Who Wants Power More: Men or Women?

This study examined gender differences of various types of leaders in acquiring and exerting power. This paper followed the format, at least tangentially, used by French and Raven (1959), examining the impact of gender differences regarding by referent, expert, reward, coercive, and legitimate power. The research question was, “Do men or women use power more, and how do they acquire it?†Subjects were surveyed using a closed-ended questionnaire. Quantitative, descriptive, and qualitative data were analyzed. The results suggest that women want power more than men do in order to make a positive contribution to the organization. The outcomes also indicate that a high percentage of people have witnessed leaders exerting power use coercion, rewards, special knowledge, and respect to get subordinates to comply with them. This study is consistent with the findings of other researchers that women use transformational leadership as an integrative management approach for their own personal power. It does offer some theoretical and practical inferences.