Gender and the Effectiveness of Leadership Training: Results From a Field Experiment

• Published date: 01 December 2021
• Author: Seung-Ho An,Kenneth J. Meier
• Date: 01 December 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/0734371X20932989
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X20932989

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2021, Vol. 41(4) 747 –770

© The Author(s) 2020

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0734371X20932989

journals.sagepub.com/home/rop

Article

Gender and the

Effectiveness of Leadership

Training: Results From a

Field Experiment

Seung-Ho An1 and Kenneth J. Meier2,3,4

Abstract

This study examines gender differences in leadership behaviors and whether leadership

training would have different effects on leadership behaviors by gender. Using data

from several hundred managers of welfare and financial agencies in Denmark, we first

investigate whether leadership behaviors differ between female and male leaders.

After that, we conducted a year-long field experiment with managers to examine

how female and male leaders respond to leadership training interventions. In general,

female managers improve more from leadership training even though leadership

scores for female leaders were higher before training.

Keywords

leadership training, gender and leadership, transformational and transactional

leadership, field experiment, public sector leadership

Introduction

Leaders1 are responsible for a multitude of functions in organizations and effective

leadership skills, therefore, are necessary for them to successfully manage organiza-

tions. Leadership training is a way to improve leadership skills, serving as a venue for

leaders to learn how to create the inducements-contributions balance between the

1University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

2American University, Washington, DC, USA

3Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

4Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

Corresponding Author:

Seung-Ho An, School of Government and Public Policy, University of Arizona, 315 Social Sciences Bldg,

P.O. Box 210027, Tucson, AZ 85721-0001, USA.

Email: seunghoan@arizona.edu

932989ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X20932989Review of Public Personnel AdministrationAn and Meier

research-article2020

748 Review of Public Personnel Administration 41(4)

organization and employees. Public organizations are not an exception when it comes

to training skillful leaders. According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management

website, a total of 60 federal agencies provide 244 leadership programs for various

grade levels of employees.2 Though organizations, regardless of sector and industry,

spend a large amount of human and financial resources on training leaders (Seidle

et al., 2016), few studies in public human resource management examine the effective-

ness of leadership training.

For leadership training to be effective, one may need to consider different charac-

teristics of leaders. One noticeable difference among leaders is gender. Diverse theo-

ries from gender role theory to leadership theory indeed suggest that women and men

may exert different behaviors when they serve as organizational leaders (e.g., Eagly,

2013; Eagly et al., 2003; Eagly & Wood, 2016). Women leaders tend to be more demo-

cratic and participatory while male leaders are more independent and assertive (see the

discussion below). The generic management literature and the research in public man-

agement also point to clear gender differences in management styles. An extensive

meta-analysis finds that women managers actually rate higher than men in terms of

both transformational and transactional leadership (Eagly et al., 2003). Studies in pub-

lic management similarly show both value differences between male and female man-

agers and differences in behaviors (Dolan, 2000; Hamidullah et al., 2015; Jacobson

et al., 2010; Meier et al., 2006). The potential differences in leadership styles between

female and male leaders are important when it comes to leadership training; leadership

training may have different effects on male and female leaders in improving their

leadership skills simply because men and women might differ in perceptions of appro-

priate leadership and respond accordingly.

Using data from randomized field experiments on leadership training in Denmark,

this study examines whether leadership training affects female and male leaders differ-

ently. The field experiments involved the random assignment of several hundred Danish

public managers to different forms of leadership training (transformational, transac-

tional, combined transformational and transactional, plus a control group). Before and

after assessments of leadership by both leaders and their employees allow testing our

hypotheses on gender and leadership training. This study also contributes to the litera-

ture examining the relationship in various public organizations (e.g., daycare centers,

public schools, and tax offices) in a country with strong gender equality.3

This study focuses on transformational and transactional leadership styles for the

following reasons. First, transformational leadership styles fit the theoretical literature

arguing that women are more likely to adopt democratic and participatory leadership

styles, thus predicting that transformational leadership training will have a stronger

impact on women and that the more traditional transactional leadership style will be

more influential for men. Second, because women leaders generally score higher on

leadership assessments, training might be subject to diminishing marginal returns; and

the leadership training (both transformational and transactional) might be less effec-

tive for women managers.

In testing these hypotheses, this article proceeds as follows. First, we briefly dis-

cuss the concepts of transformational and transactional leadership and how they can be