Showing the real me: Organizational culture makes it easier for female leaders to express their personality.
Sprache des Vortragstitels:
Englisch
Original Tagungtitel:
European Association of Social Psychology - General Meeting 2014
Sprache des Tagungstitel:
Englisch
Original Kurzfassung:
Women continue to lag behind their male counterparts in leadership roles. One possible explanation might be a certain unfairness regarding the selection of leaders. When selecting leaders often individual traits are used because they are valid predictors for future leadership performance. Since it is well documented that men and women differ regarding certain personality traits attention to gender-based differential prediction is warranted.
In the current long-term study it is examined if and under what circumstances personality traits differentially predict the performance of female and male leaders. To this end, 203 leaders (100 female) provided data on the Big Five personality traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Emotional Stability) and their organizational culture. Eight months later their leadership performance was assessed by supervisor and subordinate ratings on contextual and task performance. Results displayed that the Big Five traits predicted the leadership performance measures significantly better for men than for women. Thus, findings suggest that traits do not tell about a female leader?s performance as much as they do about a male leader?s performance. However, when organizational culture was considered predictive differences of traits disappeared. In organizations with a collectivistic culture traits were comparably valid for male and female leaders. Contrary, in organizations with high levels of power distance the male leaders? traits were more valid than the female leaders? traits. Results suggest that organizations with a collectivistic culture make it easier for female leaders to express their individual traits, which in turn enhances their validity.
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