Stereotyping towards female leaders

The Correspondent Inference Theory (Jones & McGillis, 1976) states that the strength of perceiver’s inferences that the actor’s nature agrees to their behavior is indirectly proportional to the likelihood of the act. A state of cognitive consistency helps in solving the conflict between people’s expectations and real behavior by holding an assumption that behavior is an external indicator of underlying traits or attributes. Besides the expectations and stereotypes held by people in the society, management and leadership stereotypes are also considered in an organizational setting. At the workplace consisting of women, the stereotypes of women and gender role and leaders must all be considered for a better understanding of how women should be regarded. Stereotyping is among the major limiting factors for females in leadership positions.

Women are also ascribed with negative qualities like selfishness, quarrelsomeness and bitterness, and sometimes unrestrained ambition for achievement and power. There exists a perception of “lack of fit” when relating women to power. The more directive mannerisms and autocratic a female would express herself in leadership, the more negatively she is perceived. Task orientation is also used as a basis for comparing the capabilities of men and women in leadership positions. This involves the perception of tendencies to make explicit rules between leader and subordinate, maintain high standards and make subordinates to follow procedures and rules. Besides, women with tentative speech are perceived to be less knowledgeable and intelligent as compared to men with the same tentative speech (Bradley, 1981). Therefore, women’s ability to influence may be disadvantaged by the use of tentative speech, which may disqualify women from some leadership positions.

Intrinsically, leadership pertains the ability to issue imperatives without reliably focusing on other’s face concerns. There exists a negative correlation between polite speech and higher-status (Brown and Levinson (1987). Linking such finding to the Expectation States Theory, it could be said that women are expected to employ fewer direct requests due to their lower stereotypical status. Brown, P. & Levinson, S. C. Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. Gender and the evaluation of leaders: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 111, 3-22 Eden, D. , & Leviatan, U. Implicit leadership theory as a determinist of the factor structure underlying supervisory behavior skills. Journal of Applied Psychology, 60, 736-741. , & McGillis, D. Correspondent inferences and the attribution cube: a comparative reappraisal. In J. H. Harvey, W.