The relationship among leadership style, sex of leader, and sex of evaluator in the evaluation of leadership behavior

Abstract

The purpose of the article was to investigate the relationships among leadership style, sex of leader, and sex of evaluator in the evaluation of leadership behavior in a student sample from Turkey. In order to reach the goal, leadership style and sex of leader were manipulated to prepare four vignettes as autocratic female leader, democrat female leader, autocratic male leader, and democrat male leader. The participants were 386 university students from Middle East Technical University (199 males and 187 females; M=21.74; SD=1.56). After reading one of the vignettes, the participants evaluated the leader by filling out the Evaluation of Leadership Behavior Scale. A 2 (sex of leader: female - male) X 2 (leadership style: autocratic - democrat) X 2 (sex of evaluator: female - male) ANOVA was performed on the evaluation of leadership behavior. Results demonstrated that there was a significant main effect of leadership style. As expected, participants evaluated democratic leader more positively than autocratic leader. In addition, there was a significant two-way interaction between leadership style and sex of evaluator, suggesting that male participants evaluated democratic leader less positively than female participants and that male participants evaluated autocratic leader more positively than female participants. Finally, there was a significant three-way interaction. Both male and female participants evaluated autocratic female leader more negatively than democratic female leader. Further, as compared to male participants, female participants evaluated both democratic male leader and democratic female leader more positively.