Ethics Newsline®

“Men or Women: Who’s the Better Leader?”

Sep 15th, 2008 • Posted in: Research Report

Pew poll charts a “paradox in public attitudes” concerning gender and leadership

From the Pew Research Center:

“Americans believe women have the right stuff to be political leaders. When it comes to honesty, intelligence and a handful of other character traits they value highly in leaders, the public rates women superior to men, according to a new nationwide Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends survey.

“Nevertheless, a mere 6% of respondents in this survey of 2,250 adults say that, overall, women make better political leaders than men. About one-in-five (21%) say men make the better leaders, while the vast majority — 69% — say men and women make equally good leaders.

“The paradox embedded in these survey findings is part of a wider paradox in modern society on the subject of gender and leadership. In an era when women have made sweeping strides in educational attainment and workforce participation, relatively few have made the journey all the way to the highest levels of political or corporate leadership.

“Why not? In the survey, the public cites gender discrimination, resistance to change, and a self-serving ‘old boys club’ as reasons for the relative scarcity of women at the top. In somewhat smaller numbers, respondents also say that women’s family responsibilities and their shortage of experience hold them back from the upper ranks of politics and business.

“What the public does not say is that women inherently lack what it takes to be leaders. To the contrary, on seven of eight leadership traits measured in this survey, the public rates women either better than or equal to men.

“For example, half of all adults say women are more honest than men, while just one-in-five say men are more honest (the rest say they don’t know or volunteer the opinion that there’s no difference between the sexes on this trait). And honesty, according to respondents, is the most important to leadership of any of the traits measured in the survey.

“The next most important leadership trait, in the public’s view, is intelligence. Here again, women outperform men….

“Men and women tie on two of the next three traits on the public’s ranking of leadership qualities measured in this survey — hard work and ambition. Men prevail over women on decisiveness….

“Finally, women have big leads over men on the last three traits on the public’s rankings of the eight items measured….

“For anyone keeping score, that’s women over men by five to one, with two ties, on eight traits, each of which at least two-thirds of the public says is very important or absolutely essential to leadership….

“The survey also asked respondents to assess whether men or women in public office are better at handling a range of policy matters and job performance challenges. On the policy front, women are widely judged to be better than men at dealing with social issues such as health care and education, while men have a big edge over women in the public’s perception of the way they deal with crime, public safety, defense and national security.

“As for job performance skills, women get higher marks than men in all of the measures tested: standing up for one’s principles in the face of political pressure; being able to work out compromises; keeping government honest; and representing the interests of ‘people like you.’

“Overall, however, women emerge from this survey a bit like a sports team that racks up better statistics but still loses the game — witness the tiny 6% sliver of the public that says women generally make better political leaders than men….”