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CRITICAL REVIEW OF GENDER RATIO, SOCIETAL CULTURE, MALE AND FEMALE LEADERSHIP

Introduction
This paper is a critical review of the work by Hetty van Emmerik, Hein Wendt, and Martin C. Euwema on Gender Ratio, Societal culture, male and female leadership. It is an attempt to evaluate the purpose of the study and the methodologies used, the results of the study, a critique of the methods used in the study and finally the lessons learned from the study.
It is a common practice in many organizations worldwide to have a larger number of men in top management than women. The ratio of men to women in top level management is an indicator of the percentage of female and female managers in an organization as well as the leadership style behavior of male managers and female managers in that organization. The gender ratio in this context refers to the ratio of men to women in leadership in an organization. Different organizations with different gender ratios in top level management depict a difference in the quality of leadership as well (Hetty, 2009).

Purpose of the Research

The purpose of this paper is to show the relationship if any, between cultural processes and gender ratio to leadership behaviors. Previous studies have not conclusively been able to establish this relationship, and, therefore, this paper seeks to close that knowledge gap by researching and reporting the findings of the research. Most research in this area has been largely based on organizations in western countries as they have been seen as an indicator of global trends. This study, however, seeks a more global representation in its study. The paper applies a three-level model to investigate the relationship between organizational, societal and individual characteristics and leadership styles. Furthermore, the research was interested in the relationship between gender ratio and gender and leadership behaviors.

Methodology of the Study

The data used in this study was retrieved from Hay Group, a worldwide consulting firm. The data is comprised of data about management and their subordinates. The sample size is four hundred and seventy-three firms which are involved in different sectors of the economy both private and public. For the study only those countries that were able to provide one hundred percent of the data required were included in the study, those that did not were excluded. Using the above criterion, the data was thereby collected from twelve thousand five hundred and forty-six managers of which twenty-seven percent were women and seventy-three percent men. The number of countries came down to thirty-two and the organizations sampled were four hundred and thirty-seven. The confidence level for the data used was seventy-nine percent with eighty-one percent level of significance (Hetty, 2009).
The measures that were used for the study were leadership behaviors, societal culture, education, gender and hierarchical position. There were other aspects of the study that were critical in the data collection process and the methodology of the entire study. These factors include gender structure and ratio, language issues and measurement equivalence in countries. Under the leadership measure the main considerations were leaders initiative to ease tension at the workplace, demonstration of concern for subordinates, time devoted by leaders to the fringe benefits and security of their employees, reliance on lessons learnt from interactions with subordinates and how much leaders encourage their subordinates to discuss their personal problems.
Initiating structure by leaders was also measured by use of data about how closely leaders supervise their juniors, how closely leaders expect subordinates to follow instructions, if leaders expect employees to relay reports of the activities they engage in, how often the leaders make decisions on behalf of their employees and if the leader expects that a subordinate carry out instructions issued to them immediately (Hetty, 2009).
Under societal culture, the study used four dimensions as a measure. The first measure was the power gap i.e. the extent of inequality or equality among people in a given country. Secondly the study used the extent to which a society reinforces interpersonal relations, individual achievement and collective achievement. The third measure was masculinity. This is the extent to which a community encourages masculine work role models of control, power, etc. a high level of masculinity is a sign of gender differentiation. The last measure of societal culture was a community’s level of acceptance of ambiguity and uncertainty if there is high intolerance then the community is rule oriented and vice versa.
The measures of education, gender, and hierarchical position were measured at an individual capacity for each manager. The male and female managers were coded for ease of data analysis. The education levels used were secondary, college level with no degree, undergraduate level and advanced degree level. To measure hierarchical position the levels used were entry level, middle level, senior level, first level, mid-level and senior level management.
The gender ratio structure was measured using two properties. In the first instance, the gender ratio was measured as a percentage of the number of women who hold managerial positions. In the second instance, the levels of hierarchy were used as indicators of the structure of the organization.

Results of the Study

The first hypothesis had predicted that the main causes of differences in leadership behaviors are differences between individuals followed by organizational differences and finally societal differences in that order. The first hypothesis was supported by the results of the distribution variance which were ninety-three percent, five percent, and two percent at the individual, organizational and societal level respectively. The variance distribution for the initiating structure was seventy-nine percent, eleven percent, and ten percent at the individual, organizational and societal level respectively.
The second hypothesis predicted that when cultural contributions were held constant, the gender ratio in an organization would be directly related to the leadership behavior. It hypothesized that a high gender ratio would directly related to consideration and inversely related to the initiating structure. This hypothesis was also supported (Hetty, 2009).
The third hypothesis predicted that without cultural influence, the gender ratio is the main moderator of the relationship between leadership behavior and gender. When there are more women in leadership positions, the initiating structure is less while the consideration is high for both female managers and male managers. For males in leadership, the relationship between initiating structure and gender ratio is inverse. In this case, the third hypothesis is supported for initiating structure but not for consideration.

Critique

The results of the study were thoroughly tested and are a true depiction of the practices in many organizations. The behavior of a person, leader or no leader, is first and foremost a function of that persons individual culture and set of beliefs and practices. External factors such as organizations and society only influence the behavior of a leader to a minimal extent. I, therefore, concur with the findings and results of this study.

Conclusion

The most important lesson I have learned from this study is that the behavior of leaders is primarily due to the individuals own personality and set of beliefs. The educations they receive as well as other societal factors are not a primary contributor to leadership behavior and leadership style.
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