaders and their leadership styles, finding no differences in the way they lead in

general, some of which directly criticise the researches who found differences in

leadership styles based on their research methods, were placed in a folder titled

‘Critical Viewpoints’, because this was seemingly the minority view. Articles that

studied female leadership styles in an apparent effort to compare them with the

transformational style of leadership, using various research methods were placed in a

folder titled ‘Women and Transformational Leadership’. And finally, articles that

researched women leadership, with the focus being on the problems faced by women

leaders in workplaces, those that explore the implications of women being more

transformational and their effectiveness in workplaces etc. were placed in a folder titled

‘Miscellaneous’. These were basically articles that were vaguely connected, in

different ways, to the topic of the dissertation and some of these were not used

ultimately. Each section had about 10 articles, with the ‘Female Leadership’ section,

where articles that compared male and female leadership styles were placed, having

the most number of articles. Nearly all articles that were directly connected to the topic

were collected and included in the study. ‘Nearly’, because some of the articles that

were relevant could not be accessed. Going by the summaries of those articles, none

of those would have impacted the study to a significant enough extent. A few articles

that were merely vaguely related to the topic and a couple of others that were set in

non-traditional settings like schools and specific countries were left out.

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Analysis of articles The process of analysing the articles was led by the way the articles were categorised.

Importance was given to the abstract, introduction, methodology, findings and

conclusion of each article. In the process of analysing the articles, particular

importance was given to the overall methodology used, that is, the non-statistical part

of the methodology. The results of the studies were given weightage on the basis of

the methodology used. For instance, in cases where meta-analyses were carried out

or where there was a detailed analysis of all extant literature, the findings were given

greater weightage. In cases where questionnaires were used, importance was given

based on the sample size and on the diversity of the sample. For instance, when the

findings were brought together at the ending for them to be analysed, less importance

was given when the sample size was small. Even the design of the questionnaire was

scrutinised. In cases where the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire, the instrument

that is used to measure transformational and transactional leadership behaviours

(Hartog, Muijen, & Koopman, 1997), was used, the findings were given greater

credibility, because the questionnaire is the one that is most commonly used to

measure these behaviours, which is an indication of the amount of trust researches

have in the questionnaire. Except for the articles that seek to describe transformational

leadership, the articles were critically analysed, with drawbacks being pointed out

where found. In the case of the concept of transformational leadership the focus was

more on introducing and describing the concept, hence a critical view was not taken.

This is because, the focus of the dissertation was on trying to find out whether women

in general lead in a transformational manner. A critical view of the concept of

transformational leadership would take the dissertation on a different trajectory. In the

case of examples of women leaders, the information was taken from articles on the

internet and not from scholarly articles. The leadership style of five randomly selected

women leaders was described. The leadership traits were then analysed keeping the

concept of transformational leadership in mind.

Conclusion

The overall aim was to see if transformational leadership is feminine in nature. Or if

female leaders are more transformational in the way they lead in comparison to their

male counterparts. To set this debate in context, the differences in the leadership

styles of men and women leaders was investigated. From there, the main themes or

the most common behaviours were extracted and compared and contrasted with the

transformational style of leadership.

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Limitations

Every dissertation or detailed study can be expected to have limitations. The important

thing for a student or a researcher is to be able to identify those limitations and then

actually acknowledge them. This is a demonstration of knowledge, especially for a

student and shows that he or she has not overlooked those limitations and is aware of

them.

The limitations of this specific study are to do with the literature review. Firstly, this is

a dissertation that is purely based on extant literature. For such a dissertation it is good

to study and analyse as many articles as possible. More articles could have been

analysed here, especially articles that compare male and female leadership styles and

those that compare these leadership styles with the concept of transformational

leadership in mind. This was the case though because the focus was on collecting

articles that directly addressed these issues. Articles that were vaguely related to the

topic or those that were set in specific countries or non-traditional settings were left

out of the study, except in one particular case. Secondly, the study could have also

included a chapter that sets the whole leadership style debate in context, which would

have made the study more interesting to read. For instance, more could have been

said about the effectiveness and implications of transformational leadership to

increase the importance of the comparison to transformational leadership. Thirdly, as

is noticeable, each article is described and there is an analysis towards the end. The

usual way to write a literature review is to present an argument right from the start,

using the literature as evidence to support the argument. Here, there is a greater

dependence on the articles with the articles being described first. This is a limitation

from a strictly conservative and traditional point of view. The author sees the approach

that was used as a new take, where each article is analysed separately, where the

common themes are brought together and analysed at the end of each section. Fourth,

the articles that were described and analysed are not very recent, except for a couple

of meta-analyses. This was because of a lack of recent studies that directly address

this particular topic. But in defence of this flaw, these are gender related characteristics

that were studied here and you wouldn’t expect them to change dramatically in just a

decade. For the first three limitations, ‘time’ was the major constraint.

There were also limitations with the articles that were analysed. One specific limitation

stood out. This was in the case of articles that made a comparison of the leadership

behaviours of men and women. When one compares leadership behaviours, there

should be an equal focus on both men and women. For instance, if 10 women are put

through a detailed interview, the same should be done in the case of men with the

sample size being the same. Then, when it comes to the description and discussion

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of the findings, both men and women should be given equal space in the article. That

is how one compares leadership styles. In the articles here though, the focus was

more on women leaders. Even where the leadership behaviours of men were studied,

they were given less space in the article with more being written about the way women

lead.

Literature review

Transformational Leadership

The term transformational leadership was coined by Downton in 1973, when he

included a chapter titled ‘Transformational Leadership’, in his book, ‘Rebel Leadership’.

In 1978, political sociologist James Macgregor Burns expanded on it. This was when

the topic gained the attention that it deserved. Burns distinguished Transformational

leadership from Transactional leadership and saw these two styles of leadership as

being at opposite ends of a continuum. Transactional leadership is a process of

exchange that takes place between leaders and followers, where the leader

contractually promises rewards for good performance. The leader discusses with his

followers the requirements and conditions for the performance beforehand. The

followers are rewarded financially if the conditions and requirements are met and

corrective action is taken if there are notable deviations. Transformational leadership

on the other hand seems like a more sensible and evolved version of leadership.

Bernard Bass, another celebrated author in the field of leadership expanded further

on the work of Burns. He differs on Burns’ thinking though, and believes that

transactional and transformational leadership are at opposite ends of the leadership

spectrum. Bass suggests that transformational leadership complements transactional

leadership behaviour (Humphreys & Walter, 2003).

Bass proposed four factors that described transformational leadership behaviour more

precisely. Also called the 4Is of transformational leadership, these are: - Idealized

Influence, Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation and Individual

Consideration (Humphreys & Walter, 2003; Avolio, Waldman, & Yammarino, 1991).

Idealized Influence- Transformational leaders are charismatic and have a great

amount of influence over their followers. They gain the respect and trust of their

followers by acting morally and by providing vision and a sense of mission. They are

high on ethics and morals, lead from the front, and achieve the desired results.

Transformational leaders serve as role models to their followers and are often

emulated by them. Bruce Avolio et al., in their article, ‘The 4 I’s of Transformational

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leadership describe this very well - “The leader who convinces his or her followers that

by achieving their full potential, all concerned will benefit, is the type of leader we have

described as transformational” (Avolio, Waldman, & Yammarino, Pg15, 1991; Bass B. ,

1991 Humphreys & Walter, 2003; Bass & Reggio, 2006; Northouse, 2013; Bass B. M.,

1995).

Inspirational Motivation- Transformational leaders ensure that there is a high level of

enthusiasm and optimism at the workplace. They communicate high expectations and

express the purposes of the company in simple ways. They use symbols and pep talks

to help focus the efforts of the employees. The employees are provided with

meaningful and challenging work to inspire and motivate them. Transformational

leaders, in this way, motivate their followers to accomplish more than what is expected

of them (Avolio, Waldman, & Yammarino, 1991; Bass B. , 1991; Bass & Reggio, 2006;

Humphreys & Walter, 2003).

Intellectual Stimulation- Transformational leaders stimulate the thinking of their

followers by encouraging them to think logically and work out sensible solutions to

everyday problems. The followers are given the creative freedom to challenge existing

values and beliefs of the leader and the organisation. There is the promotion of

intelligence, rationality and careful problem solving. The followers are encouraged to

provide their inputs in every situation and these are taken account of. In this way there

is two-way intellectual stimulation. This approach is especially advantageous and

helpful if the leader doesn’t have too much experience or information in a particular

area. This can also have an incredibly motivating effect on the employees and can

create a general atmosphere of positivity (Avolio, Waldman, & Yammarino, 1991; Bass

B. , 1991).

Individual Consideration- Transformational leaders realise that each follower has

different needs. They recognise individual differences and personalise their

interactions with them accordingly. They treat each employee individually and giving

them personal attention when required. Tasks are delegated to individuals in an effort

to develop their potential. They are also supported in completing these tasks if they

run into problems. Transformational leaders take on a mentoring role ensuring all

round development of their followers (Avolio, Waldman, & Yammarino, 1991; Bass B. ,

1991; Northouse, 2013).

Measurement of Transformational Leadership

Transformational Leadership is measured using the Multifactor Leadership

Questionnaire. This questionnaire was developed by Bernard Bass, and measures the

four factors of Transformational Leadership in leaders. This questionnaire also

measures transactional leadership and hence has been used by researchers to

measure or investigate the leadership styles of leaders, both male and female, as an

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instrument of comparison of leadership styles. It is considered the best instrument for

the measurement of Transformational and Transactional leadership (Ozaralli, 2003).

The questionnaire can be filled up by the leaders’ subordinates, peers, superiors, or

even the leaders themselves. It has been modified several times and has been used

by researchers widely (Hartog, Muijen, & Koopman, 1997).

The Effectiveness/Implications of Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership can influence individuals enough for them to produce and

demonstrate effort, commitment and performance beyond what can normally be

expected of them. Individuals may take on additional tasks that don’t necessarily fall

within their job description. Innovation and creativity can be expected to become the

norm in the organisation, as a result of creative freedom being awarded to them. This

leads to followers becoming self-motivated or intrinsically motivated and their

dependence on external sources of motivation becomes less. Followers become

interested in self-development and show greater commitment to their job, their co-

workers and the organisation as a whole. This, for leaders means that they need not

spend as much time leading followers. The leader therefore, by practicing

transformational leadership, creates followers who are fully capable of handling

challenges at work on their own. Ultimately this leads to the followers becoming

transformational themselves. The process is best described as leaders creating and

developing leaders (Avolio, Waldman, & Yammarino, 1991).

Transformational leadership has also been found to be positively related to individual

follower performance across all kinds of job performance criteria. It has also been

found to be positively related to task performance, creative performance and job

performance in general. The relationship holds true for individual, team and

organisational performance, regardless of the level of leadership, type of organisation

and geographic location (Wang, Oh, Courtright, & Colbert, 2011). An organisation with

transformational leaders could also be more attractive to prospective employees and

have positive implications for the corporate image of the organisation as a whole

according to Bernard Bass (Bass B. , 1991).

Transformational leadership has also been found to be positively related to the

performance appraisal ratings given by superiors, a key factor in career advancement

(Carless, 1998). Researchers Jung, Chow and Wu also found a positive relationship

between transformational leadership and organisational innovation and empowerment

(Jung, Chow, & Wu, 2003). Transformational leadership has also been found to have

a positive effect of creativity in an organisation, as found in a study conducted in 43

micro and small Turkish firms involving 163 research and development personnel and

managers.

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The leadership style debate

To set the whole debate of whether women exhibit more of a transformational style of

leadership than men or whether transformational leadership is feminine in nature, in

context, it is important to see if there are differences in the way men and women lead

in general. From there, specific leadership behaviours that stand out in the case of

both male and female leaders will be extracted. The focus will be on women leaders

throughout.

There has been a lot of debate around this topic, with both sets of researchers, those

who believe women lead differently and are more transformational than men and those

who believe that there aren’t any differences in leadership style, defending their

positions vehemently with research evidence to support their claims. There is literature

where the focus is on merely comparing men and women in the way they lead, without

a focus on transformational leadership. Then there are articles that compare the way

women lead to the transformational style of leadership explicitly. This literature review

is therefore divided into three parts or sections. The first section is an analysis of

literature that compares the leadership styles of men and women. The second section

is an analysis of literature that compares the leadership styles of men and women with

the transformational style of leadership. The third section presents an analysis of the

critical viewpoints.

- Differences in leadership styles of men and women – literature comparing the

leadership styles of men and women

- Literature comparing the leadership styles of men and women, with the

transformational style of leadership

- Critical viewpoints

Differences in leadership styles of men and women - literature comparing the

leadership styles of men and women

Based on interviews/self-assessments

One of the first authors to talk about leadership styles and to compare the leadership

styles of men and women, with a focus on women, was Judy Rosener. This article

arguably started this entire debate about leadership styles and their comparison with

transformational leadership. Rosener carried out a survey that was sponsored by the

International Women’s Forum, in an effort to investigate the differences in the way

men and women lead, if there were any (Rosener, 1990). There was a comparison of

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leadership performance, style and the kind of influence leaders have on the people

around them at work. Rosener had discussions with a few women leaders, asking

them about their style of leadership. The leaders spoke about how they encouraged

the participation of the employees in managerial decision making. They spoke of two-

way communication being the norm at their workplace with there being free flow of

information between the leader and her subordinates. The leaders talked about the

importance of idea exchange, with one leader talking about how she seeks the ideas

of her employees when she faces challenging situations. There was talk about the

importance of appreciating employees when they perform well and about recognising

work well done with a conscious aversion of behaviour that makes the power distance

between them and their employees apparent. The leaders spoke of how they made

an effort to make sure there was a good level of enthusiasm at the workplace. They

believed that what the employees want is credibility and an opportunity to truly

contribute to the organisation and grow. Notably, the women leaders said this

leadership style came naturally to them, which could be taken as an indication that it’s

a feminine trait. Based on these responses, Rosener described the style of leadership

followed by women as ‘Interactive leadership” (Rosener, 1990). To extract behaviours

that are similar to the factors of transformational leadership from this, there is the

practice of inspirational motivation and individual consideration here. Rosener also

speaks of how men described leadership as an exchange process, equating it with

transactional leadership, but there is no expansion of what they said precisely, while

there was an expansion of what women said. That this study was sponsored by the

International Women’s Forum, unfortunately makes this study a little less believable.

If the study had shown men to be better leaders, it would have been embarrassing for

the author. Also, to talk of methodology, discussions with the leaders themselves

about their leadership styles, reduces the credibility of the findings to a certain extent.

It is surprising therefore that this study is cited so often when the methodology used

to carry out this study is unconvincing.

Kevin Groves carried out a study to investigate the gender differences in social and

emotional skills. In this study 108 leaders, both male and female from various

organisations were rated on their social and emotional skills (Groves, 2005). Women

had a higher rating than men on both these skills. Such skills are closely associated

with charismatic leadership it was found, which is an important component of

transformational leadership. The study was carried out using a self-assessment

instrument, but to limit inflated assessments certain steps were taken.

An interview based study was conducted by Stanford, Oates, and Flores to investigate

the leadership styles of women leaders (Stanford, Oates, & Flores, 1995). 12 women

managers and business owners were interviewed with the help of a detailed

questionnaire. The questionnaire was framed to elicit qualitative and narrative

responses. The primary theme of the findings was employee participation in decision

making for team-based management. The study revealed women leaders as team

building leaders, who seldom gave orders or used coercive power. The leaders spoke

17

about how they effectively communicate with their employees, involving them in open

discussions where the situation demanded (Stanford, Oates, & Flores, 1995). This can

act as a catalyst to motivate employees to work towards achieving the missions of the

corporation. It was clear that the managers were keen on fostering mutual trust and

respect with the employees. The authors do point out that the sample size was small,

marking that as a drawback. If a few employees were asked the same questions about

their manager the study would have been more convincing.

To bring these studies and the findings of the studies together, it is important to extract

the common themes. These studies found that women believe in employee

participation in decision making. The focus seems to be on interaction and team

building. Women leaders encourage their employees to participate in the decision

making process, involving them in discussions where necessary. They also were

found to avoid behaviours that can make the power distance between them obvious.

These studies put together show that women believe in leading in a democratic

manner. The main drawback here is that these findings are based on interviews, with

leaders talking about themselves, and this decreases the weightage of the findings to

a certain extent. The other drawback is that the sample sizes are small. These results

therefore cannot be given much importance but at the same time cannot be struck off

altogether.

Based on literature reviews

In 2008, McKinsey and company conducted a study on the leadership behaviours of

men and women, with a particular focus on women. They first came up with a range

of leadership behaviours that can have a positive effect on organisational performance.

The subjects were then tested in the extent to which they display these behaviours.

Women were found to be more focused on people management than men. They were

found to demonstrate role model behaviour and inspirational behaviour more often.

Decision making was more participative in the case of women leaders. Men, on the

other hand were found to display ‘control and corrective action’ and ‘individualistic

decision making’ more frequently (McKinsey, 2008). While a focus on people

management, employee participation in decisions, role model behaviour and

inspirational behaviour are all closely associated with transformational leadership,

‘control and corrective action’ and ‘individual decision making’ displayed by men, are

not. This study was done by putting together various studies carried out by other

people. One can’t therefore find any issue with the methodology. Having said that, this

was a study, the results of which were discussed by women’s affairs ministers at the

commonwealth secretariat. So the study in a way had to sound positive for women

and women leaders. The possibility of bias, in the way the studies were analysed and

how they decided on including or excluding studies therefore cannot be ruled out.

18

In their article ‘The Leadership Styles of Men and Women’, Eagly and Johannesen-

Schmidt talk about agentic and communal attributes ascribing them to men and

women respectively (Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). Agentic attributes, in

employment settings, can make one speak assertively, compete for attention,

influence others, initiate activity in order to assign tasks to employees, and also give

suggestions in order to solve issues at work. Communal attributes on the other hand,

according to Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt, are ascribed more strongly to women.

People with communal attributes at workplaces tend to speak tentatively, stay away

from the spotlight, take the suggestions of others openly, support others when needed

and focus more on solving interpersonal and relational problems (Eagly &

Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). The authors claim that although the leadership role

occupied by the person has an influence on behaviour, the natural tendencies

occurring due to the sex of the individual still come through, thus resulting in a slight

difference in their style of functioning. There is the simultaneous influence of the

gender role and the leadership role, with the gender characteristics coming through to

a certain extent (Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). The article also brings together

research carried out by other authors, in the process finding specific differences in the

leadership styles of men and women. Women were found to be generally more

interpersonally oriented, while men had more of a task focus. Along the same lines,

women also seemed to exhibit a more democratic style of functioning while men

seemed to follow a more autocratic style. That these findings were based on laboratory

experiments, and assessments carried out on employees who were not in actual

leadership positions is the drawback here.

Appelbaum, Audet and Miller explored this whole area of women leadership, by

studying various schools of thought on this subject. They identified, by bringing

together various studies, differences in the way women and men approach leadership

(Appelbaum, Audet, & Miller, 2003). They found that men are more concerned with

structure, follow a transactional style of leadership, lead in an autocratic manner, give

instructions and are business-oriented. On the other hand women were seen to be

more considerate, participative, socio-expressive and people-oriented, following a

more transformational style of leadership. They also explain how attributes or

characteristics such as ‘good communication skills’, advanced intermediary skills for

negotiation and conflict resolution, interpersonal skills, and a soft approach to handling

people are essentially feminine. Women supposedly demonstrate more concern for

people and their needs and provide employees with a greater amount of support. All

in all this study of literature and extant theories found clear differences in the way men

and women lead, with women demonstrating a more democratic style of leadership

(Appelbaum, Audet, & Miller, 2003). Importantly, this article, while coming up with

these findings doesn’t claim that this seemingly transformational style of leadership is

the ‘exclusive domain of women’ and acknowledges that this style can also be

practiced by men.

19

Gary Powell authored an article titled ‘The gender and leadership wars’, in which he

reviewed extant literature, streams of thought and perspectives about this entire

debate on men and women and their leadership styles (Powell, 2011). He then came

to the conclusion that there are differences in the way women and men lead with

women leading in a more transformational way in comparison to men. Importantly, he

also points out that although this is the case, the organizational setting, the specific

role to be played, and the managerial level do seem to have moderating effects.

Cheryl de la rey wrote an article delving into the views people have on gender and

leadership. Some people argue that there aren’t any noteworthy differences in the

leadership styles of men and women. But the majority view, Cheryl finds, is the view

that there are differences in the way men and women approach leadership (De la rey,

2005). Most researchers have found, through research, that there are differences and

this argument is convincing because there is clear overlapping of feminine attributes

and traits when in leadership positions. Women are seen as being more sensitive to

the needs and aspirations of their subordinates. They are more democratic and

participatory in the way they lead. They are also, according to this perspective, better

at handling conflicts and have better interpersonal skills. They believe in sharing power

and information and lead from behind while encouraging the participation of

employees in decisions (De la rey, 2005).

Clear themes emerge when the findings from each of these studies are put together.

Women clearly seem to be more people oriented in the way they lead when compared

to men. They were found to be more inclined towards encouraging the employees to

participate in the decision making process. They were also found to be better at

communicating with their employees and sensitive to their needs and aspirations. Men

on the other hand were found to be more focused on the task at hand, taking decisions

individually. These are all extensive reviews of extant literature and hence one cannot

find fault with the methodology. These studies can therefore be given more importance

compared to individual studies.

Meta-analyses of studies

Eagly and Johnson conducted a meta-analysis of studies comparing the leadership

styles of men and women. The analysis of literature revealed certain differences in the

way men and women lead. Women seemingly lead in a more democratic manner while

men do so in a comparatively autocratic manner it was found (Eagly & Johnson, 1990).

These findings do carry weightage as the studies were carried out in actual

organisational settings. The meta-analysis also had other findings which were mixed.

While women were found to follow a more interpersonally oriented style of leadership

in laboratory settings and other assessment studies where the subjects were not

actually in leadership positions, in actual organisational settings this wasn’t the case.

In the case of studies carried out in organisational settings with women and men in

20

leadership positions, no differences were found. Women and men here, did not differ

in interpersonally oriented and task oriented styles (Eagly & Johnson, 1990).

Eagly conducted yet another meta-analysis in 1991, this time with Karau (Eagly &

Karau, 1991). The meta-analysis included 54 studies. The focus was to review

research on leader emergence in groups that were initially without a leader. Here again,

while men turned out to more task-oriented, women were found to be more socially

interactive. These studies though were not carried out in organisational settings and

were done so in laboratory settings affecting the weight of the findings to a certain

extent. This is because the pressures associated with organisational settings are

absent here. The findings though cannot be ignored because both men and women

were a part of the study.

Alice Eagly and her colleagues, very recently, carried out a meta-analysis of studies

that assessed and compared the leadership styles of men and women (Eagly A. H.,

2013) and the findings were similar. While there was no specific mention of whether

these were studies carried out in laboratories or organisational settings, one can make

out from the commentary on the findings that these were studies based in actual

organisational settings. They found female leaders to be more democratic and

participative than male leaders. Women were found to be more interpersonally or

communally oriented, while occupying less male-dominated roles. Women were also

found to be better than men at playing the role of a mentor at workplaces. According

to this study, women are in general more concerned about the welfare of people

around them. Corporate boards with a good proportion of women were found to be

more likely to be involved in philanthropic and charitable work. Corporations led by

women or with a high percentage of women in management, were less likely to lay-off

employees during periods of financial stresses. Women leaders in general were also

found to be more concerned about corporate social responsibility, while also being

high on ethics and morals. All this translates to individual concern for employees in

general and role model behaviour, both critical components of transformational

leadership. Men on the other hand were found more likely to adopt a ‘command and

control’ style of leadership (Eagly A. H., 2013).

These meta-analyses also had findings that are similar to the studies analysed so far,

with similar themes emerging. Women leaders were yet again found to be more

democratic, interpersonally oriented, interactive, participative, and generally more

concerned about the wellbeing of their employees. In a more recent study they were

also found to be more inclined towards corporate social responsibility. The main theme

that emerged in the case of men is that they generally lead in a more autocratic manner.

While two of these meta-analyses were carried out in the 90s, one was carried out

very recently, and the findings were still similar. The problem with these studies though

is that the findings are similar if only laboratory based studies are taken into

consideration. In the case of interpersonal orientation, Eagly and Johnson did not find

any differences in actual organisational settings (Eagly & Johnson, 1990). The study

that was carried out with Karau was also based in laboratory settings (Eagly & Karau,

21

1991). Even the study that was more recent included findings from Eagly and

Johnson’s study (Eagly A. H., 2013). Women leaders though were found to lead in a

democratic manner even in organisational studies, so this finding can be given

importance.

In a political setting

While the focus has mainly been on leaders in the business arena, the leadership

styles of global women political leaders were also studied by Nancy Adler, although

this was in the 1990s. Adler’s study was on the leadership styles of some of the leaders

in the political arena in those times, an apparent attempt to try and see if the findings

of Eagly and Johnson holds true for these leaders as well. Eagly and Johnson, found

through their study that women managers are in general more democratic in the way

they lead and manage (Eagly & Johnson, 1990). Adler found that women leaders in

the political arena also lead similarly, taking conscious steps to reduce hierarchy, to

include people in the decision making process and to create unity (Adler, 1996). Just

a few political leaders were covered in this study, especially while extracting these

specific attributes, while the leadership styles of leaders like Margaret Thatcher and

Indira Gandhi were not spoken about specifically, which is curious and reduces the

credibility of the study to a great extent. It would be easy for any other researcher to

study a few male political leaders selectively, keeping the transformational style of

leadership in mind.

Analysis

To sum things up for this section, clear differences have been found in the way men

and women lead. While women have been found to be more democratic and

interpersonally oriented in the way they lead, men have been found to be more

autocratic (Appelbaum, Audet, & Miller, 2003; De la rey, 2005; Eagly & Johnson, 1990).

While this is clear, the link between leading in a democratic and interpersonally

oriented manner and ‘transformational leadership’ is not very clear. To compare this

way of leading with the transformational style of leadership, keeping the four factors

of transformational leadership in mind, is what is needed here perhaps. What does

leading in a democratic and people oriented manner mean? What are the benefits of

being able to communicate well with the employees?

Democratic Leadership- It means that the employees’ opinions are solicited when

decisions are made. This is connected to the intellectual stimulation factor of

transformational leadership. When employees are given an opportunity to give their

feedback on things and present their opinions, and when they can see that their

22

opinions are being taken on board, it can be intellectually stimulating. This can also,

in some cases, be motivating for the employees because they are actually being given

an opportunity to make a direct contribution to the organisation. This is one of the ways

in which an employee can be motivated. In the case of democratic leadership, the

power distance between the employees and the leader is also less comparatively with

the leader being more accessible, and this can also be motivating for the employees

because they feel more connected to the organisation. So democratic leadership is

also linked to the inspirational motivation factor of transformational leadership.

Although when you look at the description of inspirational motivation, there is more

about motivating by articulating a vision for the company and by giving pep talks using

symbols etc. (Avolio, Waldman, & Yammarino, 1991), this is one way to motivate

employees. So although there is a link, just democratic leadership is not enough to

motivate employees.

Democratic leadership therefore is strongly linked to the intellectual stimulation factor

of transformational leadership. It is also linked, to a certain extent, to the inspirational

motivation factor. No link can be seen in the case of the other two factors of

transformational leadership, namely, idealised influence and individual consideration.

People Oriented/Communication Skills- When you are people oriented and have good

relations with your employees, you understand them and their needs and aspirations

better at work. Once that happens, you are automatically inclined towards catering to

those needs because you realise that it will be positive for not just the employee but

also the organisation as a whole. In this way, interpersonal orientation translates into

individual consideration, one of the factors of transformational leadership (Avolio,

Waldman, & Yammarino, 1991), and this link is clear. But in the case of people

orientation this seems like the only link to transformational leadership. In the case of

communication skills on the other hand, there could be a link with the inspirational

motivation factor of transformational leadership. Good communicational skills makes

it easier for leaders to express explicitly, their vision for the organisation. It also

becomes easier to win people over, in the sense, convince the employees that those

plans if put in place can improve things for the organisation. This can only happen if

the leaders first have a clear idea about the future of the organisation though. So

although communication skills can be used to motivate employees, the link is not direct.

In general women were found to lead in a more democratic and people oriented

manner and were also found to have good communication skills in comparison to men

(Appelbaum, Audet, & Miller, 2003; Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001; De la rey,

2005; Eagly & Johnson, 1990; Eagly & Karau, 1991; Eagly A. H., 2013). To put the

benefits of leading in this manner together, democratic leadership could lead to

intellectual stimulation and to a certain extent to inspirational motivation. People

orientation is clearly linked to individual consideration. Good communication skills on

the other hand could be used by leaders to motivate the employees. These findings

could mean women are more individually considerate than men and their natural

leadership style could also be more intellectually stimulating. In the same way they

23

have an advantage over men when it comes to their communication skills, which they

could effectively use to motivate employees. Therefore, based on these findings,

women seem to lead in a more transformational manner. The link is not very clear in

the case of inspirational motivation though, and in the case of idealised influence the

findings are not clear enough to make a judgement. The findings would have been

convincing if the focus was on both male and female leaders equally. These studies

seemed to focus more on female leadership and there isn’t enough written on the way

men lead to make a very clear comparison. But from what we have, women seem to

be more naturally inclined towards the transformational style of leadership, making

transformational leadership seem like a feminine way of leading.

Literature comparing men and women with the transformational style of

leadership

Based on the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire

Bass and Avolio, in 1994 used the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire to study and

compare the leadership styles of men and women managers, explaining and

presenting the results in their article, “Shatter the Glass Ceiling” (Bass & Avolio, 1994).

The Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire is the most widely used instrument

arguably, to measure both Transformational and Transactional leadership (Hartog,

Muijen, & Koopman, 1997). The questionnaire was used to rate top level managers,

both women and men, from 6 fortune 500 organisations. A total of 150 male and 79

female managers were rated by their direct reports. The respondents had to mark their

managers on eighty different items related to their leadership style, while maintaining

their anonymity. When the results were brought together, it was found that the women

managers had higher ratings than their male counterparts on three of the four factors

of transformational leadership. Women were rated higher in the case of idealized

influence, inspirational motivation and individual consideration (Bass & Avolio, 1994).

They also had higher ratings on intellectual stimulation, but the results, the authors

acknowledged, weren’t significant enough to report. Men, on the other hand had higher

ratings on the transactional leadership scale, especially in the case of passive

management-by-exception and laissez faire leadership. Women were rated higher in

the case of contingent reward leadership.

Bass, Avolio and Atwater conducted a comprehensive study to investigate the

transformational and transactional leadership styles of men and women (Bass, Avolio,

& Atwater, 1996). The Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire was used here yet again.

Data was collected using three separate and distinct samples. In each case, both the

respondents and the leaders being tested, were different. Therefore in each case,

24

namely, transformational leadership behaviour, contingent reward behaviour,

management-by-exception and even laissez faire leadership behaviour, the

researcher had results from three distinct samples to show. Women leaders were

rated as more transformational in two out of the three samples, and even in the case

of the third sample, the men and women had equal ratings. So overall, women clearly

had higher ratings in the case of transformational leadership (Bass, Avolio, & Atwater,

1996). In the case of contingent reward leadership and active management-by-

exception the results were mixed. Finally in the case of passive management-by-

exception, women leaders had lower ratings than men, indicating that men displayed

passive management-by-exception that goes against the transformational style of

leadership, more often than women. The methodology in this case was comprehensive

and convincing.

Sarah Burke and Karen Collins conducted research to investigate the style of

functioning of accountants in managerial positions (Burke & Karen, 2001). A modified

version of the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire was used here to measure the

managerial style employed. The managers themselves were asked to fill-up the

questionnaire. Usually the managers’ subordinates, superiors and peers are also

given the same questionnaire to fill-up but this was not done here, with the authors

citing practicality issues. The perceived effectiveness of management skills of the

accountants were also measured by fill-out a certain ‘management skills profile’. The

findings showed that female accountants are more likely to use the transformational

style of leadership in comparison to their male counterparts. This was the case with

all the four factors of transformational leadership (Burke & Karen, 2001). Also, the

female accountants, going by the readings on the management skills profile, perceive

themselves to be more effective than their male counterparts in communicating with

their subordinates and in developing them. They also perceive themselves to be better

at ‘time management’. This research has quite a few limitations though. Firstly, the

Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire, is supposed to be marked by not just the

managers themselves, but also their colleagues. The fact that the questionnaire in this

case was marked only by the managers themselves, makes the findings a little less

convincing. The study was also apparently sponsored by the American Woman’s

Society of Certified Public Accountants, and all the female respondents were members

of this society. If the findings were not in favour of women, it would have been quite

embarrassing for the society, so bias cannot be ruled out.

Vanessa Urch Druskat carried out a study to investigate the differences in the display

of transformational and transactional leadership behaviours by male and female

leaders (Druskat, 1994). The conditions here were different to the studies carried out

so far though. The leaders were priests, sisters and brothers in the Roman Catholic

Church, who can be expected to display behaviours more consistent with the

transformational style of leadership, at least when compared to a traditional setting,

like a for profit competitive organisation. Simple reason being, they aren’t under the

same kind of pressures associated with a traditional organisation where they need to

25

indulge in cost cutting and show increased profits every quarter. The other difference

here, which is again significant, is that there is segregation of women and men. So

there are two different groups. One with just women, and the other with just men. The

Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire was used here. This was a large-scale study

with 6,359 subordinates of leaders responding to the questionnaire. The subordinates

rated whoever they had to directly report to. The findings were interesting, as both

male and female leaders were rated to be exhibiting more transformational leadership

behaviours than those behaviours closer to the transactional style of leadership. In

other words, both male and female leaders were perceived as transformational leaders

by their subordinates. Women leaders though had significantly higher ratings on the

transformational leadership scale (Druskat, 1994). They were rated by their

subordinates, who were also all female, to be exhibiting behaviours consistent with the

transformational style of leadership more often than those behaviours that are

generally associated with the transactional style of leadership. Overall, the female

leaders had higher ratings for their demonstration of transformational leadership

behaviours in comparison the male leaders. This was the case for all the four factors

or four I’s of transformational leadership, namely, inspirational motivation, intellectual

stimulation, idealised influence and individual consideration (Druskat, 1994). The only

limitation here is that this study was conducted in a non-traditional setting, with the

subjects not facing the same kinds of pressures that are associated with a traditional

setting where they would have to show positive results every quarter and where there

would be lesser job security. This was actually pointed out by Gary Powell in his study

on the leadership styles of men and women (Powell, 2011). He spoke of how the

organisational setting, or in other words, the context, plays a moderating role.

Nevertheless, both the men and women were tested or rated under similar conditions

and the sample size was also huge. So the study cannot be counted out or ignored

because of just a single limitation.

To put things together, four studies into the demonstration of transformational

leadership behaviours of male and female managers were analysed here. The Multi -

Factor Leadership Questionnaire, the instrument that is commonly used to measure

transformational leadership behaviours (Hartog, Muijen, & Koopman, 1997), was used

in these studies. In each case, female leaders were found to be more transformational

than their male counterparts. At the same time men were rated higher on the

transactional leadership scale. In the first case, male and female managers from six

fortune 500 companies were rated on the questionnaire. In the second case there

were three distinct samples of male and female leaders from which data was collected.

Then a study was carried out on male and female accountants in managerial positions.

Finally there was a study carried out in a non-traditional setting where the leadership

traits of priests, brothers and sisters from the Roman Catholic Church were studied

using the questionnaire. So these are studies that were carried out in four different

settings and contexts, which makes the findings even more convincing. In fact, women

26

had higher ratings than men on all the four factors of transformational leadership.

When it comes to the methodology of studies even, except in one case, where the

leadership styles of accountants were studied and where the issues were pointed out,

the other studies were convincing. The only issue one could point out here, and which

affects the credibility of the findings to a small extent, is that all of these studies were

carried out more than 13 years back. But in general, to argue for these studies, the

findings in each case were very similar. Also, trends perhaps do not change very

dramatically in one or two decades, because this is to do with gender related

characteristics.

Based on Meta-analyses

A large sample of male and female managers were investigated for transformational

and transactional leadership traits using the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire yet

again, this time by Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt (Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt,

2001). They also included in their study a meta-analysis of 47 studies investigating the

same issue with the same questionnaire. The results yet again showed women

exceeding men on 3 of the 4 factors of transformational leadership, namely, idealised

influence, inspirational motivation and individual consideration. The largest difference

was seen in the case of individual consideration, owing to the communal traits that are

predominant in women (Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). Men on the other hand

were rated higher on the transactional leadership traits of active and passive

management-by-exception and also in the case of laissez-faire leadership.

A study of the same kind was conducted by Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt and Van

Engen. They carried out a meta-analysis of 45 studies this time, comparing male and

female managers on measures of transformational and transactional leadership. The

result was the same again, with the study revealing that women in general are more

transformational than men and men showing transactional leadership qualities (Eagly,

Johannesen-Schmidt, & Van Engen, 2003).

These were both meta-analyses carried out in the early 2000s and both these studies

found women leaders to be more transformational than their male counterparts. Since

these are meta-analyses, more weightage can be given to these findings.

Analysis

Based on the findings of the individual studies that were analysed and also the findings

of the two meta-analyses, female leaders clearly seem to be more transformational

than their male counterparts. The similarity of the findings no matter what the context

is, makes the studies and the findings convincing. There were a few limitations in the

case of the individual studies which were pointed out. In the case of the meta-analyses,

27

how the researchers went about the process of analysing each study and on what

basis they included or rejected each study for the meta-analysis was not studied, and

this is certainly a limitation. What kind of statistical method they used to bring the

studies together was also not analysed, due to a lack of knowledge in that area. Credit

was given to the credentials of the researches in this matter.

Critical viewpoints

Billing and Alvesson produced an article taking a critical view of this whole idea of

feminine leadership. They talk about a “reversal of argumentation” in feminist literature,

which apparently a couple of decades ago argued the case for women saying that

women and men lead in the same way and hence are fit for managerial positions, and

now there are claims that they lead in a distinct and more effective manner, in other

words in a transformational manner, all in an effort to facilitate their rise to top

leadership positions (Billing & Alvesson, 2000). They hold the opinion that female

leadership is an ideal construction of the way women lead, born out of feminist thought,

and claim that there is no clear evidence that shows that most women in leadership

positions actually lead in this manner. Billing and Alvesson believe that this plays on

gender stereotypes and overstates the extent to which skills picked up while managing

a family can be transferred and used effectively in actual workplaces (Billing &

Alvesson, 2000). While they say that there is no evidence that women lead in this

manner, a good amount of evidence has been presented above (Eagly A. H., 2013;

McKinsey, 2008). This is evidence collected through extensive surveys conducted in

different contexts, with the findings being the same in most cases.

After this study, in 2002, Robert Vecchio wrote an article which was a critical review

of the literature that attempts to show that women have an advantage when it comes

to leading. He talks of how such claims that ‘women lead in a certain way that gives

them an advantage’ are overstated and are based on studies using flawed

methodologies (Vecchio R. , 2002). Among the studies that he critiqued was a meta-

analysis that was included here, carried out by Alice Eagly and Blair Johnson (Eagly

& Johnson, 1990). The meta-analysis apparently included studies that were not even

published and dissertations, which are basically studies carried out by novices,

although Eagly and Carli did get back on this point explaining how methodologists

actually recommend the inclusion of such studies, unless there are glaring flaws in the

way they were carried out (Eagly & Carli, 2003). He also talks about them using leader

self-ratings which cannot be relied upon and questionnaires that have flaws (Vecchio

R. , 2002). Vecchio also had an issue with the way they measured autocratic and

democratic behaviours. Overall he found that the studies when put together and

analysed critically, reveal no differences in the behaviours of leaders. A loophole in

the methodology used by all these studies using questionnaires and surveys, which

28

talk about gender differences and about judging which gender is more transformational

or transactional, is pointed out here. That is, all these studies ignore the length of time

the respondents to these questionnaires have actually spent with their managers.

Vecchio showed through a study, how ratings tend to be stereotypic, and in this case

gender stereotypic, when the duration of contact between the person being rated and

the respondent to the questionnaire is less (Vecchio R. , 2002). This moderator does

not seem to have been accounted for in the studies. To comment on what Vecchio

has said though, absolutely any study based on surveys and questionnaires can have

a lot of moderating factors and it is nearly impossible to account for all of them while

conducting a study given the time constraints. Having said that, the fact that this can

still have an effect which can possibly give rise to gender stereotypic findings, with

women being perceived as being transformational, cannot be ignored.

There is another methodological issue with these meta-analyses and literature reviews

analysed above, based on which female managers have been declared democratic or

transformational, which needs to be pointed out. This issue or moderating factor is not

paid attention to even in the case of the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire. This

is the moderating effect of specific job role or job content. This was pointed in one of

Vecchio’s critiques too (Vecchio R. P., 2003). While Vecchio specifically targeted a

study carried out by Alice Eagly, this could be the case with the other studies as well.

In some specific job roles or job contexts, it could be easier to lead in a democratic

manner and this, if controlled for, could lead to a softening of the findings. If women

were found to be transformational across job roles, the findings would be more

convincing. While Eagly and Carli did counter most of Vecchio’s critiques of their article,

they did not say anything about this specific issue (Eagly & Carli, 2003). Having said

that, it would be very time consuming to account for such moderating factors and there

could be more such factors.

Finally there is the issue of saleability or visibility of articles. Publishing houses or the

media usually sell and highlight studies that have ‘catchy’ results or findings (Vecchio

R. P., 2003). The other studies that do not really produce results that are out of the

ordinary could be ignored. Researchers therefore could be tempted to produce

findings that could catch the attention of the publishing houses. In the case of gender

differences for instance, studies that show no differences in the way men and women

lead might be ignored by most people, the efforts of the researchers not getting enough

recognition. Not to question the integrity of the researchers, but they might even

involuntarily search hard for differences.

While there are such criticisms, they are to do specifically with the comparison of male

and female leaders, and about one set being more or less transformational than the

other. There are no criticisms that stand out when it comes to just the leadership style

of female leaders with them being found to be transformational in general. Most of the

Vecchio’s criticisms have been countered by Eagly and Carli (Eagly & Carli, 2003).

The part where Vecchio talks about publishing bias is at best an accusation. The only

29

point that is debateable is where there is talk about the researcher not accounting for

job role and job content.

Summary Tables

The following tables summarize the findings of the literature review:

Leadership Behaviours of Women and Men

Type of study Women Men Interview Based

Employee Participation in Decision Making/Open Discussions

Effective Two-Way Communication

Low Power Distance

High Social and Emotional Skills Connected to Charismatic Leadership

Team-Based Management

Literature Review Based

Interpersonally-Oriented

Participative Decision Making

Democratic Leadership Sensitive to Employee

Aspirations

Power-Sharing

Task-Oriented

Individualistic Decision Making

Autocratic Leadership

Meta-Analyses

Democratic

Socially Interactive

Participative People-Oriented

Autocratic

Task-Oriented

30

Leadership styles of Women and Men

Examples of women leaders

Five women leaders were selected on the basis of their popularity for this section.

Their leadership styles have been described, analysed critically and then compared

and contrasted with the transformational style of leadership.

Indra Nooyi

Indra Nooyi is the current CEO of PepsiCo, a multi-national company with over

300,000 employees. PepsiCo is said to be the largest food and beverage company in

North America. Nooyi has been with Pepsi for the past seventeen years, gradually

rising through the ranks to become the CEO (Indra Nooyi Leadership Style, 2014) .

She is an influential figure in the corporate world and is currently ranked number 2 in

the ‘most powerful women in business’ list and ranked number 13 in the ‘world’s 100

most powerful women’ list by Forbes magazine (forbes.com, 2014; Leadership

Qualities of Indra Nooyi, 2014).

Indra Nooyi uses the words courage, competence, confidence, compass and

‘communication skills’ when asked to describe her leadership style, with her

communication skills getting a special mention (Indra Nooyi Leadership Style, 2014).

She also believes in ‘relationship building’, sending letters to the parents of employees

as a token of appreciation. Nooyi sets herself a very high moral standard, with PepsiCo

said to be a company that is high on ethics, especially when it comes to employer-

Type of Study Women Men Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire Based

Transformational Leadership

Contingent Reward Leadership

Transactional Leadership

Passive Management-By-Exception

Laissez Faire Leadership

Meta-Analyses Transformational Leadership

Transactional Leadership

31

employee relations. She believes in leading in a democratic manner, allowing

participative discussions and holding open forums, except when decisions need to be

taken urgently (Indra Nooyi Leadership Style, 2014). She is said to chronicle the

following 5 lessons from her experience of leading (Snyder, 2013)-

Balance the short-term and the long-term (Snyder, 2013)- She talks about how leaders

in today’s times think of just the short-term, looking to produce good short-term results.

She feels it is necessary for leaders to strike the right balance between planning for

the short-term and doing so for the long term as well. While getting good results for

the short-term is important for a company, she says it is necessary to put plans in

place while keeping the long-term in mind as well.

Developing public-private partnerships (Snyder, 2013)- Nooyi talks of how it is

important to form partnerships with the public sector as against looking at them as

rivals.

Think global, act local (Snyder, 2013)- She talks of how it is important to connect with

the customers from all countries and cultural backgrounds while leading a multi -

national company and about how this encourages employees to think in a non-

traditional and innovative manner.

Keep an open mind to adapt to changes (Snyder, 2013)- Nooyi points out that it is

important to adapt to changes and to listen to what others have to say, even if it is in

the form of dissent.

Lead with your head and your heart (Snyder, 2013)- It is important to connect with

everyone at work, Nooyi believes, talking of how one must develop emotional

intelligence.

To compare Indra Nooyi’s leadership style with the transformational style of leadership,

it is important to extract the main themes from the entire description.

One theme that gets repeated through the description is, ‘communication’. She talks

of how it is important to communicate with the employees, connect and develop bonds

with them and listen to what they have to say. She also talks about leading in a

democratic manner and holding open forums. When you communicate with the

employees and encourage them to get involved in the decision making process

through their inputs, what you are doing precisely is stimulating their thinking, one of

the four factors of transformational leadership. When you give importance to ethics

and morals, it is nothing but a display of role model behaviour, an important part of

being a transformational leader. Apart from these two factors of transformational

leadership though, there is not much of an indication, at least based on this limited

data, that there is individual consideration on her part or projection of a certain vision

in simple terms. Therefore it is difficult to judge based on this description, whether

Indra Nooyi leads in a particularly transformational manner. That this description here

is majorly Nooyi describing her own style of leadership, it can’t be taken at face value

32

either. That she communicates effectively with her employees, encouraging them to

give their inputs, is the only behavioural trait that clearly falls under transformational

leadership, given the very limited information available. It is therefore difficult to

declare Indra Nooyi a transformational leader.

Mary Barra

Mary Barra is the current Chief Executive Officer of the American automaker giant,

General Motors (www.forbes.com, 2014). She took over the reins from Dan Akerson

on the 15th of January 2014. She is not only the first female executive to lead General

Motors but is also the first woman to ever lead an auto manufacturer. Mary Barra

started her career at General Motors in 1980 as a student at the General Motors

Institute, also called Kettering University, and has since worked her way up the ranks

gradually. She started as an intern at one of their factories before she even turned 20,

and was the Executive Vice President of Global Product Development and Global

Purchasing and Supply Chain at General Motors before being given the opportunity to

head the company. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering

from the General Motors Institute and then later received a fellowship from the same

company to do her Master’s in Business Administration at the Stanford Graduate

School of Business. She is an electrical engineer from their own university, has a

Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of

Business, was the Vice President of Global Human Resources and also headed

product development (investing.businessweek.com, 2014; Muller, 2013; McGregor,

2013; Engelmeier, 2014). She even once worked as an executive assistant to former

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jack Smith. Plus, she has been with the

company all her life. She has now been with the company for the past 33 years. She

can therefore be expected to know how things work in the company, inside out. She

arguably has all the credentials to be appointed to this position of Chief Executive

Officer.

Her leadership style has been described by Joann Muller from Forbes as ‘open and

inclusive’ based on how she has led thus far in various leadership positions in General

Motors, as this was written before she became the Chief Executive Officer. She is also

said to be good at collaborating with others (Engelmeier, 2014), taking their opinions

while making decisions (Muller, 2013), which is part of being inclusive. She is praised

for her listening skills and is supposedly easy to approach (Engelmeier, 2014). Mary

Barra is also said to have a quiet personality and apparently talks about her team often,

giving them the credit that they deserve. She likes to build a consensus while making

33

decisions, which shows that she is a team player, only taking decisions by herself

when the team struggles to bring it together. There was a demonstration of team

building skills on her part, when she got both the purchasing department and the

product development department of General Motors to start to work together as one

team (Engelmeier, 2014). She is also known to be very methodical in the way she

goes about her work, demonstrating a strong work ethic, which is perhaps an

indication of task orientation as well. This could be a personality trait, but also probably

something that she picked up during all the years she has spent at General Motors,

an arguably masculine work atmosphere. The point that Powell raised about the

organisational setting as a moderating factor comes up here yet again (Powell, 2011).

But she has not let the setting modify the way she functions to a large extent,

demonstrating this by changing things at the company. She apparently also believes

in simplifying things, demonstrating this by simplifying the bureaucratic system and

even the dress code at the company (McGregor, 2013).

Apart from being an inclusive and collaborative leader and a team player, Mary Barra

has an eye for technological innovation (Engelmeier, 2014), which can be expected

from an electrical engineer. She was after all in charge of product development before

she was elevated to her current position (investing.businessweek.com, 2014).

Steven Snyder, who writes on leadership, talks about the leadership style exhibited by

Mary Barra, through the years of her rise at General Motors, where she held various

managerial positions (Snyder, 2014). Yet again here there is a description of her being

collaborative and also a team player. She is described as being humble, giving her

team credit at every opportunity. Snyder describes how the appointment of Mary Barra

as the head of product development helped bring order and efficiency to the

department. When she was appointed to that position, the product development

department was a complete mess, Snyder says. There was apparently no efficiency,

with there being 30 different platforms and the quality of the products was also poor

(Snyder, 2014). Barra then came in and managed to set everything in order, a feat

that was appreciated by the then Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson who she

ultimately succeeded. Going further back in time, when Barra was the Vice-president

of Global Human Resources at the company, she is said to have removed bureaucratic

hurdles, giving people more accountability and responsibility (Snyder, 2014), which

can again be counted as inclusive leadership.

Mary Barra was also in general appreciated for the way she handled the crisis at

General Motors after she came to power. Safety issues with the cars came to the fore

a few months after she took over the reins, with a few customers even losing their lives

in accidents. She responded to the crisis in a mature and transparent manner, without

trying to shift blame (Athitakis, 2014).

All-in-all there is talk of how Mary Barra is trying to change the way things are run at

General Motors. This is significant as General Motors has apparently always been run

34

in a highly bureaucratic manner. There is talk of how Mary Barra is trying to change

that, with appreciation coming in from Warren Buffet himself (Colvin, 2014).

If one looks at the way Mary Barra leads in her current position as the Chief Executive

Officer at General Motors and the way she has led over the years in various distinct

managerial positions at the company, her style seems to be close to the

transformational style of leadership. If the common themes that run through the

descriptions by various authors and experts on leadership are brought out, it is not too

difficult to see. Her leadership has been described as collaborative, inclusive,

participative, team building etc. You see a repetition of these words when people

describe her. She is said to be humble and easily accessible. She apparently has good

listening skills, taking the opinions of others and building a consensus before taking

decisions. She is also said to be a team player. All this brought together says that she

has very good interpersonal skills and that she is people oriented, which is a part of

being a transformational leader where there is a greater employee focus. It is also

about being individually considerate. When she takes the opinions of others while

making important decisions, expecting them to contribute with their inputs, it is about

intellectual stimulation. That she admitted that the company is totally at fault for the

security issues, ensuring transparency in the whole process of responding to

complaints, is a display of role model behaviour. She has also changed things for the

better wherever she lead. While she was the Vice-President of Global Human

Resources she removed bureaucratic hurdles and gave people more responsibility.

While she was heading product development she brought in more efficiency and

improved the quality of products. She is again bringing positive changes now as the

Chief Executive Officer. Bringing all these together, one can clearly see that Mary

Barra is a truly transformational leader. Having said this there is also a task focus with

the way she leads, with her being described as methodical in the way she functions.

While being task focused has been associated more often with male leadership and

has often been contrasted with people orientation, Mary Barra has shown both these

qualities. Her leadership style can therefore be described as androgynous and at the

same time transformational. This perhaps shows that a leader can be transformational

while still being task focused, which has in general been described as a trait that goes

against the concept of transformational leadership.

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Anita Roddick

Anita Roddick founded The Body Shop, a cosmetics giant with over 2045 stores,

serving over 77 million customers, with a presence in 51 markets across the globe, as

of 2006 (Roddick, 2006). The company was founded as a small shop that sold

cosmetics made of natural ingredients in the year 1976. This was in a seaside resort

called Brighton, situated in England and the shop sold only 15 products at the time

(Allen, n.d.). The idea for Anita was simply to make products that people would be

willing to pay for (Roddick, 2006). She had a special concern for the environment, was

an active environmental activist, and all her products were environmentally friendly.

This gave her products a special kind of appeal (Anita Roddick - Cosmetics with a

Conscience, 2008). It was perfect timing for Anita to start something like this, because

the public in Europe was becoming more conscious about the environment,

appreciating greener companies and products (Anita Roddick Biography, n.d.;

www.thebodyshop.com, n.d.). She also built a culture of corporate social responsibility

in the company, with its mission statement being ‘To dedicate our business to the

pursuit of social and environmental change’ (www.thebodyshop.com, n.d.).

Anita Roddick, while having a concern for the environment and social issues was also

said to have good leadership qualities from a business point of view. Brandon Gaille,

who writes on leadership, describes her style as androgynous, where she managed

to combine rational thinking with intuition (Gaille, 2013). She apparently had an

unconventional style of leading, wanting to be different and change things radically for

the better. She believed, and also managed to tackle big issues, supposedly social

issues, through business. She cared about the personal growth of her employees,

believing that her employees and people in general look beyond just money when they

work for an organisation (Barber, 2014). When a leader realises that, the employees

start to put in more effort than usual. Anita Roddick also was very good at

communicating with her employees. That she once said “Leadership is

Communication” (Barber, 2014), shows the kind of importance she gave to

communicating with her employees. She apparently believed that communication was

the most important tool for a leader, and was known to speak in an engaging and

inspiring way (Barber, 2014). This is an important part of being a transformational

leader - to be able to communicate very well, giving passionate speeches, inspiring

and motivating the employees in the process. Using the talent she had for effective

36

communication she made an effort and succeeded in bringing positive social change.

She spread awareness about things like animal testing for instance. She, through The

Body Shop, was in general big on social activism, which also got her company a lot of

publicity. So much so that they didn’t have to spend on any ad campaigns (Barber,

2014). It was an absolute win-win. Create awareness and bring about actual social

change and in the process also get free publicity. Anita Roddick is also known to have

contributed to various other social causes throughout her life. She was in a position to

do so and she took the opportunity, staying true to The Body Shop’s mission

statement. In a way her social activism is what led to her success (Anita Roddick -

Cosmetics with a Conscience, 2008). People felt good about being associated with

The Body Shop and about buying their products. The whole thing of focusing so much

on social and especially environmental change was still new during those times when

people started to learn of the Body Shop. She spread awareness about all the damage

that was happening to the environment using her position as a business leader. There

is so much information about the efforts she made to bring about both social and

environmental change that one can write a whole essay on just that. It was more about

that than the business for her. Which is why she was called a social visionary and her

leadership was described as ‘ethical leadership’ (Philpin, 2014). One needs true vision

after all to take a business to such heights from just a small little store in a small town.

David Holmes, a transformational leadership expert whom Anita Roddick would

consult, described her as a charismatic leader, driven on principles, and someone who

always had very big ideas (Philpin, 2014). She even received knighthood for her

services and for what she achieved in her life (www.thebodyshop.com, n.d.). Anita

Roddick did have her critics like arguably all successful people do. The company

apparently uses synthetic colours and non-renewable petrochemicals in their

products. Plus, while they are so openly against animal testing, there is an accusation

that some of the ingredients in their products were tested on animals by other

companies (WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE BODY SHOP?, n.d.). But these critical

accounts are quite unimpressive. For instance, the company allowed ingredients that

were tested on animals before the year 1991. That means these were ingredients that

were already tested on animals and the testing stopped long back. There was one

criticism that stays though. There are reports of her slamming the cosmetics industry

then, calling it ‘exploitation of women’. But then ultimately she sold her company to a

cosmetics giant L’Oreal, for a huge sum of money (Miller, 2007). She also apparently

took part in anti-globalisation protests when her own company being multi-national

was actually part of the globalisation process (Miller, 2007). So she was accused as

being hypocritical, which is not surprising. There is nothing wrong in being business-

minded though. These criticisms therefore do not make Anita Roddick less of a

transformational leader.

To bring everything together, despite her criticisms, Dame Anita Roddick was certainly

a transformational leader. She cared for the personal growth of her employees, and

could communicate very well with them, inspiring them and motivating them in the

37

process. She always wanted to and managed to do a lot for the environment. She also

used her position to tackle social issues. According to David Holmes, an expert on the

concept of transformational leadership, “She was the first person to make social

responsibility part of company culture” (Philpin, 2014). So there was a display of

charismatic and role model behaviour, of individual consideration for her employees,

and of inspirational motivation going by the way she would communicate with her

employees, although there is no direct link between good communication skills and

inspirational motivation.

Sheryl Sandberg

Sheryl Sandberg is currently the Chief Operating Officer of the social networking site

Facebook, which has a market value of 160 billion dollars (Stone M. , 2014;

www.forbes.com, 2014). Even before she joined Facebook, Sheryl has had an

impressive track record. She did her bachelor’s from Harvard University in the field of

economics, after which she joined the World Bank. She then later did her Master’s in

Business Administration from Harvard Business School after which she joined the

United States treasury department as Chief of Staff when the democrats were in power

under Bill Clinton. When the democrats lost power, she shifted base to Silicon Valley

where she worked for Google as Vice-President of Global Online Sales and

Operations. She finally joined Facebook in 2008 as the Chief Operating Officer, where

she has been responsible for overseeing the operations of a number of departments

(investing.businessweek.com, 2014). She is now one of the wealthiest women in

technology with a net worth of over a billion dollars (Stone M. , 2014). She also recently

authored a book called ‘Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead’ which has gone

on to become a bestseller, selling more than a million copies. The book has even

started a movement of sorts – there is now a global community group called

Leanin.org, founded by Sheryl, to change and improve women’s position in workplaces

and to encourage women to chase a successful career (Sheryl Sandberg Biography,

2014).

As far as Sheryl Sandberg’s leadership skills are concerned, she is described as a

team player with good team spirit, which apparently motivated her to write the ‘Lean

In’ book and especially launch the entire lean in movement (Leadership Qualities of

Sheryl Sandberg , 2014). There are online teams or ‘lean in circles’ that she pushed

for the creation of, which give advice, support and encouragement to female

professionals. The women in the groups also discuss issues that they face at work

offering advice to each other. This goes to show the belief that Sheryl has in teams

and the faith that she has in what people can achieve when they work in teams. Even

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professionally she appreciates the teams she has been part of (Leadership Qualities

of Sheryl Sandberg , 2014). She is also described as compassionate and you can see

this when you look at what she has been doing for women in the workforce through

‘Lean In’ and the community groups that followed. This was also the case when she

was with the World Bank, where she worked for the eradication of leprosy in India

(investing.businessweek.com, 2014). On can expect a leader who is compassionate

in general to have a natural inclination towards being individually considerate towards

her employees at work even. Although this need not necessarily be the case. In line

with this observation, the way Sheryl leads and the form of persuasion she uses to get

things done has been described as ‘soft-power’ (Stone B. , 2011). This probably

explains why a lot of people like her and the way she leads, so much so that some

people followed her from Google to Facebook (Eblin, 2012). She is described to be

warm and friendly and very good at building relationships, inspiring people to work well

in the process (Eblin, 2012). For this you need to able to communicate well with your

employees, which again she is supposedly very good at. There is a certain authentici ty

to the way she leads and the way she communicates (Gallanis, 2013; Sarkar, 2014).

Sheryl has also been described as an ambitious person (Leadership Qualities of

Sheryl Sandberg , 2014), which is almost needless to say if one looks at what she has

achieved in her life. It is difficult to achieve so much without being incredibly ambitious

and without having clear vision of what to accomplish. Apart from what she has

achieved for herself, the whole “Lean In’ movement also shows how ambitious she is,

as she is basically pushing other women also to be more ambitious, mentoring them

and giving talks on the subject of women at workplaces and women leadership at

every opportunity. The kind of contribution she makes in her current job at Facebook

is remarkable going by what people there say about her and the kind of praise people

shower on her. Matt Cohler, a former Facebook executive once said, “She’s truly the

best operating executive I have ever met in my life” (Stone B. , 2011). Jim Breyer, a

Facebook board member said, “I can say very simply I have never seen anyone with

her combination of infectious, enthusiastic spirit combined with extraordinary

intelligence” (Stone B. , 2011). Mark Zuckerberg himself admitted that Facebook would

be incomplete without her (Stone B. , 2011).

To extract the main themes from this description of Sheryl Sandberg’s leadership style,

she definitely has enviable leadership qualities. She has good communication skills

which she uses to connect with and inspire people at work and even otherwise. She

is good at working with teams which comes with having good communication skills.

She has been described as compassionate, good at building relationships, using soft-

power in the way she functions, which can be translated into individual consideration.

She is ambitious and has been very good for Facebook. She authored a best-seller

called ‘Lean-In’, which encourages women to be more ambitious and which started a

movement of sorts which she has led. She thus is a role model for a lot of women.

There are instances of people even following her to Facebook from Google. To put

these together, except for intellectual stimulation and individual, on which there is not

39

much information, she seems to qualify for the other two factors of transformational

leadership, namely, idealised influence and inspirational motivation. In the case of

individual consideration though, there is an indirect link. She has been described as

compassionate and good at building relationships after all. This point is debateable

though. Overall she does seem to have made a huge contribution to Facebook so far,

going by what her peers say about her. This put together shows that Sheryl has some

relevant transformational qualities and can be said to be a reasonably transformational

leader.

Marissa Mayer

Marissa Mayer is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Yahoo, a multi-national

internet corporation. Before being appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Yahoo in

2012, she was with Google for 13 years (Marissa Mayer Biography, 2014). She played

a big hand in making Google what it looks like now, being just the 20 th employee when

she joined it way back in 1999 (Marissa Mayer, 2014). She has a bachelor’s degree in

symbolic systems and a master’s degree in computer science from Stanford University

(Marissa Mayer, 2014). She has received many awards for her accomplishments at

Google and Yahoo and has been appearing on Fortune Magazine’s ‘Most Powerful

Women’ list for the past few years (Marissa Mayer, 2014). When she was offered the

top job at Yahoo in 2012, she was just 37 years old. The stock prices of Yahoo were

on the decline when she came in and there was a lot of pressure on her to turn things

around. She did manage to turn things around for Yahoo, and the company has made

a lot of acquisitions since then. She has managed to restore investor confidence in the

company and the stock prices have risen (Reisinger, 2014).

To talk about Marissa Mayer’s leadership traits, she is described as someone who is

passionate about what she does (Gallo, 2012). It is incredibly important to be

passionate about what one does in order to succeed in it. To become the Chief

Executive Officer of a multi-national organization at the age of just 37 is a remarkable

feat. That she has been appointed to such a position, the passion she has for her field

probably comes through. This shows when one looks at the way she works. When she

was offered the top post she was reportedly heavily pregnant. But she still decided to

take the job taking just two weeks of maternity leave (Meyers, 2013). She is described

as extremely hardworking, having the ability to work 15 hours straight and being

available through email even until 11pm (Yahoo's CEO Marissa Mayer: the Iron Lady,

2013; Gallo, 2012). This kind of passion, commitment and work ethic can inspire and

motivate other employees as well. The same kind of commitment is seen in how she

40

specifically goes about her work as well. She travels around the world to meet wi th her

employees face-to-face (Kurvers, 2013). This builds team spirit among the employees,

making them feel like they are all part of one large family. She is said to have a clear

vision about what she wants to do with Yahoo, and is committed to that vision, with a

focus on innovation (Kurvers, 2013; Dunn, 2013). Marissa is also described as a

persuasive speaker and very good at communicating with her employees. She

apparently gives brilliant presentations, connecting very well with her audience (Gallo,

2012). While Marissa motivates people indirectly by working through the day and

leading by example, she also does so by listening to her employees by letting them

meet her and give their input. Although there is no information on whether she still

does this at Yahoo, while at Google, she would hold sessions where her subordinates

could meet her and give their feedback on things and also talk about their ideas (Gallo,

2012). This can be motivating as well as intellectually stimulating. Marissa seems to

be a leader who is more focused on innovation and improving efficiency than on the

people side of things. Whether this is more suitable for a tech company is debateable

but in the case of a transformational leader the focus is usually more on the

employees. She has taken a few steps which are certainly positive from the innovation

and collaboration point of view but may not be so from the people management point

of view. For instance she banned teleconferencing and working from home, explaining

that working at the workplace and being physically present in meetings would result in

more creativity and collaboration (Meyers, 2013; Dunn, 2013). She believes that

working from home reduces efficiency which may be true. She has demonstrated a

certain amount of consideration for her employees though, for example by granting

longer maternity and paternity leave (Meyers, 2013), but has in general focused more

on increasing efficiency and innovation. Her leadership style has been described as

unconventional (McGregor, 2013). For instance, apart from the changes she has made

in an effort to increase the efficiency and innovating capacity, by banning

teleconferencing and working from home, she has been reportedly personally looking

at the profile of each person Yahoo hires (McGregor, 2013). While this could be an

effort to increase the standards at Yahoo and is commendable, this could also send a

wrong signal that she doesn’t trust her Human Resources team. For a leader it is

important to show trust in their team so they perform to their potential. Then another

decision by Marissa Mayer got her a lot of criticism, especially from a Human

Resources point of view. The decision to introduce ‘stack ranking’ (Dunn, 2013). ‘Stack

Ranking’ is a system of forced ranking where managers are forced to rank the

employees in their team. A few employees are ranked as top performers and a few

need to be ranked at the bottom (Nisen, 2013). The employees at the bottom are then

laid off. So even if everyone performs well, some need to be ranked at the bottom

according to this system. This was introduced at Yahoo by Marissa, despite criticism

of this system. Employees have expressed dissatisfaction as one would expect and

so have some managers. Stack Ranking has also been found to be negatively

correlated to employee engagement and innovation. Surprisingly in the case of Yahoo

though, they have actually made progress. Whatever methods Marissa Mayer has

41

been using to lead has actually turned things around for Yahoo, something that four

Chief Executive Officers before her couldn’t do (Reisinger, 2014). This is on a purely

financial basis. Since she has come to power, Yahoo have acquired businesses and

their stock prices have risen (Reisinger, 2014). This was probably what was needed

for Yahoo for its revival. To sum things up, Marissa Mayer has been a brilliant leader

for Yahoo no matter what her critics say. The results show this. Maybe this kind of

leadership is needed for tech companies. Steve Jobs led in a similar manner and was

great for Apple, needless to say (Auerbach, 2013). But Marissa Mayer certainly is not

a Transformational Leader strictly speaking, going by the description of

Transformational Leadership. She has managed to transform things for Yahoo though.

Out of the five women leaders studied, three turned out to be transformational in the

way they lead. In the case of Indra Nooyi though, the information was quite limited and

hence was not enough to either declare her a transformational leader or otherwise.

So, if her case is counted out, 3 out of 4 leaders did turn out to be reasonably

transformational in the way they lead. The point of this exercise was to see if women

leaders at the highest managerial level, with the kind of pressures they face, also

behave in a transformational manner. The findings therefore can said to be in line with

the findings of the literature review, with women in general having the tendency to lead

in a transformational manner.

Discussion and Conclusion

To discuss the findings of this dissertation and write a proper conclusion, it is important

to go back to the title of the dissertation and the specific research aims and objectives

and see whether the findings specifically answer the questions. The main aim of this

dissertation, which the title suggests, was to find out if Transformational Leadership is

a naturally feminine way of leading and whether it is clear enough to describe to what

extent this is the case. To make this more specific this was broken into research aims.

The first research aim was to just examine the concept of transformational leadership.

This was more like a description of transformational leadership and was not a critical

analysis.

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The second aim was to study the way women lead through a critical analysis of extant

literature on the topic. This section of the dissertation was titled ‘the leadership style

debate’. The articles on this topic were first split into two parts. There were articles that

compared the leadership behaviours of men and women. These spoke about the

leadership behaviours in the findings without a specific comparison to the

transformational style of leadership. Then there were studies that compared the

leadership styles of men and women directly with the transformational style of

leadership using the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire. These two types of

studies were presented and analysed separately. This is because in the first case the

methodology and findings needed to be analysed and in addition to that the findings,

which were descriptions of behaviours of women leaders, needed to be put together

and compared with transformational leadership. In the second case though, the

studies were about finding out whether men or women are more transformational.

There was therefore a direct comparison with the transformational and transactional

leadership scale. So in this case, just the methodology used by the researchers in

carrying out the study needed to be analysed.

The findings from both these sets of articles can now be put together finally.

Women: Women believe in participatory decision making, encouraging the employees

to give their feedback and opinions while taking important decisions (McKinsey, 2008).

They are also more interpersonally oriented, having the ability to connect with their

employees more easily (Appelbaum, Audet, & Miller, 2003). There is a greater focus

on the employees, when women lead, with avoidance of behaviours that make the

power distance apparent (McKinsey, 2008). They seem more considerate and more

sensitive to the needs and aspirations of their employees. They also are better at

communicating with their employees, which is basically a requirement for being

interpersonally oriented and for expressing the vision for the company. A particular

study also found women leaders to be more concerned with corporate social

responsibility in general and also more concerned with ethics and morals (Eagly A. H.,

2013). To talk about the traits that really stand out, women leaders are democratic in

the way they lead, are good at communicating with their employees, and are also

employee or people oriented which are all closely related with the transformational

style of leadership, making transformational leadership seem like a feminine concept.

Even in the case of studies that rated women and men on the transformational and

transactional leadership scale, women were clearly found to be more transformational,

and had higher ratings on all the four factors of transformational leadership in most

cases (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, & Van Engen, 2003). These findings are based

on ratings on the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire, the instrument that is

commonly used to measure transformational and transactional leadership behaviours.

Men: Men are more focused on the task at hand and on business concerns. They tend

to give out instructions, control things, and are more concerned with structure

(Appelbaum, Audet, & Miller, 2003). They are less people-focused and like taking

decisions independently (Eagly A. H., 2013). To extract the common themes, men

43

lead in a comparatively autocratic manner and have a task orientation. While these

were the findings in nearly every study, it must be pointed out that the focus in most

of these studies was on female leaders and the discussion on male leaders was very

limited. In the case of studies that used the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire,

men were found to operate in a more transactional manner. In every study they had

higher ratings on the transactional leadership scale, especially in the case of passive

management by exception (Bass, Avolio, & Atwater, 1996). The findings therefore can

be said to be very clear and convincing.

All the studies that were analysed were set in very different contexts. The

methodologies ranged from interviews to meta-analyses and literature reviews. While

some studies were set in the early 90s, some others were done as recently as 2008

and 2013. The findings in all these cases were still very similar. All these put together

show clearly that women are more transformational in the way they lead compared to

male leaders and even in general, which shows that transformational leadership is a

feminine way of leading.

There are a couple of factors though, which, if accounted for could lead to a slight

moderation of these findings. The one that stands out is the ‘job role and content’

(Vecchio R. P., 2003). This factor is generally not accounted for or not paid enough

attention to it seemed like, and can have an impact on the findings. It arguably is easier

to be democratic, interpersonally oriented and transformational in a few specific roles.

Also, the specific department and industry should be taken account of. For instance,

leaders could be naturally more transformational in the human resources department,

a department occupied by women more often. It could be difficult to be democratic and

transformational while occupying a managerial position in a technology organization

where there is constant pressure to meet targets and compete. It would help make

things more clear if the distribution of female leaders in job roles and specific industries

even are taken into consideration and highlighted. This is especially a problem in the

case of meta-analyses and literature reviews where findings are just brought together

without paying attention to the specific job roles, departments and industries the

managers are functioning in. The other issue is to do with the publication of studies

and the attention given to studies. Studies that show differences in the way men and

women lead, with women being more transformational, would arguably get the

attention of publishers more easily (Vecchio R. P., 2003) and so researchers could

search hard for such findings.

If these are accounted for, the differences presumably would be a little more moderate

and the findings in general would be more convincing. But giving credit to all the

literature analyses and the meta-analyses, and the overlapping of the findings, women

leaders can be said to be transformational in general.

The second research aim was to study the leadership style of women by analysing

existing literature, with the concept of transformational leadership in mind. Women

44

leaders have been found to lead in a democratic and people oriented manner in

general and have been found to lead in a transformational manner.

The third aim was to look at examples of women leaders in order to study their

leadership styles in comparison to transformational leadership. The leadership styles

of five leaders, who were randomly picked, were studied. While one was counted out

due to lack of sufficient information, 3 out of the other 4 leaders turned out to be

transformational leaders, giving support to the findings of the literature review.

To bring the findings together in order to answer the main research question, women

leaders have been found to be transformational in general. This is on the basis of a

literature review of extant studies on the subject and on the examples studied.

Therefore, transformational leadership does seem to support feminine notions of

leadership. While this can be said to be the case with a reasonable amount of certainty,

it is difficult to judge to what extent transformational leadership supports feminine

notions of leadership on the basis of the studies carried out so far. For this to be

answered, the methodology used by the researchers in carrying out independent

studies, surveys and meta-analyses needs to be fine-tuned to include job role, job

content, department and industry. Leadership qualities can only be judged

convincingly when the pressures associated and the atmosphere the leaders are

functioning in are also taken into consideration. Unless this happens, one cannot shout

from rooftops to say women naturally lead in a transformational manner. Unless this

happens, one cannot be confident about the findings.

To talk about the implications of these findings, this can be used as an argument to

drop the prejudices that people hold against women in general when it comes to their

ability to lead. That it seems like women have a natural ability to lead in a

transformational manner gives them a small advantage. Small, because men can also

learn to adopt their style of leading, to lead in a transformational manner. Moreover,

one cannot be picked or rejected for a leadership role on the basis of one’s gender.

The credentials of the person matters, and nothing else should.

When it comes to recommendations for future research, as was discussed earlier, the

findings would be much more convincing and believable if moderating factors such as

job role and job content of the manager, and the department and industry the manager

is functioning in are taken into consideration. Perfect comparisons cannot be made,

when the work atmosphere and pressures associated are unequal. It would be

interesting if a study is carried out where leaders, both male and female, are studied,

where industry, department and job content are treated as variables. It would be

interesting to see in which job role, department and industry, leaders are more

transformational.

45

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