June 22, 2010 | When women reach top leadership levels in business, qualities such as sensitivity that might once have been perceived as drawbacks become assets, according to a new study by Ashleigh Shelby Rosette, an assistant professor of management in Duke’s Fuqua School of Business. The study was published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

In addition, women at top levels are perceived as being more overall effective leaders than their male counterparts, Rosette said.

A woman must negotiate her female identity as well as her leadership identity as she progresses up the chain of authority, Rosette said. The traditional model of leadership has included masculine traits such as independence and dominance, but as women reach top management levels, the paradigm begins to shift.

Because they are perceived as having to work harder to get to the top, women who achieve success on their own are perceived as being more effective, and feminine traits such as niceness and cooperation -- once seen as weaknesses -- are then considered advantages, Rosette said.

Rosette recently spoke with Faith & Leadership about her study on women in leadership and how the paradigm of leadership might be shifting. The following is an edited transcript.

Q: Tell us about the study you recently completed on feminine traits in leadership. What were some of your main findings?

The underlying premise of the research is that women have shown competence in middle [levels] of business, where they are usually perceived as exceptionally communal, very relational and very nice. But there’s not been a lot of research on how women are perceived at the tiptop levels of organizations.

We conducted two studies. In the first study, we wanted to see how women in these top positions might be evaluated. And what were the conditions under which they might be successful or perceived as even more successful compared to their male colleagues.

We found that when women were successful and perceived as being responsible for their success, they were evaluated as having more intellect and more competence than men. And also as being a bit more relationship-focused -- two things that traditionally have not been perceived to coexist in the very tiptop rings of organizations.

In the second study, we wanted to find out why. We wanted to know, is this a top-leader phenomenon, or could this occur at lower levels in the organization? We found that the idea of women being perceived as more competent than men was mediated by the idea of a double competence standard for women: they are perceived to need to work twice as hard. If they work twice as hard and they are sitting in those tiptop positions, there’s a presumption amongst the evaluators that, “Wow, she must be exceptionally competent.”

At this level of the organization, the feminization of management is being perceived as more of a positive than a negative thing. We also found that not only were [women] leaders perceived as being more communal and more competent, they were also perceived as being more overall effective leaders compared to men. This phenomenon that occurred at the tiptop of the organization didn’t occur at the middle level. Those are the findings in a nutshell.

Q: Basically, then, you have found that traits typically thought to hold women back actually work to women’s advantage. Do you have any ideas as to why that might be?

Other things being equal, if you have two people and this person encountered far more obstacles, far more barriers than this person and she or he still makes it to the top, you’re going to think that person is exceptionally competent.

Also, with regards to the idea of the feminization of management and communality, this aspect of our traditional prototype of leadership may be shifting a bit. In the past, it has been all masculine, all the time.

But we also know that some of our male leaders that lead in a communal way, where they are more participative and engaging, are thought to be some of the best leaders now. The leadership paradigm may be shifting.

During the presidential campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s image was carefully crafted; she wore the business suits. It’s almost like she was trying to be a little masculine: I’m one of the guys. I’m just as confident as they are. I’m just as strong as they are. I’m very firm, very stern.

Then she’s on the campaign trail [in New Hampshire] and she cries. And she wins the primary. It was like these two things went hand in hand. She’s had a certain level of success. Now, voters seemed to say, I’m going to give her a bump over the male leader because she’s perceived as both confident and feminine, if you will, and more communal.

Q: In the studies you mention a double standard of confidence in more masculine spheres. What does that mean in a field like church leadership that is male-dominated but not necessarily masculine in the sense of, say, football?

The premise of our argument is that, and I suspect this would be in the church as well, there’s a substantial overlap between what we would describe as the central traits of good leadership at the top level -- things like competence and independence and capacity and dominance, if you will -- and masculine traits.