Study: If You’e Going To Be A Leader, At Least Act Like It! Prejudice Towards Women Who Are Tentative In Their Roles (British Journal of Psychology, 2013)
Finding: Women are penalized less than they used to be for being assertive leaders, but we still get dinged for being too tentative.
InPower Insight: Being assertive has always been a strong leadership trait, and as women leaders are penalized less for it in the workplace, we have fewer excuses not to lead with a confident style.
Summary:
For years research has told us that women are in a double bind when it comes to leadership. Our cultural stereotypes don’t reward us for being assertive/aggressive or nice and accommodating when it comes to leadership. Worse, being too nice can negatively affect a woman’s income.
But times, they are a changin’.
This new research out of Australia indicates that cultural shifts are taking place. In a study designed to measure how leaders are viewed when their leadership style is more tentative or assertive, the good news is that they discovered women were not longer rated lower than men for expressing assertiveness. The bad news is that women were penalized more than men for being tentative.
What did being tentative look like in the study? The “hesitant and tentative” speech that was evaluated was full of “you knows,” “ums” and other qualifiers and hedging language. They focused on communication because it is such a key part of a leader’s toolbox.
Career Coaching Tip: Note that this study was done with students, reflecting primarily a youthful cultural perspective. Thus, your 60 year old boss’ prejudices against assertive women may not have changed over night, but it is still a positive sign that by making your style more confident and less tentative it will pay off for you in your career. Don’t take this as advice to become nasty, simply examine your own language and behaviors for signs others would read as hesitant. Practice eliminating them from your repertoire one-by-one. If you still feel hesitant on the inside, that’s ok. Once you see that others respond positively to your more confident persona on the outside, it will help you build your confidence on the inside to match it!
Keywords: women leaders, assertiveness, leadership style, confidence, communication style
