Do Men Lead and Women Follow? Review of gender in leadership and followership literature

Abstract

For a quite some time, followers and followership has been accepted as part of leadership. Research into leadership however, has been very leader-centric and followers have been given a passive role as dependent subordinates. Fortunately, researchers are now studying followership to a greater extent.This review focuses on how men and women are perceived in the roles of a leader and a follower, with a more detailed attention on followership research. It is important to discuss these new studies and see if there have been any positive changes on the stereotypical roles of a leader and a follower. Hopefully changing them will help to further even out the playing field between men and women.Beginning with an overview of the gender roles and how they are evolving. Moving on to cover the broad field of leadership theories and research into genders in leadership. Finally discussing followership, in particular looking at Uhl-Bien, Riggo, Lowe and Carten’s definition of followership, Kelley’s model of an effective follower and review research into gender in followership. After reviewing the literature in the field it seems that, still to this day, men and women do not fit either role equally. Men are perceived as more authentic leaders than women. Females, on the other hand, are perceived to fit the role of a follower better than men, despite the fact the traits that make up an effective leader and an effective follower is very similar.