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This paper aims to examine the discursive constitution of leadership identities by senior women leaders working in the City of London. This study draws on postfeminism as a critical concept to explore this constitution, as it has produced the cultural conditions for the reconfiguration of masculine and feminine gender norms in leadership.

In a qualitative study, 13 women leaders in positions of power in the City of London were interviewed. Discourse analysis techniques were used to unpack the postfeminist shaping of leadership identities

At the heart of the leadership identities that senior women leaders construct is a gendered hybridity that is a multifaceted calibration of masculine and feminine attributes and behaviours. Postfeminist discourses of individualism, choice and self-improvement are entangled with discourses of authenticity, relatability and connectivity as particular leadership assets. The gendered hybridity of leadership identities unfolds the possibility for a fundamental makeover of leadership by opening-up space for a transformative change that accommodates women leaders.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the very few studies that foreground the leadership identities that women leaders construct within the confines of postfeminist gender regimes. It shows how these women invoke authenticity, unfolding possibilities for the transformational change of and political challenge to traditional gendered leadership in their organizations.

Female nursing supervisors and subordinate nurses in an American hospital were given questionnaires to see if there was a link between sex‐role behaviour and leadership style. It is concluded that a form of job stereotyping exists, since individuals in supervisory positions are perceived by others as being less feminine, simply because they hold that position.

Theory suggests gender bias in leadership occurs through a cognitive mismatch between thoughts of women and leaders. As leadership incorporates more feminine qualities, gender bias disadvantaging women should be reduced. The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical investigation of that argument by examining gender bias in servant leadership. Predictions made by role congruity theory were investigated with principles from leader categorization theory.

In a survey design, 201 working college students from the Midwest USA were presented with either a female or male leader, each with identical servant leader attributes. Participants reported their expectations for the leader’s future behavior.

Expectations for servant leader behavior were greater for the woman than man leader, and expectations for authoritarian behavior were greater for the man than woman leader. Expectations for servant leader behavior were greater from the woman than man participants, and expectations for authoritarian behavior were greater from the man than woman participants, a difference that was enhanced by men’s hostile sexism.

Although limited by the sample of working students, important implications are the importance of using theoretical integration to examine contemporary forms of leadership for changing gender bias, considerations of self-concept in bias and examining perceiver characteristics when investigating gender bias.

Awareness of the reduction of gender bias in communal leadership may allow an increase of leadership opportunities for women and leadership attempts by women.

This is the first empirical examination of gender bias in communal leadership through theoretical integration.

The main aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of gender differences on negotiation behaviour choice and, consequently, on its outcome. The analysis undertaken is first defined by distinguishing between sex and gender role. It gender role and not biological sex the factor that can have a direct impact on behaviour. With a contextual perspective, we have chosen the negotiation processes of strategic alliances as our contextual framework of analysis.

The paper adopts a qualitative methodology, particularly case study analysis.

A higher degree of complexity increases the perception of ambiguity, which then leads to the influence of gender in the negotiation. Androgynous profiles act favourably in nurturing clearly integrative behaviour, whilst when the profile more closely resembles the masculine stereotype, behaviour tends to be more competitive, though attenuated. Acting in the best interests of the firm, and the fact that negotiators normally belong to the higher echelons of management, favours the adoption of this integrative behaviour. Lastly, it can be observed that competitive behaviour results in less favourable outcomes than an integrative approach in a cooperation agreement.

The proposal bring to the attention of managers the importance of choosing the individuals that are going to negotiate the strategic alliance correctly, in order to achieve better outcomes and to smooth the path towards good performance in the future.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how male and female leaders define effective leadership in an extreme context.

The authors conducted in-depth interviews with leaders working in an extreme context (a matched sample of female and male Majors and Colonels in the Canadian Armed Forces) and analysed military training materials.

In the military, male and female leadership looks much more similar than might be expected. Further, surprisingly this is not occurring because women are leading in more masculine ways, but rather the opposite; men are leading in more feminine ways.

There is a need for organizations to recognize and acknowledge the role of feminine leadership behaviours. This may also give women a better opportunity to succeed in these types of leadership roles.

This study contributes to the leadership literature by furthering our understanding of the boundary conditions for transformational leadership in relation to gender stereotypes, situational strength, and social identity.

Meta‐analytic evidence exists that the numerical dominance of one gender group among employees can affect the behaviour of female and male leaders. The purpose of this paper is to hypothesis that leaders will show more transformational behaviour when they hold a minority status. Transformational behaviour might help to mitigate discrepancies between male leaders' gender and the feminine context, as well as between female leaders' gender and the masculine leadership role.

N₁=455 team members answered questionnaires about their work satisfaction and their team leaders' transformational leadership, whilst N₂=142 team leaders answered questions regarding their teams' goal fulfillment.

Female and male leaders are rated more transformational in economic sectors and working groups where they hold a minority status. The paper finds a positive interrelation between transformational leadership and followers' work satisfaction for male leaders, but not for female leaders.

Future research should compare female and male leaders from extremely gender‐typed economic sectors and from higher levels of the organisational hierarchy. This would provide evidence whether the findings could be generalised to other samples.

The findings point to the potential advantage of being a high‐transformational male leader in female‐dominated contexts. Irrespective of the numerical dominance of one gender group, followers of low‐transformational female leaders are more satisfied than those of low‐transformational male leaders.

The paper uses sector‐level (gender‐typicality of economic sectors) as well as group‐level data (gender‐composition of working groups) to account for the numerical dominance of female and male employees.

As the workforce evolves in the twenty‐first century, more women are entering higher‐level management positions. The traditional hierarchical structure associated with male‐dominated management ranks is inadequate to accommodate properly this trend. Looks at alternative management structure theories which support the view of a genderless management structure. Recommends that managers should begin to adopt an androgynous style which will not only foster a blend of so‐called masculine and feminine behaviours, but also lead to better managers.

Difficulties in defining stepfamily roles remain an important issue for its members. A potentially important factor in defining roles in the family is the identification with a particular gender type and how it relates to one's expectations about one's place in the family system. The purpose of this paper is to explore how gender typing processes inform our understanding of the stepmother role construction process, and its link with stepfamily adjustment.

Semi‐structured interview data from six androgynous and six feminine stepmothers were selected based on gender type identification.

Results from this analysis were analyzed using a phenomenological approach, and are presented with the intent to explore how gender typing processes inform our understanding of the stepmother role construction process, and its link with stepfamily adjustment.

Gender typing has not been studied in the context of stepmother families, even though research on stepmothers’ adjustment has highlighted the ambiguous nature of their role in the stepfamily. Additionally, while qualitative inquiry continues to represent the favoured paradigm in the emerging area of stepmother research, studies of this type remain limited in scope.

This study aims to test how senior leaders recognize and reward the same leadership behavior in male and female managers.

A total of 120 senior government leaders evaluated simulated performance reviews wherein only manager ' s sex and engagement in individually considerate transformational leadership behavior varied.

Senior leaders (of both sexes) penalized male and female managers for failing to engage in individually considerate transformational leadership behavior (i.e. rating them as significantly less competent and civil, and recommending them for significantly fewer rewards such as salary and promotion) compared to control groups. However, only male managers benefited (in terms of competence ratings, recognition and reward) from being rated high on this behavior.

Findings support arguments in the literature for a “feminization” of leadership, whereby both male and female managers are now penalized for not engaging in individually considerate leadership behavior. However, they also question the extent to which women will get credit for engaging in some of the same transformational leadership behaviors as men.

Researchers and practitioners often collapse across components of the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) in measuring transformational leadership behavior. This may obfuscate some of the components being aligned with sex role stereotypes, and therefore unlikely to be rewarded in certain candidates. If the present findings are confirmed by future research, there may be reason to question how the MLQ is being used in research and practice on transformational leadership behavior.

The paper aims to test the impact of gender‐relevant factors on professional respect for leaders.

Three determinants were analysed: gender constellation (gender match) between leaders and followers, gender‐stereotypic leadership behaviour, and followers' gender role attitudes. A field study with N₁=121 followers and their N₂=81 direct leaders from 34 German organisations was conducted. Leaders were on the lowest level of hierarchy.

The data showed that female leaders are at risk of receiving less professional respect from their followers than male leaders: male followers of female leaders had less professional respect than female followers of male leaders. Moreover, gender role discrepant female leaders (i.e. autocratic) got less respect than gender role discrepant male leaders (i.e. democratic). But no difference was found with regard to gender role congruent female (i.e. democratic) and male (i.e. autocratic) leaders. Finally, followers with traditional gender role attitudes were prone to have comparatively little professional respect for female leaders.

Future research should analyse gender‐relevant factors that influence the granting of professional respect and systematically compare these effects across branches. Furthermore, it would be interesting to see whether followers evaluate leaders from higher levels of hierarchy in the same way as our respondents did.

In order to promote women in leadership positions, followers' prejudices against female leaders should be reduced.

Field studies about the evaluation of female and male leaders explicitly considering their followers' gender role attitudes are rare. The results reflect that sexism is well and alive.