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Arnold, K.A., & Loughlin, C. (2013). Integrating transformational and participative versus
directive leadership theories: Examining intellectual stimulation in male and female leaders
across three contexts. Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 34(1), 67-84.
For direct quotations please consult the official journal publication of this manuscript.
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Abstract
Purpose: This study investigated the extent to which male and female leaders report engaging in
participative versus directive intellectually stimulating transformational leadership behaviour
across three different contexts (business, government and military).
Design/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 64 senior
leaders (29 female and 35 male) across Canada.
Findings: Leaders were more likely to describe using a participative versus directive approach to
intellectual stimulation. Gender similarities and differences also appeared across contexts:
government leaders reported almost twice as many directive examples as business leaders, and
men and women in both of these contexts were very similar in their reports about how they
enacted intellectual stimulation. In contrast, men and women in the military diverged, with male
leaders reporting more participative behaviour than female leaders.
Research limitations/implications: This study extends the leadership literature through an
integration of participative and directive leadership theory with transformational leadership
theory. Sample size and self-report data are possible limitations.
Practical implications: Findings provide insight into the behaviours leaders engage in to enhance
creative thinking and problem solving within organizations across different contexts and
suggests that this aspect of transformational leadership is most likely to be enacted in a
participative way by both male and female leaders.
Originality/value: One of the first studies to empirically investigate participative versus directive
transformational leadership behaviour. Gender differences between contexts are worthy of
further study, specifically regarding the implications of these finding for female leaders’
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promotion and career progression.
Key words: intellectual stimulation, transformational leadership, gender similarities, gender
differences, problem solving, participative and directive leadership
Paper type: research paper
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Integrating transformational and participative versus directive leadership theories: Examining
intellectual stimulation in male and female leaders across three contexts
Transformational leadership theory has had a large impact on leadership theory and
practice (Bass & Riggio, 2006; Desvaux & Devillard-Hoellinger, 2008; Eagly & Carli, 2007b).
The 1990s saw more than half of all published empirical leadership studies focus on
transformational leadership (Judge & Bono, 2000). In The Leadership Quarterly it was the most
widely published leadership theory in the past twenty years (Gardner, Lowe, Moss, Mahoney, &
Cogliser, 2010; Lowe & Gardner, 2000). Antonakis (2012) states, “this research stream
dominates the leadership landscape – whether deservingly or not” (p. 257). Transformational
leadership has been associated with many positive individual, group and organizational outcomes
with respect to behaviors, attitudes and performance. However, the bulk of research has focused
on followers’ reactions to transformational leadership in their supervisors; “people [who work
with transformational leaders] are more committed to their work, more highly engaged, and more
satisfied” (Avolio, 2011, p. 49). As well, despite the extensive research literature investigating
antecedents and outcomes of transformational leadership behavior, there is relatively little work
that delves into each component of this leadership theory.
In research studies, transformational leadership has been characterized by four behavioural
components (Bass, 1998): (1) Idealized influence – being a role model whom followers aspire to
emulate; (2) Inspirational motivation – communicating a compelling vision and holding high
expectations; (3) Intellectual stimulation – encouraging thinking ‘outside the box’ and generating
new solutions to old problems; and (4) Individual consideration – caring about employees and
spending time coaching and mentoring each individual (Avolio, 1999; Bass, 1985, 1998). Of
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these dimensions, “the most underdeveloped component of transformational leadership is
intellectual stimulation” (Rafferty & Griffin, 2004, p. 333). It is this component to which we turn
our attention in this paper.
In this study, we respond to calls to further our knowledge about this underdeveloped
aspect of transformational leadership (i.e. intellectual stimulation). Investigating how leaders
encourage employees to think of new ways to approach problems is an important question
because innovation and creativity are important outcomes of this process (Moss & Ritossa, 2007;
Shin & Zhou, 2003); and many organizations today depend upon creativity and innovation to
succeed (Garcia-Morales, Matias-Reche, & Hurtado-Torres, 2008).
Some recent studies have examined the transformational dimensions separately (e.g.,
Arnold & Loughlin, 2004, 2010; Loughlin, Arnold, & Bell Crawford, 2012; Rafferty & Griffin,
2004, 2006; Vinkenburg, Van Engen, Eagly, & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2011). Findings suggest
that different components of transformational leadership may be associated with different
outcomes, particularly for female leaders. In the current study, we focus on leaders descriptions
of how they approach problem solving in their organizations. We empirically investigate the
question of how they describe performing the intellectual stimulation component of
transformational leadership (i.e., in a participative or directive manner).
Intellectual Stimulation: Participative versus Directive Mechanisms
Studying participative versus directive approaches to transformational leadership may be
particularly important because of the clear distinction between participation as a stereotypically
feminine way to lead (e.g., Helgesen, 1990) versus direction being perceived as congruent with a
stereotypically masculine approach (e.g., Heilman, Block, & Martell, 1995). Participative and
directive leadership styles can be neatly integrated into feminine and masculine sex role
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stereotypes (Eagly & Johnson, 1990), whereas transformational leadership cannot be so easily
classified. Taken as a whole, transformational leadership has been regarded as gender neutral by
some researchers (e.g., Eagly & Carli, 2007b). Although transformational leadership is not neatly
categorized in terms of gender role stereotypes, research suggests that certain components
(individual consideration) are clearly perceived as feminine (e.g., Hackman, Furniss, Hills, &
Paterson, 1992); while others, such as intellectual stimulation, lean towards the masculine
(Hackman, et al., 1992). In research undertaken by Catalyst (2005), problem solving is
characterized as the “one [behaviour] that might best embody the ‘take charge’ stereotype of
men” (p. 15). Other researchers using different typologies (similar to the transformational
leadership dimensions) corroborate this work. For example, Atwater and her colleagues (2004)
investigated perceptions of 19 managerial sub-roles by surveying 146 male and 117 female
university students. Participants were asked to rate each sub-role as more ‘masculine’, more
‘feminine’, or ‘can’t say’. They found that the managerial sub-role of problem solving was
perceived as masculine.
The masculine and feminine stereotypes attached to leader behaviour are important due to
their influence on how leaders are perceived and evaluated (Heilman & Eagly, 2008). In past
research, participative leadership approaches have been found to be perceived as more
communal (and hence more feminine), and it was found that women tend to utilize this
leadership style more so than men (Eagly & Johnson, 1990). Past work also clearly demonstrates
that women often find themselves in a double bind in their leadership roles. If they behave in
masculine ways (congruent with the leader role: e.g., Schein, 1973; Schein, Mueller, Lituchy, &
Liu, 1996) they are not likeable, but if they behave in feminine ways (congruent with their
gender role), they are not seen as ‘leader-like’ (Heilman & Okimoto, 2007). In fact, this double
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bind has been suggested to be a major reason why women have not made much progress into
senior leadership roles (Eagly & Karau, 2002). There is the possibility that transformational
leadership dimensions could be enacted in either participative or directive fashions, leaving each
component the potential to be congruent with either feminine or masculine sex role stereotypes.
While many researchers have assumed that transformational leadership is participative by
nature, Bass consistently suggested that transformational leadership could take either
participative or directive forms (Bass, 1990, 1999; Bass & Bass, 2008). Avolio (2011) recently
confirmed this position; “transformational leadership can be directive or participative as well as
democratic or authoritarian” (p. 69). We are not aware of any empirical research investigating
how each component of transformational leadership can be enacted in a participative (congruent
with feminine stereotype) versus directive (congruent with masculine stereotype) way.
Generally, directive leadership can be defined as “leader behaviours that seek … compliance
with [leader] directions about how to accomplish a problem solving task”, whereas participative
leadership is the “sharing of problem solving by consulting [employees] … before making a
decision” (Sauer, 2011, p. 575).
Bass and Riggio (2006) give examples of participative intellectual stimulation compared to
directive intellectual stimulation. While different forms of participative leadership exist, the one
commonality is that this approach typically focuses on “involving followers [actively] in
decision processes” whereas with a directive style “leaders [themselves] play the active role in
problem solving and decision making, and expect followers to be guided by their decision” (Bass
& Bass, 2008, p. 460). In terms of intellectual stimulation, a participative example would be:
“Can we try to look at our assumptions as a ground without being critical of each other’s ideas
until all assumptions have been listed?” (Bass & Riggio, 2006, p. 12). In this example, the leader
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is open to opinions and suggestions of employees, and engages them in an open discussion in
order to generate new solutions. The followers’ opinions are sought and valued. This can be
contrasted with a directive example for followers to engage in problem solving themselves: “You
must reexamine the assumption that a cold fusion engine is a physical impossibility. Revisit this
problem and question your assumption” (Bass & Riggio, 2006, p. 12). In this example, the leader
tells the employee to rethink the problem – in essence directs them to do this on their own versus
engaging them in a two-way process. As well, a leader who makes the decision about the
solutions to problems him/herself and then directs employees to implement these would also be
defined as directive. The distinction here lies in whether or not the leader involves followers in a
process of discussion to come up with new solutions, versus telling them either to do it on their
own, or telling them what the leader has already decided the novel solution should be.
In 2005, Catalyst found that there were differences in perceptions (not necessarily in the
actual behaviours) of women and men who engage in problem solving or intellectual stimulation.
This study investigated 296 senior corporate managers’ perceptions of differences between male
and female leaders in terms of how effective they were at problem solving. Male and female
respondents to this survey had very different assessments of the problem solving ability of male
versus female leaders. Women perceived female leaders to be superior at problem solving to
males, whereas men perceived male leaders as superior at problem solving to female leaders
(Catalyst, 2005). Further, when women were leaders in masculine contexts they were even “more
likely to be viewed as poor problem solvers, especially by senior managers who have direct
exposure to women leaders” (Catalyst, 2005, p. 24). This finding was suggested to be
particularly detrimental for women leaders in as much as being “stereotyped as poor problem-
solvers, their power to motivate followers may be seriously undermined” (Catalyst, 2005, p. 4).
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In discussing the ‘double bind’ that senior female leaders find themselves in, particularly in
masculine industries, the authors note that “women’s energy might be better spent on
implementing solutions, [but instead] they may have to spend considerably more effort than male
leaders on negotiating with subordinates and getting their buy-in” (Catalyst, 2005, p. 24). It
appeared in this study that female leaders might almost be forced to take a more time consuming
participative approach to problem solving (in alignment with feminine stereotypes) to get buy-in
from employees and be perceived as effective leaders.
Based on these findings, it is reasonable to expect that female leaders will enact
intellectual stimulation in a more participative way than male leaders across contexts to gain
‘buy in’ from others. This being said, there is an alternative theoretical lens through which to
view these relationships and some empirical evidence to suggest rival propositions. We now turn
to this literature.
Context Matters
In 2006, Johns called for a more explicit focus on organizational context in organizational
behaviour research. Context can be defined as “situational opportunities and constraints that
affect the occurrence and meaning of organizational behavior as well as functional relationships
between variables” (Johns, 2006, p. 386). Different organizational contexts can be described as
weak versus strong situations (Cooper & Withey, 2009; Mischel, 1977). Strong situations are
characterized by “obvious norms and rigid roles [and they] tend to constrain the expression of
individual differences … [whereas weak situations] permit more latitude or opportunity for the
expressions of such differences” (Johns, 2006, p. 387). Although gender can be a powerful driver
of behaviour (as discussed above), context and ‘occupational identity’ may also exert
considerable influence on leaders’ behaviour.
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At least two contextual forces may suppress the gender based differences discussed above:
(1) Some authors argue that there has been a feminization of management in general (Fondas,
1997) and empirical research has supported this in terms of leadership behaviour (Loughlin, et
al., 2012), whereby male and female leaders may now be expected to behave in similar
(stereotypically feminine) ways in their leadership roles and (2) Research on ‘occupational
identities’ also suggests that individuals will be more similar within occupations than across
genders. In this regard, borrowing from the gender literature, we are reminded that ‘performing’
an identity can produce the identity itself (Butler, 1990). Thus, behaving like someone in a
particular role (e.g., an ‘engineer’) may in and of itself make men and women come to act more
similar than one might expect based on their gender identities alone. Some research has
supported this proposition, finding that professional identity can over-ride gender identity
particularly in masculine occupations (e.g., Moore, 1999; regarding police officers). In the public
sector, some research also suggest that women adopt more masculine styles due to occupational
identities (Ford, 2006).
Given the above, we could propose rival propositions across contexts in regard to
participative versus directive intellectual stimulation: (1) The military is a prototypical ‘strong
situation’, given its hierarchical rank structure that constrains behaviour. The masculine norms
and culture in the military also align well with directive approaches (e.g., Lim & Ployhart, 2004;
Silva, 2008). Consequently, it is possible that male and female problem solving will be the most
similar and most directive in the military. (2) Government structures are also highly bureaucratic
and this has been cited as an impediment to creative problem solving and employee
empowerment in past research (e.g., Daley & Lovrich, 2007). While the government lacks the
rigid constraints of the military, it is also characterized by greater policy and procedural
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constraints in terms of being creative and innovative than business contexts, thus there is reason
to expect that leaders in this context will be less directive than the military but not as
participative as in business. Implications for gender differences are less clear. (3) Finally, we
might expect the business context to have the fewest constraints on behaviour and therefore to be
the most stereotypical in its outcomes (i.e., with female leaders being the most participative).
This study is exploratory; hence our rival propositions are tentative. Past literature suggests
that there are possible reasons to expect both difference and similarity; and the extent of these
differences and similarities may depend on the context. Next, we present our method for
investigating these relationships. We then delineate our empirical findings on how male and
female leaders across the three contexts in our study describe their intellectual stimulation.
Finally, in the discussion we summarize our findings and contribution to the literature, discuss
limitations and future research questions arising from this study, and take up the implications of
our findings for leadership evaluations.
Methods
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with leaders from private sector businesses,
government, and the military across four provinces in Canada. We pursued a purposive sampling
strategy and interviewed female and male leaders with senior supervisory experience from a
broad range of contexts (Stake, 2005). In this paper, data from 64 leaders in total is analysed: 29
business leaders (11 female and 18 male), 20 government leaders (9 female and 11 male), and 15
military leaders (9 female and 6 male). The business leaders were senior level managers, within
two levels of the CEO and/or President, government leaders filled Director and Executive
positions, and military leaders were at the levels of Major and Colonel. For the business and
government leaders the average years of management experience was 18.0 for males and 12.4 for
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females. In total there were 35 male leaders in our sample: their average age was 46.9 years, and
there were 29 female leaders in our sample: their average age was 44.8 years.
We employed a semi-structured interview methodology with specific questions asked of
every participant but with no set response formats – individuals could answer as they felt best
described their opinions and experience (Fontana & Frey, 2005). The data presented here are part
of a larger study1 that included other aspects of leadership and career development. Interviews
lasted between 45 minutes to 75 minutes, were conducted by phone, audio recorded and
transcribed. The transcribed files were input into Nvivo 7.0 for an initial analysis. For present
purposes we focus on specific interview questions related to intellectual stimulation: (1) Do you
feel that it is important to get employees to think of different ways of doing things? and (2) If so,
can you tell me what you do in order to encourage ‘outside of the box’ thinking? These questions
were directly modelled after the questions on the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ:
Bass & Avolio, 1995), which is a valid and reliable measure of transformational leadership.
These structured questions were followed up by probing questions specific to each interviewee’s
example(s). In the first step of our analysis, we coded for any examples where problem solving
was discussed. These examples were most likely to come from participant answers to the above
questions; but they could also have been discussed in relation to other aspects of the interview.
The initial unit of analysis and coding was completed at the level of the individual leader
(Boyatzis, 1998).
Our data was then content analysed using ‘thought items’ (Miles & Huberman, 1994) from
individual leaders as the unit of analysis. Thought items are chunks of data that are logically
related: phrases, sentences and/or paragraphs that express a similar idea. Using this approach
versus a line-by-line coding approach allowed us to maintain the meaning and context of the
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ideas that our participants discussed. We followed the steps for content analysis outlined by
Weber (1990). This protocol is widely referenced in the literature (e.g., Duriau, Reger, & Pfarrer,
2007). We employed two graduate students to independently code the data according to
predetermined definitions of participative and directive problem solving behaviour. The gender
and context of the individual leaders were removed from these transcripts. Neither coder knew
the intent of the study. The coders were give copies of the transcripts and were trained in the
definitions of participative and directive leadership behaviour. Our definitions came from the
extant literature on participative and directive leadership. Specifically, we defined participative
behaviour as behaviour that involves employee input in decision making and problem solving –
there is a two way interaction whereby the leader takes follower’s input into account (e.g., Bass
& Bass, 2008). Directive behaviour was defined as behaviour that does not involve the employee
in the decision making and problem solving – there is no two-way interaction between leader and
follower (e.g., Bass & Bass, 2008).
When the two graduate student research assistants had completed the independent blind
coding the first author compared their coding to calculate the level of inter-coder agreement. In
total, 155 though items were initially coded between both coders. There was agreement on 130
items translating to an acceptable inter-rater agreement of 83.9% (130/155). The authors then
revisited the coding to be sure that each thought item tapped into the construct of intellectual
stimulation. We found three instances where thought items did not qualify as intellectual
stimulation and these items were discarded; eight additional thought items were coded during
this process leaving 160 thought items coded in total (91 from males and 69 from females).
Findings
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Overall, our findings would appear to support observations about the feminization of
management (Fondas, 1997) as the majority of both female and male leaders described engaging
in participative approaches to intellectual stimulation across contexts (See Table 1): 84.1 percent
of female and 86.8 percent of male comments were coded as participative (i.e., more aligned
with feminine stereotypes). This pattern of results (i.e. more participative items than directive
items) was fairly consistent across all three contexts.
However, when we look at the results comparing men and women across the three
contexts some interesting differences also emerge. As the percentages in Table 2 illustrate, a
greater percentage of male military leaders discussed items that were coded as participative
compared to female military leaders. The female military leaders were more likely to give
directive examples (20%) than their male counterparts (7.7%). Further, men in the military
actually gave the largest percentage of participative examples across contexts (92.9%). In the
military, patterns for men and women diverged regarding participative versus directive trends,
and the findings show that female leaders were most likely to report being directive in their
intellectual stimulation. Males however showed a different pattern, with males in the military
being the least likely to provide directive examples. In the government sample, we found gender
similarity in participative behaviour (male leaders = 82.6% and female leaders = 79.3%);
however, there were a greater percentage of directive ideas expressed by both sexes as compared
to business. In the business context, male and female leaders were also quite similar; with a
smaller percentage of items coded as directive (males = 10.4% and females = 11.5%).
In the paragraphs that follow we provide illustrative examples of the leaders’
participative approaches to intellectual stimulation across all three contexts. A word count
conducted with the transcripts of coded thought items and notations from coders indicated that
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there were two main themes regarding participative behaviours. These centered on (a) holding
meetings (34) in order to facilitate brainstorming processes (18); and (b) asking questions (24)
with the intent of being open to being challenged (16).
Holding Meetings to Foster Brainstorming
In the business sample, there were numerous examples given of how leaders engaged in
participative behaviour related to the intellectual stimulation of their employees. Holding
meetings for the purpose of brainstorming was something that was frequently mentioned:
“We’d [my employees and I] talk about it. We have a meeting and we are brainstorming
and when we do our plan, okay, it’s a safe environment [to suggest] …let’s do something
different and what can we do that’s different?” (FB92)
“This group of management people that I work with I would brainstorm ways to do that. So
it’s setting up that kind of environment and I have a couple of people that I work with that
… I ask them to lead those sessions, so it comes from their peers … everything is fair game
... not to sound like Doctor Phil but, there’s no judgment passed” (MB1)
Government leaders provided similar examples of brainstorming. The notion of humility and
breaking down hierarchical boundaries between leader and employee came across in the
examples of how meetings are conducted:
“We try to have fairly regular staff meetings and everybody shares what they’re working
on and what they’re doing. And so everybody has a chance to give some input. So rather
than getting into your own head of what you think needs to be done, it’s an opportunity to
get other ideas and other opinions on things” (FG15)
“I don't think of myself as being a personally particularly creative person, but I do know I
have a reputation of gathering people around me that together as a group, can come up with
creative and innovative kinds of solutions” (FG13)
“We’ll get all our staff in the room… and we say we’re going to develop this together …
we all have a think session and there is no level in that room [i.e. everyone is on the same
level regardless of hierarchical position in the organization]” (MG31)
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Military leaders also described holding meetings and brainstorming as important
participative techniques used to encourage thinking about old problems in news ways. For
example:
“So in a lot of cases, I may be looking to try to produce a report or develop a program, or
do some sort of construction where I don’t necessarily know all of the things that I would
need to know in order to solve that problem. So I like to try to go back to the people who
do have that skill and ask them well, what is your suggestion?” (FM21)
These leaders also described meetings and brainstorming where all individuals in the room are
on equal footing:
“What I tend to do is when we face an issue that we have to try to come up with different
solutions, we just sit around the table and do some brainstorming. And we try and kick
down the traditional barriers that I’m the boss and you’re the subordinate, and we just have
a session where anyone can say anything about any idea, no matter how ridiculous it is”
(MM29)
Giving people a chance to take a second look at a decision after some time to think about it was
part of a process used in addition to brainstorming for some leaders:
“And then you mull it over and you bounce things off people. And at the end of the session
on Monday, we left with a direction. And the next day, when people had a time to think it
over and mull it over, I guess away from the masses, and then did a bit of quiet time,
somebody came back in and said, you know, I had a different thought last night. And of
course I brought everybody back again, we had a chat about that and it seemed to be the
way to go” (FG14)
Bringing different people together in the meeting was also a technique that was brought up.
This is similar to the idea that bringing in new people can help alleviate groupthink (Janis, 1982)
in team settings – who is brought together can also influence the problem solving process and the
likelihood that new ideas are generated. A set of ‘fresh eyes’ can look at old problems in new
ways:
“I move people around allowing them the opportunity just to come in and say hey why is
that the way it is and is that the best way and get the people within that department
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questioning it themselves and saying, maybe we do need to look at this another way”
(MB4)
The notion of doing things differently in meetings where you bring people together was also
cited:
“And you have to be innovative. Like people are bored easily and they don’t just want to
just sit there listen to the same ____. You kind of have to challenge people all the time
because we’ve all been in like hundreds of meetings and it’s always the same crap, the
same agenda. I do things a bit differently that whenever there are suggestions come up and
they are outside of the box, you really take a look at them” (FM24)
Questioning and Being Open to Being Challenged
The second theme that was apparent regarding participation was the notion of questioning
others and being open to being challenged. Questioning others and themselves was frequently
mentioned, and many leaders across the three contexts reported using this as a strategy to bring
out employees’ ideas in a two-way discussion. This approach appeared to be conducted with
some humility in order to encourage participation. For example, in business:
“It’s probably what distinguishes the best [leaders] from the adequate ones … thinking
creatively not just shouting out their own ideas” (FB1)
“I think just the nature of our department is, when I meet with my folks, innovation is a
key competency that you need in this job. And so I think … they know that coming up with
new and better ways of doing things is the expectation. Change [my] mindset from the
manager who tells to the manager who asks” (FB6)
“You guys know what you’re looking at [describing an organizational problem focused on
one department]. You can ask a lot of questions that I wouldn’t even think to ask let alone
understand the answer… I put together a group of two representatives from each of the
fixed teams we had at the time… I got out of the room… and went back to talk to them
about two months later” (MB5)
Being open to being challenged (and enjoying this) and communicating this feeling to employees
was perceived as a particularly effective participative technique:
“I tell them that I don’t hire lemmings… that I don’t want to go over the cliff with
everybody else. So if I’m running headlong toward the cliff I need them to stand up and
tell me, you know what? You’re wrong. And I need them to tell me why I’m wrong, and I
have no problem being challenged, and I encourage it” (MB10)
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“I prefer to be challenged in an open fashion, in a constructive way. And if somebody has a
better solution I am more than prepared and happy to embrace it” (MG19)
“So I’ll throw out an idea and want them [employees] to challenge it” (MM29)
“They’ve been in these roles longer than me, so they have some very good ideas, that’s
why they are where they are, so I think a lot of it is to challenge each other, to question
stuff, to look at it from different perspectives” (FG23)
Similar to the business and government samples, the leaders in the military also spoke
about being challenged by employees and enjoying this – they wanted this to happen while
recognizing that the nature of their work meant that it was not always possible (for example,
during a crisis). The philosophy of being open to challenge and being comfortable with it seemed
to permeate most of the participative leaders in all three contexts:
“So I’ll throw an idea out and want them to challenge it so that we can come to the best
logical point” (MM26)
A Note about Context
In addition to differentiating between participative and directive forms of intellectual
stimulation, participants from government and military highlighted the fact that although they
needed to operate within policies and procedures, they were open to changing these if necessary.
These participants were more likely than the business participants to express the notion that the
participative approach requires setting aside the ‘usual’ policies and rules in order to come up
with new solutions and there were sometimes good reasons to be doing this. While the solutions
might be constrained by policy (particularly in both government and military contexts), policy
did not dictate the use of a directive approach for these leaders. Despite policy constraints these
leaders were more likely to give participative than directive examples of intellectual stimulation.
There was considerable openness to new solutions and to making policy change where
necessary. The government sector leaders discussed their accountability to the public in this
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regard. The military leaders discussed the changing environment in which they operated and
budgetary constraints as forces making it necessary to find new ways of doing their work. For
example:
“… recognizing that we have these clear guidelines here and this is how we’re supposed to
do things, come up with ideas on how we could do it differently, completely ignoring the
policy as it’s written now. What would you do completely differently if you were given the
authority to completely change how we manage this particular process?” (MG24)
“… the government isn’t the wide west but there are opportunities for improvement in just
about every department. I encourage my managers to find ways of working … to make
things better, to try and change the way we currently do things” (MG20)
As well, the notion that they ‘owed it’ to the public to think of new ways of approaching
problems came out as a reason for encouraging new approaches to problems despite constraints.
“At every monthly staff meeting we have in my unit, I raise that very issue …we should be
constantly looking at making improvement in the way in which we do our job. That’s
something that I firmly believe in. We owe that to ourselves. We owe it to the organization.
We owe it to the public” (MG18)
Finally, in regards to directive approaches overall, in the government we found the greatest
percentage of directive ideas. In the military sample we found a higher percentage of female
comments coded as directive versus male comments and the largest gender difference. Some
illustrative examples of directive intellectual stimulation follow:
“We ask [employees] to look at [new policy] and to implement it kind of as we’ve
designed it” (FB2)
“I might say [when an employee comes to me with a problem] … here’s one of the ways
you might do it. Here’s how I would say it. Understanding you might say it differently so
play back to me what you heard in your own words” (MB33)
“Early in our relationship, I would help them and, direct them…” (MB4)
“[I am] limited in terms of how far outside the box [we] can go because in addition to the
problem solving role there is the enforcement angle of _______ legislation. We have to
adhere to that ” (MG23)
Page 17
“The main thing I do [to get employees to solve problems] is just try to impose on them the
way I approach [the situation] and encourage them to do it the same way” (FM22)
We note that the differences regarding the percentage of directive thoughts expressed by
female leaders in military compared to males did not support either of our propositions: females
were not more participative and gender differences were largest in this context. The proposition
that women and men would be more similar within government and military than business
contexts was only partly supported. In fact, in the military sample, we saw the largest percentage
of differences between males and females.
Discussion
In this study, we investigated examples of intellectual stimulation from the perspective of
leaders across three contexts (business, government and military). This component of
transformational leadership has “not been the subject of extensive research” (Rafferty & Griffin,
2004, p. 333). We contribute to the literature by exploring how male and female leaders describe
implementing this aspect of transformational leadership in participative or directive ways. As
such, this study provides preliminary empirical evidence of the assertion that transformational
leadership can be enacted in either participative or directive ways; an assertion backed by theory
(Avolio, 2011; Bass & Bass, 2008; Bass & Riggio, 2006) but no published empirical evidence
that we could find. Our findings also suggest that across contexts, leaders are now much more
likely to see themselves as being intellectually stimulating in participative ways (with all scores
around 80% or above). This result held for male and female leaders; there was greater similarity
than difference (Hyde, 2005).
The most common techniques leaders used for encouraging participation included: (1)
getting groups of people together for meetings to brainstorm or discuss issues and (2)
Page 18
questioning themselves and others while being open to being challenged. Despite the fact that
both government and military leaders acknowledged that they were working in a constrained
environment due to policy, there was agreement that finding different ways of doing things was
an important skill that employees required, and that should policy need to be changed, these
leaders would take that step.
Some interesting differences across contexts were also evident. Although government
leaders reported almost twice as many directive examples (male = 20.7%; female = 17.4%) as
business leaders (male = 11.5%; female = 10.4%), men and women within each of these contexts
were surprisingly similar in their reports about the way they enacted intellectual stimulation. In
contrast, men and women in the military seemed to diverge more, with female leaders reporting
almost twice as many directive examples (20%) as male leaders (7.7%). Future research will
need to determine why female leaders might be twice as likely to report being directive as male
leaders in this particular context. Given the masculine nature of the environment at least two
explanations seem apparent in hindsight: (1) a selection bias: women who make it to the top in
the military may be more likely to be directive to begin with; or (2) if women are most likely to
be perceived as “poor problem solvers” in masculine contexts (Catalyst, 2005), it is possible that,
to the extent women are aware of this, they felt the need to ‘own’ problem solving behaviour in
order to receive credit for it.
Regarding the three different contexts, we had delineated the potential for contradictory
predictions. One line of previous research suggested that female leaders would be more
participative across contexts in order to gain ‘buy in’. This proposition did not garner as much
support as the alternative propositions suggested by the literature focused on environments
characterized as strong situations, and around ideas regarding professional identity. This line
Page 19
suggested that male and female leaders would be similar in their descriptions of intellectual
stimulation. In these situations, gender might be a secondary influence on behaviour. In the
government and business samples, gender may well be secondary to occupational identity, given
that there was little difference between male and female leaders in either their participative or
directive intellectually stimulating transformational leadership behaviour. However, predictions
were only partially supported by our data in the military context, where there was in fact the
greatest gender difference. It may also be that the military is such a unique environment that it is
outlier. For example, past meta-analytic research on the gender of leaders and links to
effectiveness found that “military studies deviated strongly from all other classes of studies” with
men having higher effectiveness ratings than women in this setting and means in this setting
deviating from means in other settings (e.g., education, business, government) and laboratory
studies (Eagly, Karau, & Makhijani, 1995, p. 135). Future work will be necessary to investigate
this potential explanation.
Because women are expected to be participative as part of the feminine stereotype, they
may not get credit for enacting problem solving behaviours that engage others. When engaging
in participative intellectual stimulation women may be perceived as ‘just doing what women do’
(Fletcher, 2004). This implication is based on the body of research showing that women do not
get credit for workplace behaviours that are perceived as feminine (Heilman & Chen, 2005;
Loughlin, Arnold, & Bell Crawford, 2009; Loughlin, et al., 2012). Yet at the same time research
shows that women are penalized for success at behaviours that are perceived as masculine
(Heilman & Okimoto, 2007; Heilman, Wallen, Fuchs, & Tamkins, 2004). If women engage in
more transformational behaviours, but do so in participative ways, the end result may be that
they do not get credit for these behaviours. In certain masculine environments female leaders
Page 20
may need to enact transformational behaviours in directive ways in order to be rewarded for
them. Our findings in the military sample, while tentative, would support this counterintuitive
hypothesis. Of course, at the same time, this directive approach may result in negative
evaluations of likeability (e.g., Heilman, et al., 2004), a key aspect of moving up to senior
leadership levels. Given our limited sample size these suggestions will need to be tested in future
research.
While Bass & colleagues may be correct that either participative or directive
transformational leadership is effective for men (transformational leadership theory was
developed using male participants), little is known about the effectiveness of participative versus
directive approaches for women. Researchers have noted that women are subject to slower
leadership progression rates than males (Eagly & Carli, 2007a) despite being rated as engaging
more frequently in transformational behaviour than male leaders (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, &
van Engen, 2003). Overlaying the participatory and directive processes on each component of
transformational leadership might help us gain insight into at least one piece of this puzzle.
Strengths, Limitations and Future Research
The differences we found should be interpreted with caution given our limited sample
size. However, the fact that we asked leaders to tell us, in their own words, how they encouraged
employees to think in different ways is also a strength of the study as there are no gender
balanced published accounts of how leaders enact this type of leadership behaviour. In addition,
our sample covers three different contexts. While the number of leaders within each context
could be larger, this study is on par with qualitative work in other areas of inquiry (e.g., Friede,
Ernst Kossek, Dean Lee, & Macdermid, 2008). As mentioned, it is also a much more balanced
sample than is typically the case in the leadership literature. Balanced samples can be difficult to
Page 21
find due to small number of female leaders at these organizational levels (e.g., Harding, Lee,
Ford, & Leamonth, 2011, where only 1/38 were women).
As with any study this one has limitations. First, the males in our sample were on average
older than the females, and had more management experience. Future research should look at
different generational cohorts and attempt to discern how these leadership behaviours develop
over time. For example, did the males in our sample begin their careers being more directive and
then later become more participative? Did the women always engage in participative behaviours
or was this also an evolution and development of their leadership style? Do women and men
develop leadership behaviours at different times in their leadership experiences and careers?
Second, our results are from the leaders’ perspectives. Self-report data may be subject to a
social desirability bias (Paulhus, 1984) and therefore we might find different results if we had
asked followers to rate their leaders on how often they engaged in specific behaviours related to
participative and directive intellectual stimulation. Our focus was on how much leaders believed
they engaged in each of these different styles. Future investigations such as this could consider
how similar leader perceptions are to follower perceptions of these types of behaviours.
Besides looking at how leaders actually behave, it is important to empirically assess how
others perceive and evaluate their behaviour. Future work could investigate the question of
whether the dimensions of transformational leadership are evaluated and rewarded equally when
enacted by male and female leaders in participative versus directive ways. This work should
consider each component of transformational leadership separately due to the different
congruence with sex role stereotypes for each component. For example, intellectual stimulation
is congruent with the masculine stereotype and hence findings could be different for components
more aligned with the feminine stereotype (e.g., individual consideration). Experimental studies
Page 22
would be well suited to answer these questions given their high internal validity allowing
causation to be tested.
We also believe it is plausible that our findings might have implications for other aspects
of transformational leadership – for example inspirational motivation (creating and
communicating an organizational vision). Investigating ratings of effectiveness of senior female
leaders across a number of leadership behaviours, Ibarra and Obodaru (2009) found that vision
was a key leadership behaviour on which women were rated as less effective than men. When
the researchers interviewed the senior women in their study, they uncovered one possible reason
for this difference. They proposed that perhaps these women take employee input into
consideration when making decisions more so than men; they “come to their visions in a less
directive way than men do” (Ibarra & Obodaru, 2009, p. 67). Perhaps the reason that these
women did not get credit for their vision activities was due to the participative process that they
were more likely to utilize. Although these researchers were not addressing differences in
participative versus directive leadership, this observation, in addition to our own findings, would
certainly seem to support the empirical investigation of such differences in the inspirational
motivation component of transformational leadership.
While being ‘participative’ may be seen as exceptional for male transformational leaders
this behaviour may simply not be seen as exceptional for women. If indeed female leaders are
‘damned if they do and damned if they don’t’ (Catalyst, 2007, p. 1), each aspect of
transformational leadership may need to be examined for its interaction with participative and
directive approaches and their impact on perceptions and evaluations of the leaders in question.
Perhaps with the exception of the military, the overall findings here regarding intellectually
stimulating transformational leadership appear to support the similarity hypothesis (Hyde, 2005).
Page 23
Despite the fact that
“stories in the popular press reinforce misconceptions of women leaders by speculating
about how different they are from men. These stories sell because they resonate with
popular beliefs about women and men. Although provocative, the stories are dangerous.
They reinforce perceptions that are dead wrong – perceptions that are rooted in gender
stereotypes – perceptions that maintain the gender gap in leadership itself” (Catalyst, 2005,
p. 1).
Researchers may often be complicit in reinforcing this bias, because finding no gender difference
can be construed as just ‘not that interesting’. However, as we have outlined in this study,
relationships between gender and leadership are much more nuanced than this, and can be
impacted by not only how one enacts transformational leadership (i.e., in a participative versus
directive way) but in what context one does so (e.g., business, the government or the military). It
would appear that despite the abundance of research done on leadership to date we still have
much to learn about how women and men enact leadership across different contexts.
Page 24
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Footnotes
1. Findings related to other aspects of transformational leadership from this national interview
study supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada have been
published (e.g., Arnold & Loughlin, 2010).
2. Participants are labelled by gender (M=male, F=female), context (B=business, G=government,
M=military), and numbered to indicate different individuals within each of these categories. For
example, FB9 = female business participant #9.
Page 32
Table 1
Thought items by category and gender
Category
Females
Males
Participative intellectual stimulation
84.1%
86.8%
Directive intellectual stimulation
15.9%
13.2%
Total thought items
69
91
Page 33
Table 2
Thought items by category, gender, and context
Category
Females
Males
Participative intellectual stimulation
Business
88.5%
89.6%
Government
82.6%
79.3%
Military
80%
92.9%
Total thought items
58
79
Directive intellectual stimulation
Business
11.5%
10.4%
Government
17.4%
20.7%
Military
20%
7.7%
Total thought items
11
12
