Similarly, Eagly and Johnson (1990) argued that their findings provided reliable evidence that gender differences did exist in leadership style, whereby women leaders, more than men, emphasized both interpersonal relations and task accomplishments. Their comprehensive meta-analysis consisted of three types of studies: (1) laboratory experiments, in which they compared the behaviour of male and female leaders in group simulations; (2) assessment studies, which compared the behavioural inclinations of men and women: and (3) organizational studies, which compared the actual behaviour of men and women leaders. From their studies, they concluded that women tended to be more interpersonal and task-oriented than men; and that women managers were considerably more democratic than male managers who were more autocratic.

To begin, we should first define what the term “leadership” entails. In the past, the definitions of leadership and management were used interchangeably (Robbins & Langton, 2001). Both expressed the notions of planning, designing, monitoring and implementing organizational objectives (Robbins & Langton, 2001). More recently, however, efforts have been made to distinguish leadership from the concept of management. As described by John Kotter of Harvard Business School (as cited in Robbins & Langton, 2001), “managers bring about order and consistency by drawing up formal plans, designing rigid organizational structures, and monitoring results against the plans” (p. 418-419), while contrastingly, “leaders…establish direction by developing a vision of the future; then they align people by communicating this vision and inspiring them…” (p.419). In other words, the role of leadership has expanded to encompass more abilities than just supervisory and management skills.

Some topics in this essay:
Eagly Johnson, Davidson Ferrario, Collins Gender, Van Engen, Pounder Coleman, Similarly Carless, Burke Collins, Robbins Langton, Eagly Johannesen-Schmidt, BASED GENDER, leadership styles, female managers, leadership style, burke collins, collins 2001, burke collins 2001, carless 1998, eagly johnson 1990, davidson ferrario, pounder coleman, coleman 2002, male female, pounder coleman 2002, engen et al, 2001 eagly johnson,