Effects of task content, task type, and leader gender on perceptions of gender differences in leadership effectiveness

In this experiment, leaders of intellective tasks were required to bring the group to a decision as to which of three alternatives was the correct alternative. Leaders of judgmental tasks were required to bring the group to a consensus as to which was the best alternative. The paradigm allowed leaders to clearly exhibit differential behaviors depending on task type.

This experiment focused on the effects of congruency between task content and leader gender on perceptions of gender differences in leadership effectiveness. Based on past research on the interaction of leader gender with task content, it was hypothesized that leaders should receive higher leadership effectiveness ratings when there was congruency between task content and leader gender. Furthermore, because judgmental tasks require consideration of opinions and values of group members (i.e., a stereotypically feminine characteristic), it was hypothesized that female leaders should be perceived as more effective when task type was judgmental than when task type was intellective.

Building on Hypotheses 1 and 2, Hypothesis 3 predicted that when task type was judgmental, congruency between task content and leader gender should result in higher effectiveness evaluations for female leaders than male leaders. Hypothesis 3 also predicted that incongruency between task content and leader gender should result in equal evaluations to that of male leaders. As Figure 1 shows, the interaction of task content, task type, and leader gender was predicted to affect perceptions of gender differences in leadership effectiveness.