Role Congruity Theory and the Women Leadership

In today's society there is a stereotypical perception of women as having a public role, a nurturing, caring and sensitive role. However, the perception of men is more subjective and men are often perceived to have an ambitious, assertive and direct role (Rudman & Glick, 2001). The qualities required in a good and successful leader are more often associated with a male assertive role. This creates a gender bias against female leaders (Schieman and McMullen, 2008).



Role congruity theory explains that female leaders are subject to two main types of bias, the first being descriptive bias and the second being prescriptive bias (Eagly and Karau, 2002). Organisational staff prefer male leaders mainly because of dissatisfaction with the character of female leaders. They perceive female leaders as often being too "emotional", "moody" and "sarcastic and mean", words that are often used to describe the inadequacies of female leaders (Hoobler et al., 2009). Some female workers prefer male managers because they believe that women in the workplace are more competitive with each other and that jealousy among women is more likely to develop. Some members of organisations perceive female leaders as self-centred and poor leaders (Taylor & Hood, 2010). Men are perceived as having more leadership potential in behavioural and gender stereotypes, and masculine traits are closely associated with being good leaders (Fondas, 1997). The reasons for organisational staff's preference for male leaders focused on negative comments about women that talked directly about women's inadequacies and incompetence in leadership positions, while also revealing some employees' prejudices about the abilities of female leaders (Lyness & Judiesch, 1999). This fits in with the role congruity theory's concept of descriptive bias.



In addition, the concept of second-generation gender bias is that women have difficulty in gaining support from sponsors and networks (Ibarra et al., 2013), that organisations believe that men have more mentors than women to offer to help men gain promotion, and that men are more likely to succeed than women. Second-generation gender bias affects the assessment of women's leadership, exposing women to double constraints and double standards, which makes it more challenging for women to be leaders.



However, the vast majority of employees show little prescriptive bias when evaluating their leaders, suggesting that gender bias is rare in the study and that leader gender and management style do not influence ratings of boss competence (Elsesser & Lever, 2011). Society should change the stereotypical view of women and give women a fair social environment, and organisations should encourage a safe environment where female workers do not have to worry about the misconceptions of others (Byron, 2007).