Leader or Leaderess? Consequences of Using Feminatives for the Perception of Leadership

According to the Implicit Leadership Theory, leadership roles are assigned in the process of social construction and depend upon the level of congruence with the cognitive representation of a leader. Previous studies show that this cognitive representation is much more likely to involve a leader being a male rather than a female. The article presents the results of an experiment aimed at tentatively verifying whether the use of the feminine forms could increase the cognitive availability of the representation of a woman as a leader. In the experiment, 135 teams (N = 307 respondents) were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: 1) generic instruction (without the use of feminatives, “Please, draw a leader”), 2) inclusive instruction (using feminatives, “Please, draw a leader/leaderess”). The results showed a significant interaction between the experimental manipulation and the proportion of women in the team. The use of feminine forms increased the percentage of females drawn as leaders only in teams with a high female-to-male ratio.

Host country employees’ negative perceptions of successive expatriate leadership: the role of leadership transference and implicit leadership theories

PurposeDrawing on socio-cognitively orientated leadership studies, this paper aims to contribute to our understanding of host country employees’ (HCEs) negative perceptions of successive expatriate leadership by exploring how their memories of shared past experiences affect these perceptions. Contrary to previous work which tends to focus on HCEs’ attitudes towards individual expatriates, the authors shift attention to successive executive expatriate assignments within a single subsidiary.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on an intrinsic case study carried out in a Polish subsidiary of an American multinational pharmaceutical company which had been managed by four successive expatriate General Managers and one local executive. The authors draw on interview data with 40 HCEs. Twenty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff who had been managed by at least three of the subsidiary’s expatriate leaders.FindingsThe authors demonstrate how transference triggered by past experiences with expatriate leaders as well as HCEs’ implicit leadership theories affect HCEs’ negative perceptions of expatriate leadership and lead to the emergence of expatriate leadership schema.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that explores the role of transference and implicit leadership theories in HCEs’ perceptions of successive executive expatriate assignments. By focussing on retrospective accounts of HCEs who had been managed by a series of successive expatriate leaders, our study has generated a more nuanced and contextualised understanding of the role of HCEs’ shared past experiences in shaping their perceptions of expatriate leadership. The authors propose a new concept – expatriate leadership schema – which describes HCEs’ cognitive structures, developed during past experiences with successive expatriate leaders, which specify what HCEs believe expatriate leadership to look like and what they expect from it.

The Pandemic Leadership Model: A Study of Medical Student Values During COVID-19

Background: Leadership training is of growing importance in medical education. The COVID-19 pandemic provides unique insight into the qualities and characteristics medical students value in leaders. Little standard information exists regarding best practices, competency-based leadership models or frameworks to guide leadership program development in undergraduate medical education. This study aims to determine what students value in leadership during a pandemic and what implicit leadership framework students use in order to inform medical education curricula. Methods: We developed a survey instrument aimed to uncover student perceptions of effective and ineffective leadership qualities and examples, both during the current COVID-19 pandemic and during crises in general. Results: Students identified the overarching themes of Communication, Other-Orientation, Personal Characteristics, Decisive Action, and Use of Information. These five themes were then built into the model of Pandemic Leadership within the context of complexity leadership theory and collective leadership theory. Conclusion: This study is unique in its focus on student perceptions of leadership qualities both in general, and during a time of challenge that can serve as a real-world laboratory for leadership. We hope that this information, along with the pandemic leadership model, can serve as the first step to useful and relevant leadership training programs in undergraduate medical education.

The conquest of gender prejudices over sales negotiations: which will prevail?

Study level/applicability Students from undergraduate and graduate levels. Subject area Leadership, implicit leadership theories, decision-making, gender stereotypes and discrimination. Case overview Defne was working as a sales manager in Diel Turkey, an international technology company. Diel focuses on software, hardware, network and business consultancy services. Defne had worked as a computer engineer before starting to work in the sales department. In her leadership, she gave importance to long-term relationships and justice. Defne had two meetings this week. The first one was with T&X, a big scale fast moving consumer goods company; and the other one was with Q-Coding, a medium-scale technology company. Defne had negotiated with T&X two years ago, and the project got canceled. Defne worked on T&X new contract very cautiously, as this time she wanted to finish the project and make the deal. Defne had to deal with prejudices during the T&X meeting. Implicit beliefs are grounded in the cultural background of the country, which determines the perceptual framework for the society. Male-dominated countries have implicit beliefs that women’s priorities should be their families, thus being successful at work is not expected. Defne faced male-oriented stereotypes, which challenged her in doing business. Even though she was a successful manager, these subjective beliefs made her perform poorly. During the meeting with Q-Coding, Defne discussed the prejudice for women leaders with a women entrepreneur Suzan. Expected learning outcomes This case is trying to achieve two main objectives: first, to make all students be aware of implicit leadership theories and beliefs, which are rooted in the countries’ cultural background; second, to make female students be aware of these dysfunctional coping behaviors and increase their self-efficacy without thinking about their gender roles. Subject code CSS 7: Management science

Leadership legitimacy and the mobilization of capital(s): Disrupting politics and reproducing heteronormativity

The rise of populist leaders in the political sphere mounts a challenge to normative understandings of leadership. To better understand this challenge, we examine how political leaders mobilize different forms of social capital in pursuit of leadership legitimacy, providing insight into the dynamics of how leadership norms are maintained. While research has tended to focus on specific forms of capital, this article considers capital as multidimensional and strategically mobilized. The article applies a multimodal analysis to examine interactions between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during peak ‘Twitter Moments’ of the three 2016 presidential election debates. We theorize the paradoxical dynamics of the mobilization of multiple capitals and their intersection as a simultaneously disruptive and reproductive resource. While the mobilization of multiple capitals operates to disrupt traditional notions of who can claim legitimacy as a leader in the political field, their disruptive mobilization serves to reproduce implicit heteronormative leadership values. Hence, our theorization illuminates the resilience of implicit leadership values, and their intimate connection with heteronormativity, calling for the need to interrogate leadership legitimacy claims that promise ‘new’ approaches.

The Relationship Between Follower Affect for President Trump and the Adoption of COVID-19 Personal Protective Behaviors

In the current series of studies, we draw upon implicit leadership theories, social learning theory, and research on decision making to investigate whether affect toward President Trump explains U.S. residents’ evaluations of his leadership during the COVID-19 crisis, as well as the likelihood that that residents engage in personal protective behaviors. A meta-analysis using 17 nationally representative datasets with a total of 26,876 participants indicated that participants who approve of President Trump tend to approve of his leadership regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and were less likely to engage in personal protective behavior (PPBs; i.e., hand washing, wearing a mask or other face covering in public, and social distancing). On the other hand, those disapproving of President Trump also tended to disapprove of his leadership during the COVID-19 crisis and were more likely to engage in PPBs. In a second study, using an established measure of leader affect (leader affect questionnaire) and controlling for political party, we replicated and extended these results by demonstrating that expending cognitive effort toward understanding the COVID-19 crisis attenuated the relationship between affect toward President Trump and (1) approval of his leadership during the COVID-19 crisis and (2) engagement in some, but not all, PPBs.

Being suspicious in the workplace: the role of suspicion and negative views of others in the workplace in the perception of abusive supervision

PurposeResearch reported in this manuscript focuses on the relationship between trait suspicion and the perception of abusive supervision. Based on previous research, the authors assume that suspicion is positively related to the perception of abusive supervision. The role implicit theories play in this relationship is examined.Design/methodology/approachTwo studies are presented to examine the relationship between trait suspicion and the perception of abusive supervision as moderated by implicit leadership theories. The first study is a survey study, and the second study is an experimental vignette study.FindingsResults of both studies indicate that suspicion is positively related to the perception of abusive supervision and that implicit leadership theories moderate the relationship between suspicion and the perception of abusive supervision.Research limitations/implicationsResults are interpreted in terms of biases in leadership perception as well as the reversing-the-lens perspective.Originality/valueWhile there is progress in taking into account follower characteristics and the resulting perceptual biases in the study of constructive leadership phenomena such as transformational leadership, less is know about the follower perception aspect of destructive leadership phenomena. With this research, the authors extend research into the influence of follower characteristics on the perception of abusive supervision and also look at boundary conditions of this relationship by including implicit leadership theories as a moderator.

Democratic leadership as a political weapon: competition between fictions and practices

PurposeThis article aims to analyze possible interpretations of democratic leadership by revealing the implicit leadership theory (ILT) of a moral, a material and a political ideal of democracy, namely deliberative–participatory democracy (DPD), aggregative–pluralist democracy (APD) and leader democracy (LD). As special “filters,” ILT helps the author to organize and compare conflicting premises and assumptions democratic theories hold about exemplary leadership and followership.Design/methodology/approachIn order to reconstruct the possible meanings of ideal leadership (challenges and political knowledge) and the ideal followership (power relations, interactions and roles) portrayed by theories, the article sets a specific template for conceptual analysis.FindingsThe author argues that there is a contest over the meaning of democratic leadership. Political leaders use leadership fictions as political weapons to mobilize possible followers, legitimize their actions and discredit opponents. The article creates a heuristic typology providing a “plural” or nonessentialist reading of actual political situations and democratic practices.Originality/valueThe literature usually aims to find an absolute moral understanding of leadership fitted in democracy or to reconcile the idea of leadership with democracy. Extending J. Thomas Wren's approach, this article examines competing fictions of democratic leadership by blending leadership and democracy theories.

Implicit leadership theory: principals' sense-making and cognitive complexity

PurposeThis conceptual paper explores a novel model explaining teachers' perceptions of their effective leader through the lens of implicit leadership theory (ILT), using the concepts of school principals' sense-making and cognitive complexity (CC).Design/methodology/approachThe sense-making framework and CC theory were used to explain ILT, which focuses on individuals' perceptions of leaders' prototypical and anti-prototypical attributes.FindingsThe theoretical model suggests that school principals as sense-makers with high levels of CC will be perceived by teachers as effective in terms of leadership prototypes, whereas teachers' perceptions of principals with low levels of CC will be related to leadership anti-prototypes.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper suggests a model for a multidimensional understanding of the relationship between principals' sense-making and CC and their influence on teachers' perceptions of an effective leader.Originality/valueOpening avenues for future research into employee perceptions of different leadership characteristics, this model emphasizes the cognitive aspects of school principals within implicit leadership theories. This theoretical model should be further examined empirically, and other types of CC, such as social and behavioral aspects, or affective complexity and self-complexity, should be considered.