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The management profession has a long and well‐documented history adopting and abandoning “fads” promulgated by a series of thinkers, practitioners, and opinion leaders who enjoy a “guru” like status. The purpose of this paper shows that stereotyping contributes to the existence of this guru‐fad phenomenon.

The paper examines the characteristics of both management fads and the phenomenon of stereotyping with reference to two leading historical management practitioners and thinkers, Henri Fayol and Mary Parker Follett.

Drawing on the examples of Mary Parker Follett and Henri Fayol, it argues that the influence exerted by other management gurus and fads, such as Frederick Winslow Taylor's Scientific Management and Elton Mayo's Human Relations Movement, gave rise to a stereotyped view of both Follett and Fayol's work that prevented an accurate appraisal of their ideas.

In addition, this paper notes that, while Follett and Fayol exhibited an extraordinary capacity to identify the very issues that have spawned many subsequent management fads, the contemporary management discipline's approach to both thinkers is quite different. While Follett has escaped her earlier stereotypes, allowing management thinkers a new opportunity to re‐assess her work and value its contemporary relevance, Fayol remains misclassified as a European Taylorist who has little to offer the contemporary management practitioner.

This paper provides an interesting insight into the characteristics of both management fads and the phenomenon of stereotyping.

The purpose of this paper is to examine gender‐related management stereotypes, perceived gender bias and evaluations of actual managers, and to directly compare stereotypes and ratings of actual managers.

Questionnaires were distributed to employees in the bank and insurance sector, and 240 participants rated their actual managers and stereotypes of male and female managers.

Men evaluated the female manager stereotype more positively on communal attributes, and the male manager stereotype more positively on agentic attributes. Women evaluated the female manager stereotype more positively on both communal and agentic attributes, but perceived a higher degree of gender bias in favor of male managers than men did. Actual male and female managers were rated similarly. Still, ratings of actual male managers corresponded more with stereotypes of male than female managers, and ratings of actual female managers corresponded more with stereotypes of female than male managers.

Future research needs to determine the direction of association between stereotypes and evaluations of actual managers, and the relative importance of agentic over communal attributes.

While women appeared biased in favor of their own gender, men may underestimate the difficulties that female managers encounter. Managers and human resource practitioners should notice these different views, and recognize that gender equality is not achieved in Sweden.

The present study contributes with data from an egalitarian society with a positive view of female managers, and a direct comparison of stereotypes and workplace evaluations.

The purpose of this paper is to review six different ways that have been used to “see the elephant” that constitutes the intersection of sex, gender, and leadership.

The proportions of women in positions of power and authority, leader preferences, leader stereotypes, attitudes toward women as leaders, linkages of leadership theories to gender stereotypes, and sex differences in leader behaviour and effectiveness are reviewed.

The managerial playing field continues to be tilted in favor of men and behaviours associated with the masculine gender stereotype, a phenomenon that occurs despite what leadership theories and field evidence would suggest.

Future research should continue to track trends in proportions, preferences, stereotypes, attitudes, behaviour, and effectiveness pertaining to the intersection of sex, gender, and leadership. Scholars should not limit themselves in the kinds of research methods they apply to this task.

The challenge for organisations is to take advantage of and develop the capabilities of all individuals in leader roles and then create conditions that give leaders of both sexes an equal chance to succeed. The goal should be to enhance the likelihood that all people, women and men, will be effective in leader roles.

Leader behaviour should have no gender.

This review encourages scholars to share what they have learned from their own ways of seeing, in this journal and elsewhere, and to listen carefully to what other scholars have to share.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how gender stereotypes and self-stereotypes of Danish managers vary among managers at different job levels, from lower level managers to CEO level, in a large survey of Danish private-sector managers.

This study is explorative. Measures of stereotypes and self-stereotypes are constructed and analyzed with regressions models that control for a large number of individual and firm characteristics.

The results document significant gender differences in stereotyping among managers. Male managers have significantly more masculine stereotypes of successful leaders, and they rate themselves higher on masculine traits than female managers. For CEOs, the picture is different. Stereotypes do not differ by gender and female CEOs have more pronounced masculine stereotypes than female managers at lower levels. Female managers at the age of 50 are the least gender stereotyping managers. Younger female managers have significantly more masculine stereotypes about the role as a successful leader.

This study is based on cross-sectional data and does not claim to uncover causal relationships.

The results suggest that gender stereotypes and self-stereotypes among Danish private-sector managers are not going to change quickly indicating that new government policies with more focus on gender equalization and affirmative actions are called for.

Most earlier studies of stereotypes concerning female managers are based on studies of samples drawn from the general population or consisting of students. This study makes use of a large sample of managerial employees from all levels of the corporate hierarchy in different types of firms.

The perspective and concern considered here is the internal‐subjective evaluation of HRM effectiveness. This involved investigating managers’ and employees’ perceptions about standards of HRM and of the work of human resources (HR) staff in their own organizations. Survey research indicates that there is a pattern of more positive perceptions of HR staff than of overall standards in HRM. This disassociation presents a challenge to the validity of internal subjective evaluations. One explanation is that features of stereotyping are influencing subjective evaluations of HR staff. The concept of stereotyping is applied and consideration is given to “cognitive efficiency”, inter‐group dynamics and broad social power theories. The author concludes that HR staff have benefited from the stereotype connection in the past but in an era where more explicit objective standards are increasingly expected, they may not continue to benefit from such positive effects. Nonetheless, an enhanced awareness of the positive behaviours that can arise from dealing with stereotyping can be useful in achieving high standards of HRM.

A major barrier to women's progress in management worldwide continues to be the gender stereotyping of the managerial position. The purpose of the paper is to examine how this “think manager – think male” attitude has changed over the three decades since the author's initial research and to consider the implications of the outcomes for women's advancement in management today.

The paper reviews the author's research, first conducted in the 1970s and replicated in the USA and internationally, on gender stereotyping and requisite management characteristics.

The overview reveals the strength and inflexibility of the “think manager – think male” attitude held by males across time and national borders. Over the last three decades corporate males in the USA continue to see women as less qualified than men for managerial positions. Internationally, the view of women as less likely than men to possess requisite management characteristics is also a commonly held belief among male management students in the USA, the UK, Germany, China and Japan.

Women's continued progress depends on recognizing the intractable nature of these negative attitudes and continually seeking ways to ensure that these attitudes do not derail their success. The need to maintain and expand legal efforts is discussed. An argument is also made for challenging the “corporate convenient” way of working and restructuring managerial work to facilitate a work and family interface.

Based upon three decades of research, the paper highlights the importance of maintaining and increasing efforts to ensure that women advance to positions of power and influence in organizations worldwide.

Although Schein's gender role management stereotype hypothesis has been examined in many countries around the world, no studies specifically examine the combined effects of race and gender on this phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is to use an intersectional analysis to test the hypothesis among different race and gender groups in South Africa.

The 92‐item Schein descriptive index was randomly administered to 592 black men, white men, black women, and white women managers. The degree of resemblance between the descriptions of men and successful managers and between women and successful managers was determined by computing intra‐class correlation coefficients.

Results confirm the think manager, think male hypothesis for black and white men but not for black and white women. Black and white men are less likely to attribute successful managerial characteristics to women. The hypothesis is more robust among black men than among white men. For black women, the resemblance between the characteristics of women in general and successful managers is significantly higher than the resemblance of men in general and successful managers. This represents only the second study globally to report a reversal of the usual pattern. White women perceived men and women to equally possess the requisite management characteristics.

Intersectionality is capable of revealing the ways in which race and gender simultaneously influence perceptions of managerial characteristics.

The paper provides a race and gender intersectional analysis that compares the perceptions of the think manager – think male hypothesis in contrast to the dominant gender only analysis that may mask important differences in the stereotyping of managerial characteristics. It is also the first study of its kind in South Africa.

This is the first of a three-part paper exploring the intersection between sex, gender and leadership in the UK Civil Service. The purpose of this paper is to introduce research by the authors into differences in the behaviour of men and women managers in the UK Civil Service, differences in 360 degree assessments of these behaviours and variations in the behaviours and assessments in different organisational contexts. This part of the paper sets the scene, and provides a literature review and a series of conjectures, derived from this review.

This part of the paper outlines the training and development activities carried out by the authors and explains the target populations, the context in which managers operated and the part played by psychometric assessments in such activities. It then provides a literature review on the intersection of sex, gender and leadership. This looks at: the glass ceiling; leader preferences; gender stereotypes; gender stereotypes and leaders; attitudes towards women as leaders; leadership theories and gender stereotypes; sex differences in psychological traits; sex differences in leader behaviour and effectiveness. Finally, it presents a series of conjectures, derived from the literature review.

The literature review shows that the playing field that constitutes managerial ranks continues to be tilted in favour of men and behaviours associated with the male stereotype, despite what leadership theories and field evidence would suggest.

The research was also a by-product of the authors’ training and development work, not a purpose-built research programme to explain the “glass ceiling”. It relates to the UK Civil Service and may not be relevant in other contexts.

Later parts of the paper present prescriptions for minimising the impact of gender stereotypes, along with an evidence-based leadership framework. Training and development implications are presented. Findings are relevant to leaders, would be leaders and human resource professionals, including training and development specialists.

The vast majority of top leadership positions across the world are held by males rather than females. This prevents women from moving up the corporate ladder. This literature review describes the “glass ceiling” and explores what lies behind it.

Research on sex differences in behaviour, gender stereotypes and situational differences in both, in the UK Civil Service, are all original. Of particular importance is the new evidence-based framework of leadership competences.

Extant sales management literature shows that holding negative headquarters stereotypes (NHS) by salespeople is harmful to their sales performance. However, there is a lack of research on how managers can leverage organizational structures to minimize NHS in sales forces. This study aims to know how social network patterns influence the flow of NHS among salespeople and sales managers in a large B2B sales organization.

The authors hypothesize and test whether patterns of social networks among salespeople and sales managers determine the stereotypical attitudes of salespeople toward corporate directors and, eventually, impact their sales performance. The authors analyzed a multi-level data set from the B2B sales forces of a large US-based media company.

The authors found that organizational social network properties including the sales manager’s team centrality, sales team’s network density and sales team’s external connectivity moderate the flow of NHS from sales managers and peer salespeople to a focal salesperson.

First, the data was cross-sectional and did not allow the authors to examine the dynamics of social network patterns and their impact on NHS. Second, The authors only focused on advice-seeking social networks and did not examine other types of social networks such as friendship and trust networks. Third, the context was limited to one company in the media industry.

The authors provide recommendations to sales managers on how to leverage and influence social networks to minimize the development and flow of NHS in sales forces.

The findings advance existing knowledge on how NHS gets shared and transferred in sales organizations. Moreover, this study provides crucial managerial insights with regard to controlling and managing NHS in sales forces.

The purpose of this research is to develop and validate a new gender role stereotypes scale intended to be a short, effective, and modern measure of gender role attitudes.

A total of 800 participants completed an online survey, with 546 completing a second survey one week later. Recommended scale development procedures were utilized throughout in order to design and test the proposed instrument.

Item analyses determined a final set of most effective items, while exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses provided support for the eight‐item, two‐dimensional (female stereotypes, male stereotypes) scale (Gender Role Stereotypes Scale – GRSS). Additionally, internal consistency and test‐retest reliabilities were acceptable, as was the construct‐related validity. This study also finds that gender role stereotypes are best examined as a two‐factor construct (male, female), rather than conceptualized as two poles of a unidimensional continuum.

The GRSS has advantages over similar measures, including that it assesses attitudes toward both men and women with only eight items, and includes items that are easily understandable, cross‐culturally appropriate, and modern. Practitioners can use the GRSS to assess potential gender role stereotypes held by management. If managers are found to have highly traditional gender role stereotypes, organizations may be able to intervene before stereotypes affect performance ratings or task assignments.

This paper yields an updated and sound measurement scale to replace outdated scales assessing similar constructs and/or assessing only one gender role stereotype (male or female, versus both). The GRSS allows for the parsimonious, comprehensive, and effective measurement of gender role stereotypes in research and practice alike.