Gender Issues In Leadership Style Behaviors of UK Managers

Question: Discuss about the Gender Issues In Leadership Stylefor Behaviors of UK Managers. Answer: Introduction: Over the years, it has been a hot topic on determining whether the leadership role and approaches of men and women are similar or dissimilar from an organizations perspective. There have been enough research studies on this topic spreading over several countries in identifying the dissimilarities and similarities existing between the men and women. The article that is being dealt with in this particular report takes in the style of leadership and behavior of the managers in the backdrop of UK using the questionnaire method of collecting data. Past studies have stated that the major difference that lies in the managerial styles of men and women are in their styles of inspiring motivation. Differences are there, especially when one considers their thinking to be different. Women managers are generally supportive and co-operative whereas men are more towards control, power and command. General Findings of the Article: The researchers, Titus Oshagbemi and Roger Gill attempted in contributing to the imminent in the debate on the existing phenomenon of gender similarities and differences in the styles of leadership and managerial behaviors. The researchers were able to find out that there were more similarities in their leadership styles and behaviors than differences. The research work failed to prove any sort of substantial difference through statistical analysis in determining differences in overall styles of leadership between men and women (Snaebjornsson and Edvardsson 2013). Similarities and Dissimilarities in Gender Based Leadership Styles: This article took account of the women leadership being task focused where day-to-day activities are run suitably, though it failed to focus on the importance of employee understanding a particular task from the strategically perspective of the organization. Task-focused leadership style lacks in this context. The researchers of this particular research study also stated that women leadership is transformational in nature taking into account the trust and confidence of their subordinates and followers. Transformational leadership is great to possess as it permits a leader in making necessary changes to the present model of business (Paustian-Underdahl, Walker and Woehr 2014). Women managers have been peers in following the transformational leadership that assists in re-inventing themselves at essential occasions. However, the article missed on the negativity factor that transformational leadership brings with it. Transformational leadership at times can put overemphasis on certain in dividuals. The need of the group needs to be balanced along with the individual preferences, leading to overemphasis of a single member. The research has been able to point out the main attributes of the characteristics of female leadership, which are consensus decision making, cheering dynamic advancements to conflict and promoting work place diversity. It has been stated that gender biasness is something that has been considered as a minor fact, emphasis should be on the men and women being recognized for skills that would help in maximizing the success of organizations. The article mentioned that approaches of leadership style of women are different from that of men due to differences in the life experiences. Researchers at Centre for Creative leadership in US studied that male and female leaders has differences in terms of leading capacity, dominance, creativity, capacity to motivate and capacity to reduce interpersonal confliction (Kark, Waismel-Manor and Shamir 2012). Chong (2013) argued that differences are not there in terms of capability, but in terms of opportunity. Wang et al. (2013) supported this view that women have been deprived in terms of career opportunity, field experiences, gender based stereotypes. In the view of some authors, the characteristics of male managers are risk taking attitude, quick decision making skills and sense of humor. They understated the female leadership by saying that sensitivity to individual and family needs are associated with the female leadership style. However, this is not true in the present business world. It is evident that female leaders are equally competent in managing a company or leading a nation. The article has conducted a qualitative data analysis to evaluate the perception of the UK managers regarding issue of gender in leadership. Interview analysis has found that as per the view of the managers, there is no difference in the competency between the male and female leaders at higher level of management. However, result of quantitative has also been presented here. The alpha value, which measures reliability of the data are greater than 0.7 for the parameters such as contingent reward, which is a part of transactional leadership (Oshagbemi and Gill 2003). Alpha value is high for individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation and idealized influence, which are part of transformational leadership. The result implies that the managers are well aware about the characteristics and effectiveness of different leadership style. Greater emphasis has been given by female managers on the attributes of transformational leadership, whereas male managers follow more of transactio nal leadership style. The research findings have stated that there is significant differences in the leadership style between male and female managers in UK.. As per literature review, female managers are more transformational in nature compared to male counterpart. According to Bass highlighted in the article, there are four components of transformational leadership such as charisma, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration and inspiration. Charisma is the ability of the leader to motivate the follower in performing their duty effectively. The article researched that motivational capacity is not different between male and female managers if same level of power is envisaged. Inspiration is providing vision to the followers to stimulate expectation. Communication is an effective mode to generate inspiration. Although it can be considered that there is no difference in leadership style between female and male managers, communication ability is more effective among female leaders (Lopez-Zafra, Garcia-Retamero and Martos 2012). Female can influence positively to the employees with positive incentives, while male managers take approach of threat based incentives. Siegling, Nielsen and Petrides (2014) discussed that male has more command and control style, while female managers are more sensible in nature. Cooperative style of leadership makes employees to feel themselves more valuable for the company. When it comes to judge intellect and innovation skills among men and female managers of UK, no differences are found among them possessing equal educational qualification. Individualized consideration refers to the support and personal attention to the followers provided by the leaders to boost up self confidence. Some authors argue that female managers can change them easily according to the changing business environment, while male managers cannot (Paustian-Underdahl, Walker and Woehr 2014). Hence, female managers are more transformational in nature although female participation at the managerial posts in different organizations worldwide including UK is far less than male participants. This scenario indicates that female intelligence is still not considered as effective as men in the business operation. They get less opportunity while it talks about the decision making of the leading positions of the organization. Conclusion It can be concluded after the study that the there are numerous views regarding gender discrimination in the leadership style as highlighted in the article. There are arguments both in favor and against female leadership. The finding of the article suggests that as per response from both male and female managers from UK, there are many disparities regarding leadership style and ability have been found. As per the responses, most of the male and female managers follow transformational leadership style in UK context. The leadership skill can be enhanced irrespective of male and female through education and training, it can be stated at last that both male and female employees to high level position of the organization with equal opportunity. References Chong, E., 2013. Managerial competencies and career advancement: A comparative study of managers in two countries.Journal of Business Research,66(3), pp.345-353. Kark, R., Waismel-Manor, R. and Shamir, B., 2012. Does valuing androgyny and femininity lead to a female advantage? The relationship between gender-role, transformational leadership and identification.The Leadership Quarterly,23(3), pp.620-640. Lopez-Zafra, E., Garcia-Retamero, R. and Martos, M.P.B., 2012. The relationship between transformational leadership and emotional intelligence from a gendered approach.The Psychological Record,62(1), p.97. Oshagbemi, T., and Gill, R., 2003. Gender Differences and Similarities in the Leadership Styles and Behaviors of UK Managers. [ retrieved from https://online.uts.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-1562588-dt-content-rid-8803519_1/courses/49069-2017-AUTUMN-CITY/49069%20Reading%20Material%20Final.pdf ] Paustian-Underdahl, S.C., Walker, L.S. and Woehr, D.J., 2014. Gender and perceptions of leadership effectiveness: A meta-analysis of contextual moderators. Siegling, A.B., Nielsen, C. and Petrides, K.V., 2014. Trait emotional intelligence and leadership in a European multinational company.Personality and Individual Differences,65, pp.65-68. Snaebjornsson, I.M. and Edvardsson, I.R., 2013. 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