Follower perceptions of leader classroom behavior.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of leader/follower gender and how gender similarities/differences impact ratings of leader behavior. In a sample of 318 undergraduates, males saw their professors as exhibiting more transactional leadership while females saw these same professors as exhibiting greater transformational leadership. Overall, female professors were rated higher in transformational leadership than were male professors who, in turn, were consistently rated higher on transactional leadership.

Introduction

As more women are employed in leadership positions, there has been an increase in research concerning gender and leadership (Vecchio, 2002) often with a focus on the transactional-transformational paradigm with attention given to gender differences (Aldoory & Toth, 2004). However, researchers caution that care should be taken not to oversimplify the factors used to conceptualize and measure leadership and note that differences between male and female leaders may not be straightforward (Antonakis, Avolio, & Sivasubramaniam, 2003). Evidence of clear-cut leadership differences between men and women remains contentious (van Engen, van der Leeden, & Willemsen, 2001). While male and female leaders have been found to be equally effective in a variety of contexts, differences in their leadership behaviors have been noted (Eagly, Karau, & Makhijani, 1995); in particular female leaders appear to use transformational leadership behaviors more often, especially individual consideration, while male leaders tend to use management-by-exception more frequently (Antonakis, Avolio, & Sivasubramaniam, 2003). This research sought to further investigate gender differences in transactional and transformational leadership styles from the perspective of the follower, or in this case the evaluation of educators, who may be seen as instructional leaders by students.

Background

Transactional leadership is generally based on exchanges between leaders and followers with an emphasis on a cost-benefit exchange process (Burns, 1978). In this type of leadership the leader specifies the performance criteria, the desired outcomes, and what the followers can expect in return. (House, Woycke & Fodor, 1988). Transactional leaders are seen as task oriented and focused on immediate results (Burns, 1978; Bass, 1997). Transactional leadership, characterized by task performance, high structure, and organizational goal attainment, is often considered masculine (van Engen, van der Leeden, & Willemsen, 2001).

Alternatively, transformational leadership involves strong personal identification with a leader, presentation of a vision of the future that can be shared (Yammarino & Bass, 1990), and motivating followers beyond original expectations (Hartog et al., 1997). Transformational leaders foster an emotional attachment that promotes inspiration beyond the immediate needs of the individual. These leaders strive to gain the trust and confidence of their subordinates and may involve them in a mentoring process and attempt to help followers reach their full potential (Eagly, Johansesen-Schmidt, & van Engen, 2003). Transformational leadership has been referred to as feminine leadership due to its attention to individual consideration and intellectual stimulation (van Engen, van der Leeden, & Willemsen, 2001).

The multifactor leadership questionnaire, known as the MLQ, is most commonly used to measure transformational and transactional leadership styles and has been used to investigate gender differences (Antonakis, Avolio, & Sivasubramaniam, 2003; Avolio, Bass, & Jung, 1999; Bass & Avolio, 1995). Transformational and transactional leadership have been found to be complementary and independent according to the developers of the instrument and the MLQ measures the entire range of leadership behaviors (Alimo-Metcalfe & Alban-Metcalfe, 2001).

In meta-analysis research on the differences in leadership between men and women, women exhibited more transformational leadership behaviors than men (Eagly, Johansesen-Schmidt, & van Engen, 2003) and adopted a more democratic or participative style and a less autocratic and directive style than men (van Engen, 2001). Studies evaluating leaders indicated that people reacted more negatively towards women who demonstrated an autocratic, directive leadership style than towards men with a similar style (Eagly, Makhijani, & Klonsky, i 992). Taken together, it appears that women, compared to men, adopt a less favorable leadership style less often (Eagly, Johansesen-Schmidt, & van Engen, 2003). However, one must be careful not to simply use gender as a reason for a difference. As Robinson and Lipman-Blumen (2003) noted, gender should not be used as a primary predictor of narrowly defined leadership behaviors; it appears that leadership issues are not based on gender alone.

According to Walumbwa, Wu, & Ojode (2004), the gender of the student impacts the perception of an instructor's leadership style. Additionally, the author's findings suggest that students' gender-schema parameters may influence how students assess an instructor's effectiveness. For example, due to male self-schema, male students may perceive transactional leadership styles as being more salient than do female students. Walmubwa, Wu, and Ojode (2004) found that regardless of gender, students gave unfavorable ratings of passive/avoidant leader behaviors where action is not taken unless problems have occurred or mistakes have been made. In contrast, students in the same sample gave favorable assessments to active management by exception where the leader pays close attention to mistakes and has an extensive monitoring and control system in place to provide early indications of problems. Other leadership behaviors rated highly were inspirational behaviors, those that provided intellectual stimulation, and those that exhibited individualized consideration.

This research investigated how male and female students viewed their instructors in college classes in terms of the transformational and transactional leadership components of the MLQ. In this study, the genders of the instructor (leader) and the student (follower) were considered.

Method

The version of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) used for this research was from the work of Avolio, Sivasubramaniam, Murry, Jung, and Garger (2003). This version of the MLQ uses 23 items to measure three components of transformational leadership, namely inspirational leadership, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. Leaders who inspire followers tend to instill in the followers a willingness to exert extra effort and drive to excel. The concept of intellectual stimulation is related to the degree a leader encourages followers to think through issues and problems on their own and, in the process, develop self-confidence in their own abilities. Individualized consideration refers to the degree of caring and empathy a leader has in the process of giving followers challenging assignments. Leaders who are rated highly in individualized consideration are skilled in active listening and tend to have highly developed communication skills as a whole. In addition, the instrument measures two transactional leadership scales, namely management by exception active (MBEA) and passive/avoidant.

The study involved the administration of the survey to 318 upper level undergraduate students at a medium-sized, regional, comprehensive university. Of this group, 198 subjects were male and 120 were female. The subjects were drawn from 25 sections of 18 unique courses as led by 13 different professors (7 male, 6 female). The survey was scheduled towards the end of the semester at the convenience of the instructor of record for the course and the protocol associated with the survey event was led by an experimental administrator who previously had no contact with the course as a whole. The breakdown of the sample is as follows: male professor/male student n=118; male professor/female student, n=44; female professor/male student, n=80; female professor/female student n=76.

To assess the relative differences in leadership perceptions of the raters within the four gender conditions, we used the Bonferroni test. The Bonferroni test is based on the Student's t-test and adjusts the observed significance level to account for the number of comparisons made reducing the chances of a Type I error arising from error and the post hoc nature of the analysis (Harris, 1975; Rosenthal & Rosnow, 1991). Since we did not require greater power in any test for significance over the others, alphas for each of the comparisons were equally set at the 0.05 level. Based on confirmatory factor analysis of the scales, one item each from the inspirational leadership scale and the passive/avoidant scale were excluded from the analysis due to inconclusive factor loadings.

Results

Means, standard deviations, and scale correlations for measures included in the present study are included in table 1. See issue website http://rapidintellect.com/ AEQweb/sum2006.htm

Female students rated female professors significantly higher on the inspirational leadership scale as compared to male professors rated by male students (p=.036). Similarly, female students rated female professors as being significantly higher in indices of intellectual stimulation than did male professors' ratings as supplied by male students (p=.006) and female professors were also rated higher in this leadership dimension by their male students (p=.032) than were male professors rated by male students. This pattern of significance was also repeated when contrasting female students' ratings of female professors' individualized consideration scale. This rater/ratee combination produced significantly higher values of individualized consideration when compared to male professors who were rated by male students (p=.001). In addition, ratings of individualized consideration of male professors as rated by male students were inferior to ratings of female professors as rated by male students (p=.036).

When analyzing transactional leadership behaviors, the pattern of results changed dramatically from that discussed above. Male professors rated by male students scored significantly higher on Management by Exception-Active and Passive/Avoidant than did female professors being rated by female students (p=.007 and <.001, respectively). Male professors rated by male students also had noticeably higher ratings of Management by Exception-Active behaviors than did male professors rated by female students (p=.021). Finally, when considering the Passive/Avoidant scale, male professors rated by male students achieved consistently higher scores than did female professors rated by mate students (p=.001). Figures 1 and 2 provide a representation of the results discussed above. See issue website http://rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/sum2006.htm

Results showed that female students rated female instructors the highest while male students rated male instructors the lowest. Male instructors were rated higher on transactional leadership behaviors while female instructors received higher evaluations on transformational leadership behaviors.

Limitations and Further Research

While significant differences were found between the ratings of male and female professors by male and female students, the question remains as to whether these differences make an impact on the actual performance behaviors of professors and the learning outcomes of students. In this study, the sample size of professors was small and the researchers did not translate transformational leadership behaviors into outcomes. However, that might risk confounding effects, for example, if transformational professors inflated grades due to higher interaction levels with students creating higher emotional content between leader and follower resulting in a need for success being transmitted from leader to follower. In future research, transformational leadership and follower performance interactions must be examined closely to understand what is actually happening in an educational environment. Assumptions cannot be made that there is a link between transformational leadership behavior and follower performance. In further research, it might be helpful to more completely control the learning environment in terms of all female or all male classes to see the dynamics of these gender interactions. It may also be useful to understand other leadership and follower interactions perhaps based not only on gender, but on other variables such as race, ethnicity, socio-economic class, and year in school.

Implications and Conclusions

In this research, the interaction of leader and follower gender was assessed to determine differences in perceptions of leadership styles. It appears that if leadership is truly socially constructed, gender accounts for some of the variation. The assessment of leaders, at least educators, appears contextual and is dependent on the gender of the student and the professor. Since transformational leadership behaviors of female professors were rated highest by female students, then it appears as if the more "female" an environment is then the more the leader will be perceived as engaging in transformational leadership behaviors. These findings suggest that while the gender of the leader or professor makes a difference in the perceptions of leadership behaviors, the gender of the student also makes a difference in terms of how the environment of the class is perceived. It appears that both the instructor and the student create the perceived leadership environment in a class and that gender plays a role in determining those perceptions.

Finally, the results of the study may have implications for colleges in general, particularly when working with college freshmen. High school leadership environments as a whole may be seen as more transactional in nature than those of many colleges. For example, high school students must pass state mandated or other exams to move on to higher level classes or colleges, must attend classes, and may have to remain on campus throughout the day. In college, the environment is not as prescriptive and students may have trouble adjusting to the more open college atmosphere and the less transactional and more transformational nature of a college campus; gender may impact how this environment is perceived as well. Professors would do well to think about their teaching and leadership behaviors and how the perceptions may influence student behaviors and outcomes based on gender and other personal variables.

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Cynthia S. Deale, Western Carolina University, NC

John Garger, Binghamton University, NY

Paul H. Jacques, Western Carolina University, NC

Cynthia S. Deale, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Hospitality & Tourism, Department of Management & International Business; John Garger is a Doctoral Candidate at Binghamton University, and Paul H. Jacques, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Management, Department of Management and International Business.