Gender roles in leadership and how they impact behavior Research Paper

Gender roles in leadership and how they impact behavior - Research Paper Example Action of any leader has been always dependent on the response given by the followers, and these actions also responsible to control the leader’s future activities. Therefore according to Sullivan leadership in a mutual process of influence between an individual (leader) and the followers to achieve a certain goal. (Sullivan, 2009, abstract). With the development of society and work culture, it is now very clear that the opportunity to free both men and women from the concept of gender stereotype is already there, to understand the implication of this change it is quite essential to discuss about the history of gender roles in respect to leadership. According to Perschel (2009), There was a long standing though that men were strong and assertive where as women were communal, strong and understanding, this was the thought process presented to describe why the successful women were not the leaders. But according to her, this concept brought few questions such as why in the first place leadership was only associated with men and so on (Perschel, 2009). History of leadership: During 1900 most of the people were not well educated and therefore he leadership role was associated with only a few men, the theory of the great man clarified the fact that due to that less education only a handful of men was associated with leadership power and enjoy superiorintelectual and moral capabilities. But after world war I and II, the scenery started to change as more people get well educated and different industry all over the world was in search for more leaders. During the middle of 1900 century people who was acting as the leaders were used the military style and command .These were also noticed in different hierarchialorganizations where the prevalence of command and control level were established. Most of the leaders were men and the power was distributed among them. They used to be dominative, aggressive and individualistic. By the late 20th century women used to take part in the management activities but at the beginning they have to learn how they could survive in the culture of command and control of men. The minority group of female, who entered the management structure are initially recognized just as tokens. Perschel refers to the concept of â€Å" rules of three†- there was a necessity to have at least two people supporting the thoughts of minority groups, before it could be heard by the dominant male management team. According to her, women needed to show their power-both individualism and assertiveness with a proper balance of feminity, softness and community orientation to be heard and get proper attention by the top management (Perschel, 2009). Change in Gender Stereotype in Leadership: With the development of the world economy and standard of work culture it is at present absolutely necessary that every organization has to be fast and nimble in order to be successful. leaders of the top management need to create a work culture where the employees feel comfortable and adapt quickly.the high performing work force can only be managed by a leader who have qualities that ensured 6the belief on each and