Scientific American - November 2018

SOURCE: “GENDER AND LEADERSHIP EMERGENCE: A META-ANALYSIS AND EXPLANATORY

MODEL,”

BY K ATIE L. BADURA ET AL., IN

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY,

VOL. 71, NO. 3; AUTUMN 2018

ADVANCES

18 Scientific American, November 2018

0 0.2 0.5 0.8 1.0

Small Small to Medium Medium to Large Large

Overall leadership

emergence

Setting

Time spent

interacting

Social complexity

of task

Lab

Classroom

Business

None

Less than 20 minutes

More than 20 minutes

More than one interaction

Highh

Low

Size of Gender Gap

3ïD ́mDàmŸĆym$yD ́Ÿ‡yày ́`y

GENDER EQUALITY

Time for

Women

Leaders

The gender gap in leadership

narrows when groups spend

more time together

Only 28 percent of American CEOs are

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students or co-workers were asked to

select group leaders or to rate one another

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Some of the papers also measured group

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as leaders more often than women. But

that gap varied depending on the length

of inter action and other factors ( graphic ).

The data suggest that men were more

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tive personalities and thus spoke up more.

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Other research shows that male and

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Considering the gender gap at the top

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of addressing this situation; rather org ani-

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their perspectives.

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šDþxä ̧­xxî ̧îD§¦ÍÚ Matthew Hutson

People are generally less likely to recognize leadership qualities in women than in men.

But this gender gap shrinks when a group interacts for longer periods of time, a study

shows. Researchers also looked at other variables, including the setting and social

complexity of tasks being studied. Laboratory settings had a larger gender gap than

business ones, but once the length of time employees interact with one another was

considered, the gap became wider in business settings. This indicates that whereas

length of interaction time is important, business environments may have additional

factors that perpetuate the gender gap. Groups engaged in socially complex activities—

such as innovative problem-solving—exhibit a relatively small gender gap, but this

disappeared after accounting for other factors.

(^) Graphic by Amanda Montañez
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