Abstract & Overview
Research comparing the leadership styles of women and men is reviewed, and evidence isfound for both the presence and the absence of differences between the sexes. In contrast to the gender-ste-reotypic expectation that women lead in an interpersonally orientedstyle and men in a task-oriented style, female and male leaders did not differ in these two styles in organizationalstudies. However, these aspects of leadership style were somewhat gender stereotypic n the two other classes of leadership studies investigated, namely (a) laboratory experiments and (b) assessment studies, which were defined as research that assessed the leadership styles of people not selected for occupancy of leadership roles. Consistent with stereotypic expectations about a different aspect of leadership style, the tendency to lead democratically orautocratically, women tended to adopt a more demo-cratic or participative style and a less autocratic or directive style than did men. This sex difference appeared in all three classes of leadership studies, including those conducted in organizations. These and other findings are interpreted interms of a social role theory of sex differences insocial behavior. In recent years many social scientists, management consul-tants, and other writers have addressed the topic of gender and