Female Leaders And Transformational Leadership Management Essay

Female Leaders And Transformational Leadership Manage manpowert EssayAs the number of females in management direct increase in recent years, their attractorship style and the subordinates air are worth investigated. Among all leadershiphip styles, most female leaders choose transformational leadership. As stated by Powell (2004), when female leaders use transformational leadership style, they will be evaluated much favorably than male leaders. The reason behind is that transformational leadership is more associated with the feminine than masculine sex activity stereotype. The women transformational leaders also develop different behavior in cartel and lead to different team effectiveness and organisational citizenship behavior (OCB).Transformational leadershipThe concept of transformational leadership was first introduced by Burns (1978)iistating that transformational leadership is a process which leaders and followers help each opposite to advance to a higher level of morale and motive. Bass (1985)iiifurther developed Burnss concept that transformational leadership entailed establishing oneself as a role model by gaining followers leave and confidence. Transformational leaders state future goals, develop plans to achieve those goals, and innovate, even when their organization is generally successful. Transformational leaders are idealized that they are a moral example of passing towards the benefit of the team, organization and community.Bass (1985) theorized that transformational leadership comprises four dimensions individualized love, intellectual stimulant drug, inspirational motivation and idealized influence. Individualized consideration is the leaders role towards the followers and connects their inescapably. The leader gives support and empathy to followers so as to motivate them to accomplish the problems. Intellectual stimulation is about the leaders strength towards creativity and risks. Transformational leaders are willing to take risks and encourage followers to think independently and creatively. They think that the unexpected situations are the opportunity to learn. Inspiration motivation concerns the extents of leaders motivate the followers by giving them a clear vision to follow. When the followers understand the vision, they are willing to pay more suit in completing tasks and consequently fetch benefits to the team and company. Idealized influence is that leaders provide a role exemplar to followers demonstrating their ability and moral philosophy to gain respect and reliance of them.The four dimensions of transformational leadership are widely used in measuring transformational leadership. This leadership style concerns to influence followers to work better and eventually lead to intrinsic motivation towards the tasks. As this kind of leadership is evermore perceived as effective, it is becoming popular in the disdain industry as well as government.Female Leaders and transformational leadership It was obvious that women were not favor in filling high-level leadership position. Gary Yukl (2010)ivsuggested that this phenomenon was imputable to the gender-based discrimination about men were more qualified than women for leadership roles and involves three main assumptions. These assumptions were about traits and skills required for effective leadership in organizations, about spontaneous differences between men and women, and about the appropriate behavior for men and women. These hindered women from holding important and high-level leadership position in early years.However, the portion of women in executive level is increasing in recent years. Cookburn (1991)vsuggested that stereotypes of women include kindness, compassion, nurturing and sharing lead to a higher concern for women regarding interpersonal descent and consensus building. These unique characteristics bring women to high-level positions in company. And also due to these special attributes, women are more likel y to choose transformational leadership style.Women are always strong at masking the individualized consideration to followers. As they concern the interrelationship between people, they will undoubtedly show their support and empathy to the subordinates for the benefit of themselves and the whole team. The evidence is given by Eagly Johannessen-Schmidt (2002)vithat women were rated higher than men in most aspects of transformational leadership. As a result, women using transformational leadership style are perceived easier to bring to the success of teams. assertTrust between leader and subordinate is a key element of a team success. Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, Camerer (1998)viidefined trust as a psychological state comprising the designing to accept the vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behavior of another. Trust is important in some perspectives like reduction of harmful conflict and promotional material of effective responses to crisis (Roussea u et al. 1998). For a company, it is crucial for employees trust in the leader in explaining the visions and motivates employees to support the organization (Howarth, Rafferty, 2009)viii. Moreover, some studies (Sandy, Uma 1994 Perry, Mankin, 2004)ixxindicated that the gender of leaders and subordinates is an important fixings in perceived behavior. Therefore, understanding the trusting behavior of subordinates to a women leader can help on the better development of team and company.Trust and genderThe difference between women and men in interdependence is that women are more relationally interdependent while men are more collectively interdependent (Gabriel Gardner, 1999)xi. The hold states that women place more emphasis on relationships and interpersonal connections, while men are more likely to emphasize more depersonalized assemblage memberships and the importance of group identity. This can attribute to the nature and way of bringing up of women. Women are always by natu re more sociable. They are more removed and protect than are men from many of the unpleasant aspects of human nature (Wrightsman, 1974)xii. They are brought up with more concern about care and built up close relationship with others. This socialization process trains women to assume the best or to think well of people. So, as a result, women consider the relationship with people more than men do.In some studies (Schwieren and Sutter, 2004xiii Slonim, 2004xiv), the difference of trusting behavior between men and women is not significant. In a trust game by Eckel and Wilson (2004)xv, the result indicated that women trust less than men. But this is limited for the decisions made during the game. In normal condition, the gender has no effects on trust. Nevertheless, it can be deduced that women will trust the individuals with equitable relationship. They think that the one they rely on will act for the best of them. However, Maddux and Brewer (2005)xvistated that although women may h ave actually trusted the relationship stub more than men, they are less likely to make risky decision. That is, from the decision point of view, women will not take the risk and rather choose a safe option. This is not related to the matter of trust.Trust and transformational leadershipThe basic theory of transformational leadership posits trust as a central feature of the relationship that leaders have with their followers, and assume that it is through the followers trust in their leader (Bennis Nanus, 1985)xvii. This behavior of trust motivates the followers to perform better and beyond the expectations. In recent meta-analysis on trust and leadership, Dirks Ferrin (2002)xviiireported that the transformational leadership is a strongly predictive of trust. The evidences are given by other researchers (Bennis et al. 1985 pantryman, Cantrell, Flick, 1999xix Conger, Kanungo, Menon, 2000xx).Back to the four dimensions of transformational leadership, the researchers (Bennis et al . 1985 Butler et al. 1999 Conger et al. 2000) found that they all enhance trust between leaders and subordinates. Individualized consideration concerns about communication between leader and subordinates, understanding of needs and capabilities and developing subordinates strengths, which can demonstrate the care of leader about them. As a consequence, trust will build between both parties. Intellectual stimulation reinforces the leaders commitment to the development of the subordinates as well as the team, hence trust is built. Leader motivates and focuses subordinates efforts on tasks and goal, which is considered as inspirational motivation, can increase the trust level of both sides. Finally, idealized influence of leader shows the integrity and competence. Subordinates rely on the behaviors of leader and determine whether their leader is trustworthy. So, in general, transformational leaders are always perceived as trustworthy and easy to gain trust from subordinates.Impact of t rust and women transformational leaders on team effectivenessTrust in the leader is associated with the effort employees put into work (Dirks, Ferrin. 2002)xxi. The more effort employees put into work can be regarded as higher effectiveness of the leader. Gomez Rosen (2001)xxiireported that team members trust in their leader would be positively associated with the perceptions of leaders effectiveness. Therefore, the higher degree of trust on the leader, the better effectiveness them team will be.Women as leaders are always perceived as less effective than men (Eagly, Karau, Makhijani, 1995)xxiii. Eagly et al. (1995) found that male managers were more effective than women managers in positions that required strong task skills, while women managers were more effective in positions that required strong interpersonal skills. This finding is consistent with the previous statement of Wrightman (1974) that women are strong at and concern relationship with people. It can be predicted that for a position that required strong interpersonal skills and a female transformational leader has good relationship with subordinates, the trusting behavior will enhance the team effectiveness.