Critically analysis of whether leadership

styles are different for men and women in

the hospitality industry:

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Table of Contents
Critically analysis of whether leadership styles are different for men and women in the hospitality
industry:........................................................................................................................................................ 1
Introduction: ................................................................................................................................................. 3
Differences between leadership styles of men and women: ....................................................................... 3
Perceptions about leadership: ...................................................................................................................... 4
Critical analysis of effectiveness of male and female leaders in hospitality industry: ................................. 5
Conclusion: .................................................................................................................................................... 8
References: ................................................................................................................................................... 9

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Introduction:
Leadership is a process which provides guidance and motivation to a group and helps them attain some
common objectives. Over the years, the role of gender in leadership has been debated through different
researchers. The paper aims to critically analyze whether leadership styles are different in case of
women and men in the hospitality industry. It must be noted that till recent times, traditional leadership
roles were held by males only. This was the common practice is not just the hospitality industry, but all
industries. However, in the last 20 years, there has been an increasing trend of women taking up
leadership positions in different industries. In present times, conscious efforts are being made by
companies to reduce the gender gap and provide equal opportunities to women. The number of women
in the board of directors is increasing at a steady pace globally too. In this paper, different researches
and perspectives on the leadership styles of male and female leaders have been analyzed comparatively.

Differences between leadership styles of men and women:

Alice Eagly, is a researcher whose work has focused on the gender differences and leadership for many
years. As per Eagly’s (1995) multiple researches, the differences are minimal and there is a lot of
overlap. However, these minimal differences are significant with respect to how people see the women
and men’s leadership abilities and their respective effectiveness. Also, there are some differences in
their styles of leadership. In the initial studies which took place in between 1980 and mid-90s, it was
revealed that the leadership styles of women were participative and transformational, while, men had a
directive and transactional style. As per Dobbins (1996), women were more focused upon
communication and aimed to ensure effective cooperation. They were found to be more nurturing and
had communal features. Communal style of leadership involves being open, fair and warm. People with
this style of leadership are more responsible. On the other hand, men were found to be less nurturing
and more goal or duty oriented. They were found to be more active and focused on tasks in hand while
being more independent and better decision makers as compared to women (Dobbins, 1996). Overall,
older studies done by researchers like Eagly (1995) and Dobbins (1996) highlighted that the most
significant difference between leadership styles of men and women is that the male leaders are mostly
task oriented whereas the female leaders consider relationship as the priority in workplace.

Researches done more recently like the works ofKinicki & Williams (2015), Levi(2012), and Forsyth
(2010) have revealed that there are tremendous similarities and small differences between male and
female leadership styles. As per Yukl (2012), women are more adaptive and inclusive. They are also

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moresensitive and nurturing. Due to these factors, women have an advantage over men in terms of
leading groups. Forsyth(2010) revealed that women leaders got higher scores than men in 42 of the 52
criteria which the research evaluated. This included factors like ability to motivate, teamwork,
identifying trends, implementing new ideas, etc. As per this research, women establish stronger
connections with employees by showing behaviors like being more communicative and warm, smiling
more, having more eye contact, etc. Women have been found to be more diplomatic too. A research by
Eagly and Carli (2014), has pointed out that the differences are based on a selection effect influenced by
age old bias of men dominating women. Men have easier access to leadership positions and the
standards they have to meet to qualify as leaders are not as high as the standards women have to meet.
While it is relatively easier for a man to take up a leadership position, a women needs to be especially
talented in order to access a similar position. Due to this, women refrain from communicating too much
informally with senior officials and feel excluded.

Hamori-Ota (2013), did a study that revealed that based on common competency and skills, women
were better rated as potential leaders by seniors as compared to men. The evaluating factors involved
sensitivity, ability to work with different kinds of people, etc. On the other hand, men got higher rates in
areas like financial knowledge, strategic planning, etc. No differences in found in factors like team work,
critical thinking, etc. Also, though women were rated higher on an average, no significant differences
were found in terms of overall effectiveness as leaders. It must be noted that all these studies have
focused on different industries and the information revealed by them are valid for the hospitality
industry too. A research by Saner &Eyupoglu (2015), focused on the hospitality industry and assessed
the differences in leadership styles and effectiveness of men and women in five star hotels. Multiple
hotels were involved in the research. It proves that there are no strong differences present in terms of
the leadership styles of men and women in the hospitality industry. Also, it revealed that women and
men are equally effective as leaders and gender has no major influence on leadership.

Perceptions about leadership:

As per Kent & Schuele (2015), gender roles refer to behavior that is seen as a typical or acceptable for a
particular gender in a given culture. Some of these behaviors results from biological conditioning, while
others are the result of cultural expectations or social pressure, related to gender (social sex). The
differences that arise from the biological sex mainly relate to the impact of the behavior of certain
biological factors such as hormones. The feature, which affects the development of androgens is spatial

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imagination - it statistically superior in men, but it can develop in a similar degree in women who had
come into contact with elevated doses of androgens in the fetus stage (Jost, 2010).

Various researchers also identified that women have more complex connections in the hemispheres
which is favorable for combining analytic functions with intuitive ones. These impacts are seen in minors
to 13 years of age and worsen with age 14-17 years. Feminist and political change, industrialization and
two world wars, forced the abandonment of traditionally attributed social spaces by women, and led to
strong transformation and the emergence of new opportunities within the pattern of gender roles;
where the world is dealing with a stronger liberalization of the perception of women's roles than male
roles. For example. A young woman who wants to take a degree in biological or chemical domains meets
with understanding and acceptance today, even if the chances of getting a job after such studies for
women are smaller than men with the same education (Jost, 2010).

Role congruity theory is a theory which highlights that an individual or group will get positive reaction
and acceptance if its features are in sync with traditional gender and social roles. This theory points out
that women leaders are met with negative reactions because of female gender stereotypes and the fact
that women are not considered to be valid leaders as per traditions and norms (Eagly & Karau, 1991).
The reason behind the prejudice that prevents women from accessing higher positions is the way
women are perceived in leadership roles. Women are not accepted as positively as men in leadership
positions. Rather, women face considerably more negative reactions based on the stereotypes and
gender roles popular in society. This is a major challenge for women and they have to face a lot of
resistance based on the gender stereotypes. While the scenario has been changing in recent times and
women have been accessing more and more leadership positions all across the world, even in present
times, the number of males in leadership positions is significantly higher than the number of women. As
per a research by Ritter and Yoder (2014), even if a woman is dominating, in a task that is masculine or
gender neutral by characteristic, men have been found to be more popular. Thus, even if women have
skills necessary for a leadership task or position, due to the gender stereotypes, it is comparatively
difficult for women to get leadership roles.

Critical analysis of effectiveness of male and female leaders in hospitality

industry:
In the last thirty years, the leadership styles and behaviour has changed within various organizations and
in this period of time the total number of people entered into the workforce has also increased a lot but
they do not hold any significant share of managerial positions. The researchers and various scholars

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have also turned their attention to the gender differences in the leadership behaviour and the main
objective of the research works is that whether men and women function differently as leaders in
hospitality sector or not. The leadership styles are defined as the total pattern of the explicit and implicit
leaders’ action as considered by the employees. Leadership style is a pattern behaviour which helps the
leaders to influence others effectively (Mihail, 2006). A great way to classify the leadership styles can be
as per the powers and behaviour of the leaders where the styles of the leadership are distinguished by
the influence that the leaders have on their subordinates. The male and female managers of various
hospitality organizations have attributed to possessing the various leadership traits which are basically
the characteristic of their sex. Some differences have been documented in various researches in the
styles of work between men and women but there have not been major differences between the
leadership styles across gender (Papadimitriou & Trakas, 2008). Various literatures indicated that the
similarities in the leadership behaviour of women and men are much more compared to the differences
only. The differences that exist between the men and women are more democratic and they rely on the
group consensus in order to arrive at the decisions. In hospitality industry, it is found that male leaders
prefer giving commands to the subordinates and they tend to order people and female leaders
emphasize on achievement of goals by fulfilling their duties.

The organizations operating business in the hospitality industry need to go through various types of
pressure in order to meet the changing demands of the customers and to achieve growth. So, the
hospitality organizations always need to implement effective leadership styles in order to improve their
overall experience. The research into the leadership style in the hospitality industry has been ignored to
some extent. The literatures that exist on the hospitality industry state that autocratic leadership style is
mostly used by the leaders in hospitality industry (Taborda, 2000).

Within the changing business environment, the organizations in the hospitality industry of various
countries prefer to recruit women employees over men due to various reasons. Among the factors such
as cultural distances and geographical distances, the number women employees are also increasing day
by day. As per the reports by ILO (2009) more than 200 million women are working in the hospitality
industry at various organizations and today, 55.5% of the total employees working in hospitality industry
are women. Among the female employees, a significant number of them are working in the top
positions of the managerial hierarchy (Tracey, & Hinkin, 2014). There are some differences in the
leadership traits have been identified by researchers. The studies focused on the competencies required
by the hotel managers stated that there are some personality characteristics present in the leaders

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which are common among male and female employees and these are very important in hospitality
industry. Among them the most common ones are consideration, courtesy, perceptiveness,
consideration and good communication skills. In a study conducted by Sehanovic, Zougj, Krizoman, and
Bojanic-Glavica (2000), the authors compared the leadership styles of the male and female managers
working in the hospitality industry and the authors found out that women have shown very good
performance in the financial, organizational and managerial activities and female leaders in hospitality
sector have effective manner to deal with people and they also have more knowledge regarding the
economy of the sector. The authors also concluded in their research that female leaders in hospitality
industry are more effective compared to men for organizing work and spotting the problems. The
solutions provided by women for the problems are also more effective compared to men.

Maxwell (2009) stated that the communication skills among female leaders are better than male leaders
in hospitality industry. As a part of their leadership ability, female managers want to have a deeper
insight into their staff and they also like to be more interested towards the employees working in the
organizations. The skills of the female leaders in hospitality sector are mainly flexibility, communication
skills, teamwork and the ability to adopt things in an effective way.

There are a number of examples present where it can be found that the female leaders have been more
effective in managing the hotel operations compared to the male leaders. Mantra Hotels, Resorts and
Apartments offer varieties of accommodations and they have a total of 120 properties in Australian
territory and New Zealand (Ntermanakis, 2003). The total number of employees working with the
organization is 3,433 and among the employees, 65% are women and most of them work in the
leadership positions of the organization. Mantra Group is committed towards the business as well as
ethical reasons to improve the gender balance of the senior levels in the organization and it can be
understood through monitoring the data (Thomas, 2005). A survey conducted with the employees of
Mantra in the year 2014 showed that almost 97% of the employees prefer equality between women and
men in the leadership positions and in the practical environment, it is also noted that most of the
managerial level employees are female in the organization and the leadership style followed by them is
democratic leadership style. The management of Mantra also provides equal access to the management
roles and responsibilities and the training and development programs arranged by the management are
also equal for men and women. The opportunities for promotion given to male and female employees
are also equal. As the female leaders have adopted democratic leadership style in managing the
organization, most of the employees within the organization want to work under female leaders

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(Nickson, & Warhust, 2001). In democratic leadership style, the female managers always encourage the
employees to move their ideas freely among the group members and the discussion between the team
members are also done openly. All employees are given equal opportunities to provide their views on a
particular business matter and each of the team members are given a chance to suggest strategies for
business improvement. The female managers of Mantra also communicate with the employees
effectively and through this the employees can share their ideas.

Another example of effectiveness of leadership style of women is the case of Starwood Hotels. Starwood
Hotels and Resorts Worldwide is amongst the leading hospitality companies in their world and presently
they have a total of 1200 properties across the globe in more than 100 countries and more than 180,000
employees work with the organization. Starwood has a balanced gender representation in the
managerial positions of the company but they always try to ensure the gender balance in different levels
of the organizations. Starwood has also launched Starwood Global Female General Manager (GM)
initiative through which they are trying to increase the female leaders in their business operations of
various countries. Starwood Asia pacific has more than 50% female managers and among them 12%
work as general managers of the organization (Ng & Pine, 2003). The leadership styles of men and
women in the organization are also different. The male managers of the organization follow
authoritarian leadership style which mainly emphasizes on the distinction of the leaders and employees.
The managers often order the employees in order to get the work done by them. The male employees
always follow rules in their works and they always try to achieve maximum output from the employees
but in most of the Starwood properties, the employees working under male managers stated that the
authoritarian leadership style has created a climate of fear within the organization whereas the
democratic leadership style adopted by female employees have been proven effective in order to bring
out better performance from the employees. The female managers and leaders of Starwood Hotels
always communicate with the employees and the distance between managers and employees have
been widely shortened by the female leaders. The female managers of Starwood Hotels always guide
the employees at every step of their work which motivates the employees to work properly. They can
also share new ideas with the managers. So, there are huge differences present between the leadership
styles of men and women in Starwood Hotels.

Conclusion:
From the paper, from the theories analyzed and the evidences, it can be concluded that there are some
differences present in the leadership styles of men and women. Most of the authors identified that

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female managers tend to follow authoritarian leadership style in managing the organizations whereas
male managers tend to follow democratic leadership style. As a result, the distance between female
leaders and employees are reduced and the employees are motivated towards providing their best
performance to the organization. In recent times, women are given more and more leadership positions
in the hospitality industry all across the world and they are getting success too.

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