article
Transformational Leadership and Gender Equity: The Case of Graduate Students
Autor
Díaz Gómez, Eduardo Raúl
Institución
Resumen
The role of women in leadership roles increases in organizational, educational, and political contexts in Mexico. However, barriers for aspiring female leaders and gender equity remain. These are the result of stereotypes that associate female leaders with communal behaviors that promote good interpersonal relationships but decrease goal attainment and performance within work teams. It is believed that these work teams typically respond better to traditional 'male' leader behaviors. Empirical studies developed under transformational leadership theory refute the claim that female and male leaders behave differently. The universal characteristic of transformational leadership theory makes it appropriate for studies where female and male behaviors are compared, especially with self-report research designs. This study uses one ransformational leadership model to compare the self-perceptions of 309 female and male graduate students. The results suggest that both groups perceive their behavior similarly. These results support the conclusions of other studies where gender was not found to moderate transformational leadership.