Page Title

Gender Differences in Social and Emotional Skills and Charismatic Leadership

February 27, 2006 

 The study of charismatic leadership has received considerable attention from leadership scholars, practitioners, and other writers in recent years.  A recent trend in leadership theory and research is the examination of social and emotional competence as key components of charismatic leadership.  Although research continues to support the relationship between social and charismatic leadership, very few studies have specifically addressed the impact of gender differences on this relationship.

 Several recent empirical studies provide evidence that women maybe more likely to enact charismatic leadership than men.  Bass, Avolio, and Atwater (1996) found that men are more likely to display transactional leadership than women, while women tend to perform transformational leadership behaviors.  Hypothesis 1: Female leaders will be rated higher on charismatic leadership than male leaders.

 A growing end in leadership theory and research, particularly transformational and charismatic leadership, is the extent to which a leader's social and emotional competencies contribute to effective leadership behavior.  Across a range of theoretical perspectives and measures of social, emotional, and related interpersonal abilities, there is an interesting and strong pattern of gender differences.  Specifically, women demonstrate greater social and emotional abilities than men.  Hypothesis 2: Gender will predict social skills such that female leaders will score higher on social skills than male leaders.  Hypothesis 3: Gender will predict emotional skills such that female leaders will score higher on emotional skills than male leaders.

 The last decade of leadership research, particularly transformational and charismatic theories, has seen a sharp increase in studies addressing the role of social and emotional intelligence.  In a recent theoretical article, Ashkanasy and Tse (2000) describe transformational leadership as the management of emotion, outline several aspects of emotional intelligence that contribute to transformational leadership behavior in organizations.  Sosik and Mayer's (1990) found that self-awareness, defined as agreement between self and others leadership ratings, predicted follower perceptions of transformational leadership.  Hypothesis 4: Social skills will partially mediate the relationship between leader gender and charismatic leadership.  Hypothesis 5: Emotional skills will partially mediate the relationship between leader gender and charismatic leadership.

 A total of 433 respondents, both managers and their direct followers (e.g., direct reports, work team members, etc.) from four organizations participated in this study.  The managers in the sample included 67 males (62%) and 41 females (38%) for a total of 108 leaders.  The ethnic breakdown of the managers was as follows: White (n= 70, 65%), Asian-American (n = 10, 9%), African-American (n = 10, 9%), Hispanic (n = 14, 13%), and Other (n = 4, 4%). The managers were employed at their current position for a significant number of years (M = 5.59, SD = 5.89).  There was a total of 325 followers in this study, with approximately three followers per manager (M + 3.32, SD = 1.42) and a range of two to seven followers per manager.

 Leader social and emotional skills were measured by an appreviated version of Riggio's (1989) Social Skills Inventory, a self-assessment instrument that measures an individual's repertoire of social and emotional interpersonal skills.  The leaders' charismatic leadership behavior was measured by Conger and Kanungo's (1994) charismatic leadership questionnaire.  This 23-item instrument asked followers to comment on the extent to which their leader exhibits a series of leadership behaviors.  Leader tenure and organization were used as control variables in the present study.

 Correlation, hierarchical regression, and Baron and Kenny's (1986) mediation analyses were utilized to test the hypotheses.  As expected, leader gender was related to follower ratings of charismatic leaders (r= .22, p <.05) as women were rated as more charismatic than their male counterparts. 

 The purpose of this study was to delineate the connections between leader gender, social and emotional skills, and charismatic leadership.  In addition to providing needed empirical support for the relationship between gender and charismatic leadership, the present study demonstrated women leaders' superiority in social and emotional competencies compared to their male counter parts.  Another important finding of the study was the mediating effects of social and emotional skills on relationship between leader gender and charismatic leadership.  An interesting and unexpected finding of the present study was the differing effects of leader tenure and gender on social and emotional skills. 

 The findings from the present study suggest key implications for organizational selection, promotion, and placement processes.  An important trend in the executive development literature is the increasing need of organizations to improve executives' social and interpersonal skills.  Finally, the finding that women's exceptional social and emotional competencies facilitate charismatic leadership behaviors has important implications for the advancement of women in leadership roles (Groves, 2005, p. 30-46)."

Reference:  Groves, K.S., (2005).Gender differences in social and emotional skills and charismatic leadership.  Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, Vol. 11, No. 3. 

The Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center.  To borrow this resource or any other resource please go to the resource search page  http://164.107.48.88/winnebago/index.asp?lib=???

If this is the first time you have borrowed resources from the OSU Leadership Center, please contact us at 614-292-3114 and we will register you in our library system.  Once you have been added to the system, you may request resources via the website.

Learn how the Ohio State University Leadership Center is strengthening tomorrow's leaders today at <http://leadershipcenter.osu.edu/>

Back to Top >

Created: 2007-08-28, Updated: 2009-02-17