For the past few decades, there has been a focus in the research on the characteristics of women in management. There have been questions about whether or not women possess the leadership qualities to manage large organizations. There has been exploration of the differences, if any, between women's management styles and those of men. There has been talk that women might actually be hampered by a fear of failure. There has been focus on the glass ceiling. Research results have often been inconclusive. The intention in this paper is to look at the contemporary discussion about women in management, exploring any differences in styles of management and leadership, and exploring stylistic trends for the future.
Any discussion that focuses on the specific characteristics or styles of women in management runs the risk of stereotyping both men and women. Stereotypes are based on sex role expectations and, although these have been changing in modern U.S. society, those expectations are still deeply ingrained. These expectations can lead to self fulfilling prophecies, in which individuals perform the way we expect them to perform, or to biased evaluations, in which men and women are judged on different criteria.
In their study of sex effects on evaluation, Nieva and Gutek (1980) noted that most of the research indicated that there is a pro male evaluation bias, in which competent women are evaluated as less competent than competent men, partly because the characteristics of competence are ascribed to the male sex role rather than to the female sex role. However, the authors also noted that the evaluation effect varies according to several factors, including sex role incongruence and the level of qualifications and performance involved.
In looking at the history of management and leadership theory, it is clear that there is considerable controversy there about whether skill as a manager or leader is attributable strictly to the ...