IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v188y2023i1d10.1007_s10551-022-05313-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does Leader Character Have a Gender?

Author

Listed:
  • Gouri Mohan

    (IESEG School of Management)

  • Gerard Seijts

    (Western University)

  • Ryan Miller

    (Western University)

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Gouri Mohan & Gerard Seijts & Ryan Miller, 2023. "Does Leader Character Have a Gender?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 188(1), pages 169-186, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:188:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-022-05313-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-022-05313-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-022-05313-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-022-05313-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martijn Hendriks & Martijn Burger & Antoinette Rijsenbilt & Emma Pleeging & Harry Commandeur, 2020. "Virtuous leadership: a source of employee well-being and trust," Management Research Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 43(8), pages 951-970, February.
    2. David A. Matsa & Amalia R. Miller, 2011. "Chipping Away at the Glass Ceiling: Gender Spillovers in Corporate Leadership," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 635-639, May.
    3. Martijn Hendriks & Martijn Burger & Antoinette Rijsenbilt & Emma Pleeging & Harry Commandeur, 2020. "Virtuous leadership: a source of employee well-being and trust," Management Research Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 43(8), pages 951-970, February.
    4. John J. Sosik & Jae Uk Chun & Ziya Ete & Fil J. Arenas & Joel A. Scherer, 2019. "Self-control Puts Character into Action: Examining How Leader Character Strengths and Ethical Leadership Relate to Leader Outcomes," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(3), pages 765-781, December.
    5. David Bright & Bradley Winn & Jason Kanov, 2014. "Reconsidering Virtue: Differences of Perspective in Virtue Ethics and the Positive Social Sciences," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 119(4), pages 445-460, February.
    6. Lori D Paris & Jon P Howell & Peter W Dorfman & Paul J Hanges, 2009. "Preferred leadership prototypes of male and female leaders in 27 countries," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 40(8), pages 1396-1405, October.
    7. Gordon Wang & Rick D. Hackett, 2016. "Conceptualization and Measurement of Virtuous Leadership: Doing Well by Doing Good," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 137(2), pages 321-345, August.
    8. Lucas Monzani & Gerard H Seijts & Mary M Crossan, 2021. "Character matters: The network structure of leader character and its relation to follower positive outcomes," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(9), pages 1-25, September.
    9. David A. Matsa & Amalia R. Miller, 2011. "Chipping Away at the Glass Ceiling: Gender Spillovers in Corporate Leadership," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, pages 635-639.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hairunnisa Mohamad Ibrahim & Azlinda Hakim Lokman Hakim, 2024. "The Interplay of Gender Different: Transformative of Leadership Styles Influence Job Satisfaction of Front Office Personnel within the Hospitality Sector of Malaysia," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 8(12), pages 3365-3377, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Johan Graafland, 2023. "On Rule of Law, Civic Virtues, Trust, and Happiness," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 1799-1824, August.
    2. Lam, Kevin C.K. & McGuinness, Paul B. & Vieito, João Paulo, 2013. "CEO gender, executive compensation and firm performance in Chinese‐listed enterprises," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 1136-1159.
    3. Mario Daniele Amore & Orsola Garofalo & Alessandro Minichilli, 2014. "Gender Interactions Within the Family Firm," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(5), pages 1083-1097, May.
    4. Xing, Lu & Gonzalez, Angelica & Sila, Vathunyoo, 2021. "Does cooperation among women enhance or impede firm performance?," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(4).
    5. Joanna Tyrowicz & Hubert Drazkowski, 2024. "Implicit gender quota in European boardrooms," GRAPE Working Papers 96, GRAPE Group for Research in Applied Economics.
    6. Xu, Lei & Ou, Amy Y. & Park, Haemin Dennis & Jiang, Han, 2024. "Breaking barriers or maintaining status quo? Female representation in decision-making group of venture capital firms and the funding of woman-led businesses," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 39(1).
    7. Joanna Tyrowicz & Siri Terjesen & Jakub Mazurek, 2017. "All on board? New evidence on board gender diversity from a large panel of firms," GRAPE Working Papers 5, GRAPE Group for Research in Applied Economics.
    8. Baron, Justus & Ganglmair, Bernhard & Persico, Nicola & Simcoe, Timothy & Tarantino, Emanuele, 2024. "Representation is not sufficient for selecting gender diversity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(6).
    9. Laura Hospido & Luc Laeven & Ana Lamo, 2022. "The Gender Promotion Gap: Evidence from Central Banking," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(5), pages 981-996, December.
    10. Nikolaos Theodoropoulos & John Forth & Alex Bryson, 2019. "Are Women Doing It For Themselves? Gender Segregation and the Gender Wage Gap," DoQSS Working Papers 19-07, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    11. Chuan Chen & Michele Fioretti & Junnan He & Yanrong Jia, 2025. "Accelerating Equity: Overcoming the Gender Gap in VC Funding," Papers 2502.14984, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2025.
    12. Ashutosh Thakur & Jonathan Bendor, 2021. "Endogenous Organizational Restructuring: Status, Productivity, & Meritocratic Dynamics," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 084, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    13. Tobol, Yossef & Bar-El, Ronen & Arbel, Yuval & Azar, Ofer H., 2019. "Gender Differences in the Effect of Employee-Manager Friendships on Salary Dynamics in CPA Firms," IZA Discussion Papers 12707, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Alexander S. Kritikos & Mika Maliranta & Veera Nippala & Satu Nurmi, 2024. "Does gender of firm ownership matter? Female entrepreneurs and the gender pay gap," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 1-31, June.
    15. Sule Alan & Gözde Corekcioglu & Mustafa Kaba & Matthias Sutter, 2023. "Female Leadership and Workplace Climate," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 249, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    16. David A. Matsa & Amalia R. Miller, 2014. "Workforce Reductions at Women-Owned Businesses in the United States," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(2), pages 422-452, April.
    17. Ramos, Amparo & Latorre, Felisa & Tomás, Inés & Ramos, José, 2022. "TOP WOMAN: Identifying barriers to women's access to management," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 45-55.
    18. Justus Haucap & Christina Heldman, 2023. "On the sociology of cartels," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 289-323, October.
    19. Billur Aksoy & Christopher S. Carpenter & Dario Sansone, 2025. "Understanding Labor Market Discrimination Against Transgender People: Evidence from a Double List Experiment and a Survey," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 71(1), pages 659-677, January.
    20. Chen, Yi-Wen & Chu, Li-Hong & Lin, Chu-Bin & Zhao, Ping-Yu, 2025. "CEO gender and M&As: New evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:188:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-022-05313-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.