Does Gender Matter for Leaders' Behavior and Effectiveness? Insights from A Field Experiment

This study examines gender differences in leadership behavior and effectiveness using a framed field experiment conducted in a large company. Leaders and followers in randomly assigned teams interacted in recorded online team meetings to discuss topics of strategic importance. Their behaviors were assessed through research assistant ratings and natural language processing, and effectiveness via external evaluations and follower surveys. We find that female leaders exhibited significantly more communal behaviors through elaboration on team members' ideas, frequent discussion contributions, and affirmative language than male leaders. However, these differences did not translate into superior team performance; male and female leaders showed com- parable effectiveness, particularly in external evaluations. Follower evaluations were more responsive to leader gender, with evidence of a communality bonus whereby male leaders received disproportionately positive evaluations for communal behaviors. Higher-level leaders achieved better team performance, regardless of gender. These findings suggest that leadership effectiveness is more strongly associated with developed expertise than with gender per se. Organizations may thus benefit from broadly developing leadership capabilities, alongside implementing evaluation systems that mitigate gender biases.