Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I The Age of Enlightened Rule?
- Part II Leadership as Social Activism around 1900
- Part III Women and Political Power in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- 11 Follow-the-Leader: Tracing Male Influence on Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph des Willens
- 12 “Leaning In”: The Career Woman as Instrument of Neoliberal Critique
- 13 Change, Persistence, and Contradiction: The Representation of Female Political Leadership in Gendered Media
- 14 Petra Kelly: A Green Leader out of Place?
- 15 “Mama Merkel” and “Mutti-Multikulti”: The Perils of Governing While Female
- 16 Women Leaders in Troubled Times: The Leadership Styles of Angela Merkel and Hillary Clinton
- Bibliography
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
16 - Women Leaders in Troubled Times: The Leadership Styles of Angela Merkel and Hillary Clinton
from Part III - Women and Political Power in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I The Age of Enlightened Rule?
- Part II Leadership as Social Activism around 1900
- Part III Women and Political Power in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- 11 Follow-the-Leader: Tracing Male Influence on Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph des Willens
- 12 “Leaning In”: The Career Woman as Instrument of Neoliberal Critique
- 13 Change, Persistence, and Contradiction: The Representation of Female Political Leadership in Gendered Media
- 14 Petra Kelly: A Green Leader out of Place?
- 15 “Mama Merkel” and “Mutti-Multikulti”: The Perils of Governing While Female
- 16 Women Leaders in Troubled Times: The Leadership Styles of Angela Merkel and Hillary Clinton
- Bibliography
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
Summary
Man is the hidden reference in language and culture;
women can only aspire to be as good as a man;
there is no point in trying to be as good as a woman.
—Dale Spender (1984)OVER THE LAST THREE DECADES scholars have generated a plethora of organizational studies, laboratory experiments, public-opinion polls, and even mega-analyses trying to determine whether or not women and men “lead differently.” Because men have dominated most public domains for centuries, it is understandable that citizens worldwide have a tendency to view “exercising leadership” as something inherently male, as something men can and should do. Elites and followers likewise conflate the ways in which men behave with what really “works” when it comes to serving as a leader.
Most broad empirical studies regarding leadership stem from the business administration and organizational psychology domains, given the ability of those scholars to draw on the large populations needed to ensure a “representative” sample—even if women are only minimally present at higher managerial levels. According to various mega-studies, most of the empirically tested gender differences turn out to be quite small, or not even statistically significant. As Alice H. Eagly and Mary C. Johannesen-Schmidt stress, however, “small differences, when repeated over individuals and occasions, can produce large consequences.” Ironically, participants are more inclined to assign stereotypical gender traits and role expectations to male and female leaders in experimental or laboratory settings than do raters or subordinates in real-world, organization-specific studies. Sex differences tend to disappear when men and women occupy the same positions and are charged with managing concrete tasks, allowing researchers to control for differences that usually stem from the societal context, institutional imperatives, or special situational factors.
We need not dwell for long on the stereotypical traits and behaviors attributed to women and men across regional and national boundaries, assessed by way of various “inventories” and “scales.” We are all familiar with the characterizations of women as accommodating, community-minded, cooperative, demure, emotional, gentle, helpful, kind, nurturing, participatory, quiet, relationship-oriented, risk-averse, sensitive, subordinate, supportive, sympathetic, and warm—although none of these traits seemed to apply to the (first) Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, for instance.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Realities and Fantasies of German Female LeadershipFrom Maria Antonia of Saxony to Angela Merkel, pp. 318 - 334Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2019