Are Leadership Preferences Gendered? A Conjoint Analysis of Employee Preferences for Manager Characteristics in Male- and Female-Dominated Public Sub-Sectors in the Netherlands

• Published date: 01 December 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X231182970
• Author: Sophie Offringa,Sandra Groeneveld
• Date: 01 December 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X231182970

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2024, Vol. 44(4) 740 –767

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X231182970

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Article

Are Leadership Preferences

Gendered? A Conjoint

Analysis of Employee

Preferences for Manager

Characteristics in

Male- and Female-Dominated

Public Sub-Sectors in

the Netherlands

Sophie Offringa1 and Sandra Groeneveld2

Abstract

This article examines the consequences of stereotypical beliefs regarding gender,

traits, and leadership styles for manager preferences in public organizational contexts

that differ as to the gender composition of their workforce. It is hypothesized that

employee preferences for male, agentic, and/or transactional managers relative to

female, communal, and/or transformational managers are stronger in male-dominated

contexts than in female-dominated contexts. Hypotheses are tested through a conjoint

survey experiment among 2,757 Dutch public sector employees in education, police,

and defense. Findings show that there is a stronger preference for communal managers

over agentic managers in both contexts, independent of the manager’s gender. In

contrast, employee preferences for transactional leadership relative to transformational

leadership are stronger in male-dominated contexts than in female-dominated contexts

and vice versa, also independent of the gender of the manager. The article discusses the

implications of the study’s findings for the study of gender and leadership preferences.

Keywords

role congruity theory, leadership, conjoint analysis, gender, organizational context

1Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University & Rebel Group

2Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University

Corresponding Author:

Sandra Groeneveld, Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University, PO Box 13228, Den Haag 2501

EE, The Netherlands.

Email: s.m.groeneveld@fgga.leidenuniv.nl

1182970ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X231182970Review of Public Personnel AdministrationOringa and Groeneveld

research-article2023

Offringa and Groeneveld 741

Introduction

Despite increasing representation of women in leadership positions, to date men still

emerge in leadership positions more often than women (Badura et al., 2018). Almost

50 years after Schein (1973) coined the phrase “think manager–think male,” this still

appears to be an accurate depiction of the situation regarding gender and leadership

worldwide. Role congruity theory argues that the female gender role is incongruent

with the leader role, which creates prejudice toward female leaders. This prejudice

originates from incongruity between the predominantly communal traits that people

tend to associate with women, such as being caring and understanding, and the pre-

dominantly agentic traits that are generally associated with men as well as with suc-

cessful leaders, such as being assertive, dominant, and self-confident (Burgess &

Borgida, 1999; Eagly & Carli, 2003; Eagly et al., 2014; Eagly & Karau, 2002; Heilman,

2001). Different leadership styles, too, tend to be perceived as masculine or feminine.

This leads to incongruence if women apply leadership styles that tend to be associated

with men, such as directive and laissez-faire leadership styles (Eagly & Johannesen-

Schmidt, 2001). Incongruence between the stereotypical traits people associate with

women and what constitutes as a successful leader negatively affects the evaluation of

women as actual or potential holders of leadership positions (Eagly & Karau, 2002).

It can be assumed, though, that the incongruence between the female gender role and

the leader role may be perceived as larger and more salient in some organizational con-

texts compared to others, because of variation in stereotypical beliefs about gender roles

and leadership across contexts (Eagly & Karau, 2002; K. D. Funk et al., 2021; Koenig

et al., 2011). This raises the question to what extent this incongruence is salient in public

sector work environments, relative to private sector work environments, and whether

there is within-sector variation. More specifically, the representation of men and women

in the workforce may affect stereotypical beliefs on gender roles and leadership across

sectors and organizations, and, hence, employees’ appreciation of male and female man-

agers (Bishu & Headley, 2020; Kanter, 1977; Stoker et al., 2012). The aim of this article

is to examine the consequences of stereotypical beliefs about gender, traits, and leader-

ship styles for manager preferences in public organizational contexts that differ as to the

gender composition of their workforce. The research question is: how do gender, traits,

and leadership styles of public managers affect employee manager preferences in male-

and female-dominated public sub-sectors? To answer this question, we conducted a con-

joint survey experiment among 2,757 Dutch public sector employees in education,

police, and defense to be able to disentangle the effects of gender, gender-related traits,

and leadership behavior on employees’ preferences for their direct manager. The diver-

sity of public sub-sectors included in the sample allowed us to compare perceived role

incongruence between male- and female-dominated organizational contexts.

The contribution of this article is threefold. First, theoretically, we contribute to the

understanding of the mechanisms behind stereotyping and prejudice toward female

leaders by comparing employees’ preferences between different public sector con-

texts. Rather than assuming that ideal types of gender roles and leadership are univer-

sal, the current study discusses how these may vary based on the gender composition