Gender makes the difference: The moderating role of leader gender on the relationship between leadership styles and subordinate performance
Journal
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
Journal Volume
122
Journal Issue
2
Pages
101-113
Date Issued
2013
Author(s)
Abstract
Using a predominantly male research and development (R&D) sample and a predominantly female customer service personnel sample, we investigated how authoritarian and benevolent leadership styles interact with leader gender to influence subordinate performance (i.e., task performance, citizenship behavior, and creativity). Our research extends role congruity theory (Eagly & Karau, 2002) by adopting Kelley's (1972a, 1972b) attribution principles to offer a more comprehensive framework for explaining how leader gender affects the impact of leadership styles on subordinate performance. Our results suggest that the negative relationship between authoritarian leadership and subordinate performance is stronger for female than for male leaders and that the positive relationship between benevolent leadership and subordinate performance is stronger for male than for female leaders. Accordingly, in addition to leaders' engaging in gender-role congruent behaviors, a useful strategy is to adopt behaviors that are perceived as a positive deviation from their gender role. © 2013 Elsevier Inc.
SDGs
Type
journal article