Could the aging workforce reduce the agency penalty for female leaders? Re-examining the think manager–think male stereotype

Abstract

Older workers make up a substantial portion of today’s labor force. Yet little is known about the beliefs held by this age group. Our study offers some much needed insights into intersectionality around this group, by investigating how older workers’ perceptions of supervisors performing a gendered leadership behavior are impacted by a supervisors’ sex, age, and gendered attributes. The results show that these supervisors are perceived most favorably when they possess communal qualities and/or when they are depicted as being older than their direct reports. Our results also reveal that, when these supervisors are not perceived as communal, male but not female supervisors, experience a backlash. Within this context, young female leaders appear to be at an advantage when compared with young male leaders. This study advances the literature on the ‘think manager–think male’ stereotype and has the practical benefit of offering insights into leader-follower interactions in today’s aging workplace.

Leadership through the subordinates' eye: perceptions of leader behaviors in relation to age and gender

“…Another strength of the study is that it reflects the subordinates' perspective on their actual leaders' leadership behaviors. As has been noted, this study design is to be seen as an advantage compared to studies involving more hypothetical scenario techniques and adds to the external validity of the results (Elsesser and Lever, 2011; Scheuer and Loughlin, 2020).…”

“…This phenomenon is often referred to as an "agency penalty", inhibiting the career of female leaders (Rudman and Glick, 2001). The intersection of age and gender was examined by Scheuer and Loughlin (2020) in an experimental vignette study focusing on older workers' perception of younger supervisors. The study highlights how leadership stereotypes traditionally have not only been male, but also aged-biased, and thus a leader is stereotypically often seen as an older male.…”

Seizing the benefits of age diversity: could empowering leadership be the answer?

“…Transformational leaders provide individualized attention to their team members by giving some “employees more encouragement, some more autonomy, others firmer standards, and still others more task structure” (Bass and Riggio, 2006, p. 7). However, providing this “differential treatment” through “personal recognition” may trigger perceptions of injustice, whereby individuals may feel that team members of certain ages are being subjected to favoritism (Scheuer and Loughlin, 2019; Thatcher and Patel, 2012; Zacher et al , 2015). Similar arguments have been made in the leadership literature, whereby “leaders, while being ‘transformational’, may be unethical, abusive of followers, (and/or) act in ways that are self-serving and contrary to espouses values and organizational interests,” all of which negatively impact team outcomes (Hoch et al , 2018, p. 2).…”

“…Participants ( N = 214) were recruited by a research panel service (Scheuer and Loughlin, 2020; Triana et al , 2017; Walter et al , 2019). Individuals meeting the inclusion criteria were randomly selected from a network of over 250,000 individuals.…”

Explicating Workplace Backlash from Social Justice Perspective: A Systematic Review of Types, Consequences, and Coping Strategies

“…As backlash at work is inherently grounded in an organizational context, organization-level support is essential and more effective to overcome backlash. Supporting interventions suggested in previous studies included training and organization development programs, such as counseling and coaching, individual and teamwork training initiatives, education, providing role models, and backing minority leaders Brescoll et al, 2018;Burke, 2005;Ciancetta & Roch, 2021;Scheuer & Loughlin, 2020;. Burke (2005) proposed that organizations should acknowledge the existence of backlash and utilize training sessions to allow perpetrators to express their concerns, discontent, and frustration, and at the same time, debunk the underlying myths to dispel backlash.…”