Gender stereotype assimilation, reactance and female leadership performance

Introduction

This article starts from explaining the leadership labyrinth that impedes females from pursuing high-level leadership positions and introducing the relevant literatures on the most significant social cause behind the phenomenon, gender stereotype. Then, the influences of gender stereotypes on leadership are critically discussed. Another important filed of literatures related to gender stereotypes is assimilation and reactance, reactions to unfair gender stereotypes. Finally, research on relationships between the two reactions and female leaders’ performance and expectations is illustrated with two real-world examples. 

Gender Leadership Disparities – Leadership Labyrinth 

Research on gender in leadership came to the attention of academia in the 1970s, and the discussions on female leadership emerged with the increasing presence of women in corporate and political leadership roles. Global gender disparities in leadership reflect that women usually hold middle or low level of management positions compared to men in the high level (Powell & Graves, 2003). According to the 2017 S&P 500 list, there were only 24 (4.8%) women CEOs in those Fortune 500 companies, and this percentage increased scantly from 4% in 2015. As for women in politics, currently there are only 10 female heads of government who are elected democratically as presidents or prime ministers around the globe (Catalyst, 2018). 

These figures apparently highlighta tremendous incongruity between male and female leadership. The most pervasive explanation of this disparity is that there are invisible and impassable social barriers, “glass ceilings”, that hinder women from pursuing senior leadership positions (Hymowitz & Schellhardt, 1986). Another metaphor of this barrier was forwarded by Eagly and Carli (2007). They upgraded the single “ceiling” to a more complicated and winding, full-of-corners-and-walls “labyrinth”, which expresses countless obstacles all along their way to leadership roles.  

To link gender disparity with leadership theories, there are three prominent explanations of the gender gap in leadership: human capital, gender differences in leadership styles & efficiencies, and prejudice & stereotype (Northouse, 2016). Among these three building blocks of gender leadership labyrinth, human capital and gender differences are objective attributes and that women and men have small disparities, which was supported by Eagly and Carli’s research (2007) on different genders’ education level and work experience, and by van Engen, Leeden, & Willemsen’s meta-analyses (2001 & 2004) on different genders’ leadership styles. However, it is worth noticing that prejudice & stereotype is the only subjective factor among these three and the most influential factor on gender gap in leadership. The term “Social Stigma”, paraphrase of stereotyped gender expectations, was used by Hoyt and Chemers (2008) to emphasize the significance of gender bias. 

Gender Stereotype of Leadership 

The gender biases in leadership are rooted in gender stereotyped expectations. Originally, from the perspective of social cognition and psychology, Hamilton et al (1994) defined “stereotypes” as cognitive shortcuts that allow people to spontaneously assign pre-assumed characteristics to other objectives, including individuals and groups, regardless of the true characteristics of such objectives. Therefore, when applying gender stereotypes to leadership, the negative influences of gender stereotypes on female leaders are enlarged. Common gender stereotypes on female leadership prejudicially judge that women lack the necessary traits which leaders have to possess, such as masculinity, toughness, rationalness, confidence and assertiveness. Even though women are stereotyped with communal characteristics such as careness, nurturance and empathy, yet these biological and psychological traits, compared to males’ agentic characteristics, were only seen as assistant traits that contribute to women’s junior management roles rather than elite leadership roles. (Deaux & Kite, 1993; Heilman, 2001). Therefore, gender stereotype is derived from the social cognitions and conveys the discriminations, disparities and unjust opportunities to the female leadership. One famous example of gender stereotype of leadership was the 1989 Supreme Court case Price Waterhouse v. Ann Hopkins. It ended up with a heavy penalty on Price Waterhouse due to gender discrimination (Fiske et al, 1991). 

To dig deeply into the theories related to gender stereotypes of leadership, three multi-dimensional research findings need to be further explained. 

First, social experiments revealedthat gender stereotype of leadership is a common social phenomenon that accepted widely around the world. It resists to changes and has existed for a long time (Heilman, 2001). 

Second, gender stereotype of leadership is reflected on the “gender-leadership style consistence” . This theory defined that men with masculine leadership style and women with feminine style are considered as gender-consistent leaders. For female participants, gender-inconsistent masculine female leaders are evaluated more positively than gender-consistent masculine male leaders, indicating their willingness on stepping over unfair gender stereotype subconsciously (Embry, et al, 2008).

Third, fair performance expectations and opportunities depend on the capabilities and willingness of negotiation from the stereotyped females. Negotiation is one of the approaches that women could use to fight against unfair treatments related to gender bias in any organizations. The capabilities and willingness to negotiate are closely related to the stereotype assimilation and reactance theories proposed by researchers Hoyt and Simon (2013). When the motivations and the capabilities of negotiating are high, it is highly possible that gender stereotype would be reduced to some extent. Especially, the power and cognition that female negotiators bring to the bargaining table are important factors that decide whether they behave stereotype assimilation or reactance (Kray, et al, 2004). 

Gender Stereotype Assimilation and Reactance

Traditional research on gender stereotype indicated that it undermines individuals’ abilities and results in unsatisfactory gender-biased performance (Aronson et al., 1998; Steele & Aronson, 1995). Stereotype assimilation and stereotype reactance are two opposite reactions towards gender stereotype. Stereotype assimilation refers to confirming the performance deficits due to stereotype, and stereotype reactance refers to assertive attitude on resisting stereotype. However, it is worth emphasizing that these two reactions are not mutually exclusive and they may coexist and interconvert according to the situations, the degree of stereotype, the consequences of unfair treatment and level of leadership in an organization. They are interchangeable and dynamic (Stoddard, Kliengklom, & Ben-Zeev, 2003).

For example, the famous British entrepreneur and philanthropist Dame Stephanie Shirley started her own venture, an entire-women IT company called Freelance Programmers Ltd, back in 1959. At the early stage there were only tens of female employees working on computers’ hardware and software programming. As the founder, she challenged the gender stereotype in the whole IT industry that women were naturally not good at programming, and women lacked the vison and confidence to lead an IT company. Hardly any companies wanted to do business with them at that time, so she compromised to stereotype and turned to stereotype assimilation by replacing her real name, Stephanie, with a more male name, Steve, in the letters to potential clients. She didn’t believe that a woman can manage the company as successfully as man does. She also showed stereotype assimilation when she allowed female employees to work part-time to cater to their domestic responsibilities, including bringing up children, caring for husband and doing housework instead of challenging gender stereotype to strive for full time jobs. One self-mockery quotation from her is“You can always tell ambitious women by the shape of our heads: They're flat on top for being patted patronizingly. And we have larger feet to stand away from the kitchen sink.” (Shirley, 2014). 

However, when the market value of her company sored up to nearly three billion dollars thanks to thriving business opportunities from airplane industry and Margaret Thatcher and the Queen Elizabeth’s policy subsidy for female entrepreneurs, she turned to stereotype reactance. She first hired male employees to show her growth of confidence and she expended the company’s size to thousands of employees and won the business order for programming Concorde's black box flight recorder. She used her own actions and the performance of the company to show the world that women are also qualified to be successful business leaders. She said to women in a male-dominated IT environment that “Nothing in the industry is dependent on physique or the timbre of our voice, or innate physicality in any way.”(Shirley & Boddy, 2007), later she also promoted female executive explosion underlying life-style change in the company’s corporate strategy, anchoring her determined attitude on gender stereotype reactance in the IT industry (Shirley, 1989).

Therefore, according to Stephanie’s case, the interchangeable relationship between gender stereotype assimilation and reactance is related to the external political & economic environment and social development. The choice of being “for” or “against” stereotype is not an independent decision that comes out of female leaders’ mind occasionally (Bergeron, Block, & Echtenkamp, 2006). 

Moreover, personal characteristics and experiences may also influence the reactions and performances. Stephanie Shirley was as a refugee child transported from Nazi Germany to the England in 1938 by the “Kindertransport” rescue project (Golabeck & Cohen, 2002). The tough childhood experience contributed to her strong and decisive entrepreneurial leadership styles in her later life. After her son was diagnosed autism, her personal trait became even more strong and solid as she mentioned in her biology (Shirley & Askwith, 2014). These factors all lead to stereotype reactance in her late career and life as an independent female leader. 

Counterintuitively, gender stereotype could even be a positive motivation for female leaders who have strong mentality. In a laboratory study, Hoyt and Blascovich (2007) revealed that high-efficacy female leaders can actually benefit from gender stereotypes if they show stereotype reactance. Because resistant females often negotiate for fair performance expectations. In the negotiations, stereotype reactance actions are dependent on the stereotyped negotiator’s available resources and power (Kray, et al, 2004), this finding also explains why Stephanie Shirley became increasing confident on leading the company, negotiating with clients for fair business opportunities, and fighting against gender prejudice in the IT industry, as her company became continuously valuable and sizeable in the industry. 

However, it is reasonable to criticize that Stephanie’s case is highly situational since she was a female entrepreneur. Wirth’s research on women in management (2001) showed that females may circumvent the gender stereotypes barriers by being entrepreneurs or starting self-owned ventures. It indirectly indicated that Stephanie might encountered less gender stereotypes than females who worked in other formats of companies. Intuitively, entrepreneurship is considered as a masculine career choice which needs courage, confidence and other agentic characteristics. But a counterargument emerged from Gupta’s research (2008) saying that if the masculine stereotypes related to entrepreneurship are openly discussed in the public, for example in laws, regulations and media, males and females could even avoid being subconsciously influenced by stereotypes in pursuing entrepreneurship career. 

Another important variable that influences stereotyped females’ reactions and performances is leadership style. One example is from the COO of Facebook and author of best-selling book Lean in, Sheryl Sandberg.

Sheryl was considered as a transformational leader by her colleagues in Google and Facebook. She has also made hundreds of public speeches, university commencements speeches and company internal speeches. Her inspiring stories spreadall over the world through her biography book Lean In. 

Transformational leadership is naturally more gender-neutral than other leadership styles. As shown in a meta-analyses research (Eagly et al., 2003; van Engen & Willemsen, 2004), female leaders are evaluated as more transformational than their male colleagues, indicating that transformational leadership’s feature of individualized motivation is thought to be important for females’ leadership advancement to senior management (Vinkenburg, et al, 2011). Sheryl’s case indicates that being a transformational leader is a possible approach to circumvent unfair gender stereotypes and to avoid stereotype assimilation. 

Sheryl also successfully managed to improve her masculine characteristics without compensating her feminine characteristics by avoid internalizing systematic discrimination and societal gender roles. The “lean in” concept is her manifesto declared to fight against gender stereotypes of leadership (Sandberg, Scovell & Nell, 2013). As a result, by combining the transformational leadership with masculine characteristic, she successfully performed beyond the gender stereotype expectation. In 2012 she became the eighth member (and the first woman) of Facebook's board of directors, and in 2016 she propelled Facebook to a new height of 57% revenue growth to $26.9 billion (Raice & Lublin, 2012), demonstratingheroutperformance in female leadership. 

Therefore, female leaders’ performance following either stereotype assimilation or reactance depends on many factors, including political & economic environment, personal experiences, leadership styles and so on. The two responses to gender stereotypes might have opposite influences on leaders’ performance, but more often they are interchangeable and could coexist. Research on the responses to gender stereotypes indicated that different reactions are situational and changeable over time, compared to the stereotypes which are pervasive and resistance to change over time. (Dodge, Gilroy, & Fenzel, 1995; Heilman, 2001). 

Conclusion

In summary, gender stereotype is the subjective cause of leadership labyrinth, the source of biased evaluations and performance expectations on female leaders, and the catalyser of stereotype assimilation and reactance. The basic effect of gender stereotype, as concluded by Hoyt et al (2010), is that it has direct and significant influences on female leaders and those who are pursuing leadership positions. Especially when gender stereotype is combined with other stereotypes such as race and age stereotypes, its negative effects on females are enlarged. Moreover, the situational factors such as political & economic environment and the personal leadership characteristics such as leadership efficacy and experiences will also lead to different consequences and performance expectations of gender stereotypes. As a result, a flexible and objective view on gender stereotype of leadership should be built on the individual level. As for the society level, as long as the negative effects of gender stereotypes on females leaders exist, people from the academia and various industries still need to pay attention to the gender stereotype and try to reduce it progressively in order to build a gender-neutral and harmonious world. 

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