Personality and leadership: how gender impacts perceptions of effectiveness

Abstract

Purpose

Personality traits impact how leaders are perceived and how leaders perceive themselves. These views are subject to gender biases and stereotypes. This practitioner study aims to integrate leadership theories with research on agentic and communal personality qualities and the Big Five personality traits to establish how these impact perceptions of leader effectiveness.

Design/methodology/approach

Behavioral leadership theory and personality trait research offer insights into gender biases related to perceptions of leaders and leaders’ self-efficacy. This paper examines the literature in these areas to show how it informs the practice of leadership and the degree to which gender stereotypes are changing.

Findings

The review examines salient leadership qualities for women and men, finding that agentic qualities are still largely associated with men and communal qualities with women. It also illustrates that conscientiousness, openness to experience and extraversion are associated with leadership emergence for both genders but impact leader self-efficacy in different ways.

Originality/value

This paper integrates research to draw conclusions about how personality traits are gendered and how gender impacts perceptions of leader effectiveness.

Citation

Snow Andrade, M. (2023), "Personality and leadership: how gender impacts perceptions of effectiveness", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 2-6. https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-09-2022-0052