RT Article
T1 Does leader character have a gender?
JF Journal of business ethics
VO 188
IS 1
SP 169
OP 186
A1 Mohan, Gouri
A1 Seijts, Gerard
A1 Miller, Ryan
A2 Seijts, Gerard
A2 Miller, Ryan
LA English
YR 2023
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1869718690
AB Virtues and character strengths are often assumed to be universal, considered equally important to individuals across cultures, religions, racial-ethnic groups, and genders. The results of our surveys and laboratory studies, however, bring to light subtle yet consistent gender differences in the importance attributed to character in leadership: women considered character to be more important to successful leadership in business than did men, and women had higher expectations that individuals should demonstrate character in a new leadership role. Further, the gender of the research participant affected character ratings such that male respondents viewed a female leader who exhibited agentic behaviors in a professionally challenging situation less positively than a male leader who displayed the same agentic behaviors. The data also showed that male participants rated almost every dimension of character displayed by the female leader lower than did female participants. Our findings suggest that the question as to what extent gender differences may bias the assessment of virtues and character strengths is an important one, and one for which the practical implications for individuals in organizations need to be studied in more detail.
K1 Bias
K1 Character strengths
K1 Gender
K1 Leader character
K1 Leadership
K1 Virtues
K1 Aufsatz in Zeitschrift
DO 10.1007/s10551-022-05313-9