Women may have a difficult path ahead of them if their dream is to find leadership success within a male dominated industry such as the technology industry. Eagly & Karau (2002) found that women in power are viewed in a negative way whether they have more masculine or feminine leadership styles. A woman who adopts a feminine leadership style will be seen as less effective and less qualified than masculine leaders. If she adopts a masculine style of leadership, it’s likely she will be disliked by many because they are not acting within their gender role.
Many of the tech companies we know today were started by men and nearly the entire executive teams are male. It’s not been in managerial positions long enough, they lack experience (Ragins, Townsend, & Mattis, 1998), and are less suitable, qualified, and less confident (Heilman, 1997; Morrison, 1992; Morris, 1998).
The following statistics shared on Business Insider (2013) and Time (2015) provide evidence to the three explanations offered by Northouse (2013) as to why mostly men populate the leadership world. Recently Google has been in the spotlight for a recent report showing a major lack of diversity within the company. Only 30% of Google’s 56,000 employees were women in January 2015. Less than 30% of employees are women at LinkedIn and Reddit. Less than 25% of managers and officers at Dell, eBay, Intel, Cisco, and Ingram Micro are women. According to Eagly, Karau, & Makhijani (1995), women and men do not differ in leadership effectiveness. So why, then, the major gender gap?
References
Dickey, M. (2013, July 15). 23 Statistics That Prove Men Dominate The Tech World. Retrieved August 3, 2015.
Eagly, A., & Karau, S. (2002). Role Congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders. Psychological Review, 109(3), 573-598.
Eagly, A., Karau, S., & Makhijani, M. (1995). Gender and the effectiveness of leaders: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 111, 3-22.
Heilman, M. (1997). Sex discrimination and the affirmative action remedy: The role of sex stereotypes. Journal of Business ethics, 16, 877-889.
Kokalitcheva, K. (2015, June 1). Google’s Workplace Diversity Still has a Long Way to Go. Retrieved August 3, 2015.
Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Ragins, B., Townsend, B., & Mattis, M. (1998). Gender gap in the executive suite: CEOs and female executives report on breaking the glass ceiling. Academy of Management Executive, 12(1), 28-42.