Gender and the Quality of the Leader-Member Exchange: Findings from a South African Organisation

Abstract

Traditional leadership approaches have tended to examine leadership solely from the leaders' perspective. Past research has also assumed the existence of a ‘general leadership style’, which a leader displays toward all subordinates. However, there are more modern, alternative approaches to leadership that emphasise the importance of the exchanges between leader and follower. One conceptualisation central to the understanding of leadership practices is the leader–member exchange model. This model was adopted in the present study as a theoretical framework from which to start developing an understanding of gender and leadership within a South African context. Leader–member exchange focuses on the individual dyadic relationship between supervisors or managers and each of their subordinates, and emphasises the differences in the manner in which a supervisor behaves toward different subordinates. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of gender on the quality of leader–member exchange relationships. The research was conducted on a sample of 29 individuals comprising two mixed gender groups, each supervised by a different supervisor (a male-supervised group and a female-supervised group). The findings revealed that males experienced a more positive leader–member exchange relationship under male supervision and females experienced a more positive leader–member exchange relationship under female supervision. Also, a significant interaction was found between gender of supervisor and gender of subordinate, thus emphasising different patterns of exchange between the two groups.