DISSERTATION TOPIC

RESEARCH ARTICLE

What style of leadership do women in STEMM

fields perform? Findings from an international

survey

Meredith Nash 1*, Amanda Davies2, Robyn Moore1

1 School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, 2 School of Built

Environment, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

* [email protected]

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that women in science, technology, engineering, mathematics,

and medicine (STEMM) fields are underrepresented in leadership globally. However, little is

known about how leadership styles of women in STEMM relate to this underrepresentation.

This article discusses findings from a survey examining how 61 women in STEMM define

leadership and describe their own leadership styles. Using content analysis and drawing on

Full Range Leadership Model factors, findings suggest that women define leadership and

describe their own leadership styles using transformational factors. However, there was no

consistency in how participants defined ideal leadership or how they defined their own lead-

ership styles. This finding unsettles ideas of distinctly gendered leadership styles. We argue

that expectations that leadership will be performed in distinctly gendered styles may be con-

tributing to the underrepresentation of women in leadership roles in STEMM.

Introduction

If those who make selection and promotion decisions believe that women’s leadership styles

are different from men’s . . .or that women should not manifest certain particularly effective

leadership styles . . .the path to leadership may become more difficult for women than men

[1].

Leadership scholars and commentators have argued there is a difference between the ‘typical’

leadership styles of men and women [1,2]. This truism has been in circulation for over 25

years, arguably, since the publication of Rosener’s ‘Ways Women Lead’ in the Harvard Busi- ness Review [3]. Some commentators further argue that this difference in leadership style makes one gender more suitable than the other for particular leadership roles. For instance,

women are considered to be more suitable in scenarios demanding team work, whereas men

are perceived to be more effective in situations requiring authority [4,5]. This article focuses

on women in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) fields.

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OPEN ACCESS

Citation: Nash M, Davies A, Moore R (2017) What

style of leadership do women in STEMM fields

perform? Findings from an international survey.

PLoS ONE 12(10): e0185727. https://doi.org/

10.1371/journal.pone.0185727

Editor: Thomas Behrens, Ruhr-Universitat

Bochum, GERMANY

Received: April 3, 2017

Accepted: July 24, 2017

Published: October 5, 2017

Copyright: © 2017 Nash et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the

Creative Commons Attribution License, which

permits unrestricted use, distribution, and

reproduction in any medium, provided the original

author and source are credited.

Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are

within the paper and its Supporting Information

files.

Funding: The authors received no specific funding

for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared

that no competing interests exist.

Globally, within STEMM fields, women continue to be underrepresented in leadership posi-

tions, particularly in high-level or elite leadership roles.

The underrepresentation of women leaders in STEMM fields has not gone unnoticed. For

more than two decades, a range of programs have been developed to provide additional sup-

port to women in STEMM to move through the ‘pipeline’ (for example, ADVANCE in the US;

Athena SWAN in the UK and Australia). STEMM specific programs recognise the impact of

organisational context on leadership opportunities and pathways. However, little attention has

been given to recording and critically assessing the leadership styles of women in STEMM and

how these might relate to the continued underrepresentation of women in STEMM leadership.

This article adds critical knowledge to the wider discussions concerning gender imbalances in

STEMM leadership. We investigate a key question: Is there a typical style of leadership exer-

cised by women in STEMM?

This paper reports the results of a survey of 61 women in STEMM fields and seeks to iden-

tify how they define leadership and describe their own leadership styles. We argue that expec-

tations that leadership will be performed in distinctly gendered styles may be contributing to

the underrepresentation of women in leadership roles in STEMM.

Literature review

Gendered differences in leadership styles

Many studies have been published that examine the role gender might have on the nature and

effectiveness of leadership [6]. Studies that account for contextual variables such as age, educa-

tion, and occupation lend support to the position that there is a gender difference [7–9]. Stud-

ies that focus on the adoption of different leadership styles have also found gender differences

[1,10]. Studies reporting a gender difference in leadership styles often ascribe collaborative and

participatory styles to women while men are most often reported as having or using direct and

controlling styles [11–13]. However, as Powell concludes from a summary of meta-analyses,

there are limitations in studies examining gendered differences in leadership styles: fewer gen-

dered differences in leadership style are found in studies of actual leaders than laboratory stud-

ies or studies of non-leaders who are asked how they would behave if they were leaders [14].

Overall, the existing leadership literature reinscribes ideas of essential differences between

men and women in terms of leadership styles. For example, in their discussion of barriers for

women in exercising leadership, Sanchez-Hucles and Davis argue that male leadership is too

often characterised as ‘command and control’, whereas female leadership is portrayed as ‘facil-

itative and collaborative’ [15]. In some circumstances, perceiving leadership styles through a

gendered lens can benefit women. For example, female leadership may be considered an asset

in the current climate with flatter organisational structures, team-based management, and

increased globalisation [16–18]. However, as suggested by the quote at the beginning of this

paper, persistent belief in gendered leadership styles often impedes women’s access to leader-

ship roles. For example, Marinelli and Lord note that interpersonal and relational aspects of

leadership, in which women are perceived as excelling, are not reflected in existing leadership

frameworks [19]. Consequently, narrow readings of women’s leadership styles impair women’s

capacities to lead [15].

One of the factors underpinning the lack of clear agreement within the leadership scholar-

ship about the relationship between gender and leadership styles has been that ‘leadership has

traditionally been studied using [putatively] masculine norms as the standards for behaviors’

[7]. To address this, scholars have examined the relationship between gender and leadership

using Bass and Avolio’s Full Range Leadership Model (FRLM) which incorporates leadership

styles that are considered typical of either gender. The FRLM encompasses transformational,

What style of leadership do women in STEMM fields perform?

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transactional, and non-transaction (laissez-faire) styles and is regarded as a leading model for

describing leadership styles [20]. The model was first proposed by Avolio and Bass [21] and

expanded on earlier work by Burns [22] who identified a transformational style of leadership.

The FRLM model originally proposed by Bass and Avolio contained five factors [23]. How-

ever, as the evidence base regarding leadership traits expanded, they revised their model to

include nine factors [24]. Five of the nine factors describe transformational leadership, three

describe transactional leadership, and one describes laissez-faire leadership, as shown in

Table 1. Our descriptions are based on Barbuto et al., Antonakis et al., and Lauber [7, 24, 25]. Crucially, the factor or combination of factors required for a leader to be effective is depen-

dent on the context in which the leader is performing. A meta-analysis by Lowe et al. con- cludes that there are multiple combinations of factors that relate to effective leadership and

these combinations are moderated by contextual factors including organisation type and lead-

ership role [26]. To our knowledge, no published studies identify relevant factors for leader-

ship in STEMM organisations, despite considerable investment in leadership training and

development.

In line with the finding that context influences leadership style, researchers have examined

the role of gender in influencing leadership style using the FRLM. A meta-analysis of leader-

ship studies by Eagly et al. reveals that effective female leaders tended to perform factors associ- ated with transformational leadership more than male leaders [16]. Barbuto et al. used the FRLM to show that gender only affected leaders’ use of transformational factors if leaders’ edu-

cation had not progressed beyond high school. These differences diminished as leaders’ educa-

tion levels increased. The combination of age and gender did not produce an overall main

effect. They conclude that ‘if the contextual nature of gender differences had not been a focus

Table 1. Full Range Leadership Model and factor descriptions used for the analysis.

Leadership

Type

Leadership Factor Description

Transformational Inspirational motivation • motivate those around them by providing a vision and meaning for the work undertaken by followers.

display optimism and generate enthusiasm and individual/ team spirit

• has clear goals and positive attitude for future

Idealized influence as an

attribute

• demonstrates attributes that motivate respect and pride by association charisma

• focuses on on higher-order ideals and values. Followers build close emotional ties to the leader. Leader

is trustworthy and inspires confidence in followers

Idealized influence as a

behavior

• communicates values, purpose and importance of mission

• emphasises collective sense of mission and values, and acts upon these values.

Intellectual stimulation • examines new perspectives on problem solving and task completion

• challenges assumptions of followers‘beliefs, their analysis of problems faced, face and solutions

generated.

Individualised

consideration

• act as coach/mentor by paying attention to individual needs for achievement and growth.

• focuses on developing followers’ skills

• recognizes individual aspirations

Transactional Contingent reward • clarify expectations for followers

• recognises/rewards followers when goals are achieved.

Active management-by-

exception

• actively attends to deviations from rules to avoid these deviations; if necessary, corrective actions are

taken

Passive management-by-

exception

• waits until problems are severe before intervening

• intervenes only after errors are detected or standards are not met

Non-

transactional

Laissez-faire • exhibits widespread absence and lack of involvement during critical junctures

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of the present study, we would have concluded inaccurately that no gender difference existed’

and suggest that earlier studies examining the relationship between gender and leadership be

re-evaluated to consider the contextual nature of gender differences [7]. Antonakis et al.

observe that leaders adjust their behavior depending on the environment in which leadership

is exercised. However, in homogenous environments, Antonakis et al. found that leaders enact different behaviours depending on gender, with women exhibiting higher levels of individual-

ised consideration and men adopting higher levels of management by exception [24]. This is

an interesting result as it appears to confirm that when men and women are exposed to the

same institutional settings there is a small, but observable, difference in how they lead.

Leadership development for women in STEMM

Through examining leadership traits using the FRLM, researchers have identified that gender

differences in leadership styles are observable when context is accounted for and that leader-

ship effectiveness is impacted by followers’ understandings and expectations of gendered lead-

ership styles. Therefore, a possible reason why there is a lower representation of women in

leadership positions is that ‘female’ leadership styles are perceived to be less effective compared

to ‘male’ leadership styles. To address the gender imbalance in the occupation of leadership

positions, a large industry has developed to provide leadership training and development ini-

tiatives. Drawing on the observation that there is a difference between men and women in

terms of how they lead, and also the effectiveness of their leadership, such initiatives typically

implicitly problematise ‘female’ leadership [27–29].

Three common approaches to addressing gender equity have been adopted in leadership

training programs–assimilation, accommodation and celebration [30]. Each of these

approaches imply that it is women who ‘just don’t fit in’ [30]. Assimilatory approaches encour-

age and train women to adapt to organisational norms by adopting stereotypically masculine

attributes, such as assertiveness and decisiveness [31]. Accommodation approaches typically

argue that organisational change is required to address the specific needs of women, such as the

provision of maternity leave and formal mentoring programs to compensate for women’s

exclusion from informal networks. However, rather than changing organisational norms by

providing parental leave and developing inclusive networking practices, women are framed as

inherently ‘other’ to these norms [30]. Although celebratory approaches to gender equity have

been used to frame women’s ostensibly different attributes as advantageous, these celebratory

approaches highlight difference. For example, celebratory approaches position the leadership

trait of ‘collaboration’ as a ‘feminine’ trait [4, 17, 18]. The framing of women as ‘other’ shared

by all three of these approaches leaves intact existing organisational cultures, in which the struc-

tures, processes, and practices reproduce gendered privilege/disadvantage [2, 32]. They also

overlook the critical finding that gender differences in leadership and leadership effectiveness

are embedded in the organisational and societal context in which it is performed [12, 13, 16].

In examining the factors that determine the effectiveness of leadership development pro-

grams, researchers suggest that developing participants’ identities as leaders is a critical ele-

ment [31–35]. However, internalising an identity as a leader can be difficult for women due to

a ‘think manager, think male’ mindset in which leadership is equated with purportedly male

attributes such as decisiveness, assertiveness, and independence [2, 36]. As Ely et al. observe, ‘what appears assertive, self-confident and entrepreneurial in a man often looks abrasive, arro-

gant or self-promoting in a woman’ [31]. To facilitate women’s leadership identities, women-

only leadership development programs which recognise and address the subtle and pervasive

effects of gender bias are required [34, 37, 38]. Harris and Leberman also argue that women-

only leadership programs are ‘essential for women to develop a stronger sense of self and

What style of leadership do women in STEMM fields perform?

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stronger relationships to other women’ [37]. To our knowledge, there is minimal research on

leadership development programs that focus on the needs of women leaders and virtually no

research on emerging women leaders [37].

A review of work on leadership in STEMM reveals that much of the scholarship has focused

on describing the nature and extent of gender underrepresentation in leadership. Studies that

do examine leadership development for women in STEMM fields are limited to considering

‘pipeline initiatives’ and ‘climate initiatives’ [17]. Pipeline initiatives focus on increasing the

leadership capabilities and identities of individual women (e.g. workshops, mentoring, small

funding initiatives, networking opportunities). Climate initiatives focus on organisational or

structural changes in relation to equity, diversity, and inclusion [27, 39]. For instance, O’Ban-

non et al. studied the effects of a ‘pipeline initiative’–a small leadership programme based in the US Midwest that aimed to help individual women in STEMM fields move into formally

recognised academic leadership roles and to travel more effectively through the ‘pipeline’ [17].

In contrast, ‘climate initiatives’ target the problematic masculine culture of STEMM and the

associated treatment of women in the academic workforce [39, 40].

While significant evidence describes the organisational factors underpinning the underrep-

resentation of women in STEMM leadership, it remains that very little is known about how

women perform leadership in STEMM fields. Scholars are yet to explore how women in

STEMM define leadership and how they perform leadership. Given that gendered leadership

styles are contextually dependent, we argue that to address the barriers women face in occupy-

ing leadership roles in STEMM, it is first critical to understand how women in STEMM per-

form and define leadership.

Methods

This study focused on a group of women in STEMM fields who were seeking to enhance their

leadership capacities. The women were participants in a 22-day residential leadership and

strategy program for women in STEMM fields administered by an Australian leadership con-

sultancy. The program consisted of eight days of education on best leadership practice, six

days of education on leadership challenges in STEMM fields and related issues on climate

change, and eight days focussed on the articulation, design, measurement, and execution of

strategy. Participants undertook various diagnostic psychometric tests including the Mayer-

Salovo-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) and the Life Styles Inventory (LSI)

before participating in the program. This program was chosen for this research because it is

the only Australian leadership program focused on women in STEMM.

Data for this article were drawn from a pre-program 1

online survey of registered program

participants. The survey was conducted as part of a larger, ongoing mixed methods research

project involving pre/post program surveys, qualitative interviews, and video diaries with par-

ticipants. This article reports only on the pre-program survey. Key research questions in this

aspect of the study include:

1. How do women in STEMM define leadership?

2. How do women in STEMM describe their own leadership style?

At the time the study was initiated in 2016, the leadership program had 78 registered partic-

ipants representing ten nationalities. Despite the apparent diversity of the cohort, all partici-

pants were working in industrialised nations and all participants spoke English fluently. All 78

participants were invited to complete the survey. The survey was designed and managed inde-

pendently from the leadership consultancy and participation was voluntary. The survey was

piloted and validated with a group of seven women involved in STEMM leadership prior to

What style of leadership do women in STEMM fields perform?

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distribution [41]. Critically, the survey was distributed prior to participants engaging in leader-

ship or strategy education, diagnostics, or coaching to ensure participants’ reflections on lead-

ership were captured in their own words. The survey contained 17 questions, was hosted on

the Qualtrics platform, and distributed by direct email sent on 16 March 2016. An information

sheet that provided detail on the background, rationale and anticipated outcomes of the proj-

ect was included as an attachment to the email. A follow-up email was sent two weeks later

and a reminder notice was posted to the private Facebook page for program participants at the

same time. The survey was open for one month and closed on 16 April 2016.

Participation in the survey was voluntary. To ensure participants could provide informed

consent prior to participating in the study, an electronic consent form was positioned at the

start of the questionnaires. A skip logic was used to ensure that any participant who did not

provide informed consent could not complete the questionnaire. The study was approved by

the University of Tasmania’s Social Sciences Human Research Ethics Committee (Approval:

H0015600) as complying with the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC)

National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007).

Sixty-one of the 78 registered participants completed the survey, a response rate of 78 per

cent (no participants dropped out after starting the survey). The survey consisted of both

closed and open-ended questions. This format allowed participants to provide unrestricted

comments rather than selecting from solely pre-determined choices. Closed questions were

used to gather socio-demographic data. Open-ended questions were used to gather data on

participants’ perceptions about leadership. Of interest to this article are participants’ responses

to the open-ended questions: ‘How do you personally define leadership?’, and ‘What is your

leadership style?’

Basic demographic and background information for the sample is provided in Table 2. As

shown in Table 2, white middle class women are disproportionately represented in our sample,

Table 2. Participant demographic information.

Category Number of People

Age

20–29 years 10

30–39 years 22

40–49 years 14

50–59 years 14

60–69 years 1

Highest educational level obtained

Masters by coursework 5

Masters by research 4

Graduate Certificate 2

Bachelor’s Degree without Honours 10

Bachelor’s Degree with Honours 7

Doctorate by coursework and research 1

Doctorate of Philosophy 32

Relationship status

Married/in a relationship 44

Single 16

Prefer not to say 1

Racial/ethnic background

White 59

White/Asian 2

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reflecting white women’s privileged access to leadership positions relative to non-white

women [42]. This research limitation supports Lumby and Morrison’s observation that sam-

ples of existing leaders are problematic because they are necessarily exclusive and therefore

biased [43].

Analysis

To identify how the cohort of women in STEMM define and perform leadership, we used the

FRLM to determine how the leadership descriptions provided by the women in the sample

aligned with the nine factors. Content analysis was used to determine which, if any, of the nine

leadership factors women in STEMM identified in relation to their understanding of leader-

ship and their own leadership styles. Qualitative content analysis is a systematic and objective

means of making replicable and valid inferences from textual data to their context with the

purpose of providing new insight into a phenomenon [44]. The sampling unit was the survey

responses and the content unit was leadership. The analysis focussed on manifest and latent

content. Manifest content refers to the visible content in the texts and latent content refers to

the underlying/hidden meaning of the texts. The combination of manifest and latent content

analysis leads to more insightful findings [45].

The content analysis was undertaken in a structured three step process of immersion,

reduction, and interpretation [46]. During immersion, the research team engaged with the

data before organising it. Survey responses were read repeatedly by all researchers for an over-

all assessment. Notes were written as we engaged with the data to form a record of initial ana-

lytic processes and to aid in the development of a coding scheme. The reduction phase allowed

for the development of a systematic approach to the data and the creation of codes. The goal of

this phase was to reduce the amount of raw data to that which was relevant to answering the

research questions. Codes provided the classification system for the analysis and rigorous

review of the data.

Codes were developed using a combination of inductive and deductive approaches, with

the deductive codes informed by the FRLM. The descriptions of the nine factors/codes of the

FRLM used for the analysis are provided in Table 1. In this stage, multiple coders (members of

the research team) highlighted exact words and phrases from the texts that captured key

FRLM concepts and overall trends/themes related to leadership. Codes were then sorted into

categories based on their relationships and linkages. Categories were used to organise the

codes into meaningful groups.

The final stage of analysis involved using the codes to organise the data to enable the

researchers to examine patterns that reveal how women in STEMM fields define and perform

leadership. Interpretative data summaries were written in relation to data codes and a matrix

with analytically meaningful categories was created.

Given the international background of the participants, the analysis was undertaken manu-

ally so the authors could account for the use of colloquialisms or contractions to describe par-

ticular leadership styles.

We used Pearson’s chi-square test to test if there was any association between FRLM

factors and how participants defined leadership and their own leadership styles. Specifically,

the data were reviewed to identify if participants clustered factors of the FRLM in their

response to the questions ‘How do you personally define leadership?’, and ‘What is your lead-

ership style?

What style of leadership do women in STEMM fields perform?

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Results and discussion

How women in STEMM define leadership

We first assessed participants’ responses to the question about how they personally defined

leadership to see how they related to the nine FRLM factors. Some women described multiple

factors and some only one. The most frequently described factor was idealised influence as a

behaviour, a transformational leadership factor, with 30 participants including it in their defi-

nition. This was closely followed by inspirational motivation and idealised influence as an

attribute, which was identified by 29 and 27 participants, respectively. In order of frequency of

mention, the remaining factors described by the participants were individualised consider-

ation (n = 17), contingent reward (n = 13), active management by exception (n = 7), and intel-

lectual stimulation (n = 4). No participants included passive management by exception or

laissez-faire factors in their definitions.

As noted, participants’ definitions of leadership typically included more than one of the

nine factors. 13 of the 30 participants who identify idealised influence as a behaviour as an

important component of leadership paired this with idealised influence as an attribute. Twelve

women paired idealised influence as a behaviour with inspirational motivation. Six partici-

pants identify all three factors–idealised influence as an attribute and behaviour and inspira-

tional motivation–in their definitions.

The second most frequently identified leadership factor is inspirational motivation, with 29

participants including this factor within their definition of leadership. Of this group of 29, 12

women also identify idealised influence as an attribute, 12 identify idealised influence as a

behaviour, and six identify individualised consideration. As noted earlier, only six participants

identify all three of these factors. For those that identify inspirational motivation, there were

ten different combinations of factors identified, with two participants identifying five factors

in their leadership definitions. While inspirational motivation was most frequently combined

with other factors of transformational leadership, five participants who identify inspirational

motivation also identify factors associated with transactional leadership.

Intellectual stimulation is the least identified leadership factor (n = 4). Of this group, two

participants who include intellectual stimulation in their definitions also include idealised

influence as a behaviour and individualised consideration. One participant cites only intellec-

tual stimulation and contingent reward in her definition. The fourth participant includes intel-

lectual stimulation as well as inspirational motivation, idealised influence by behaviour,

individualised consideration, contingent reward, and active management by exception.

Table 3 shows the number of times two factors are identified together within participants’

leadership definitions. The Pearson’s chi square test reveals a significant relationship between

how the participants regarded contingent reward and idealised influence as an attribute. Only

one participant identifies both contingent reward and idealised influence as an attribute, while

an equal number of women identify idealised influence as an attribute in their leadership defi-

nitions as those who do not. A significant relationship is observed for contingent reward and

active management by exception. While most participants identify neither contingent reward

nor active management by exception, participants are more likely to identify these factors

together than just active management by exception alone. Nevertheless, despite the identifica-

tion of some patterns in how participants group factors, the results do not reveal strong and

uniform relationships among the factors identified by women in STEMM as important to

leadership.

The cluster analysis did not reveal any statistically reliable clusters. This portion of the anal-

ysis reveals that while participants typically refer to transformational leadership factors in their

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leadership definitions, it is not possible to identify one or two definitions of leadership that are

‘typical’ to this group of women.

How women in STEMM describe their own leadership style

Participants in the study were asked to describe their own leadership style. This question was

asked immediately after participants were asked to define leadership. We assessed participant

responses to see how their descriptions of their own leadership styles related to the nine FRLM

factors. As with participants’ definitions of leadership, their leadership style descriptions often

included multiple factors.

The most frequently described factors are idealised influence as a behaviour and individual-

ised consideration (n = 21). While idealised influence as a behaviour is also the most frequently

described factor in participants’ definitions of leadership, individualised consideration is only

the fourth most frequently identified factor. This finding supports Antonakis et al.’s conclu- sion that women leaders tend to exhibit individualised consideration [24]. Table 4 shows the

number of participants who identified each factor in their definitions of leadership and their

own leadership style. There appears to be a difference in how women define leadership and

how they describe their own leadership style.

Table 5 shows the results of Pearson’s chi-square test for each pair of factors in relation to

leadership styles. The results are like the factor parings in leadership definitions (Table 4). The

test reveals that there is a significant relationship between how participants regard contingent

reward and idealised influence as an attribute. A significant relationship also is evident in rela-

tion to contingent reward and active management by exception. Overall, the results do not

Table 3. Pairs of factors identified by participants when defining leadership.

Number of participants who identified pairs of factors, Pearson’s chi square value and p value.

Inspirational

motivation

Idealised

influence as an

attribute

Idealised

influence as a

behavior

Intellectual

stimulation

Individualised

consideration

Contingent

reward

Active management

by exception

Inspirational

motivation

- 12 12 1 6 4 3

x = 0.075 x = 0.041 x = 0.753 x = 0.279 x = 2.198 x = 0.030

p = 0.784 p = 0.839 p = 0.385 p = 0.597 p = 0.138 p = 0.864

Idealised influence

as an attribute

12 - 13 0 4 1 0

x = 0.075 x = 1.028 x = 2.973 x = 1.686 x = 8.603 x = 5.491

p = 0.784 p = 0.311 p = 0.231 p = 0.194 p = 0.003 p = 0.019

Idealised influence

as a behavior

12 13 - 3 11 2 2

x = 0.041 x = 1.028 x = 1.639 x = 6.814 x = 6.618 x = 0.789

p = 0.839 p = 0.311 p = 0.200 p = 0.009 p = 0.010 p = 0.374

Intellectual

stimulation

1 0 3 - 3 1 1

x = 0.753 x = 2.973 x = 1.639 x = 5.866 x = 0.010 x = 0.771

p = 0.385 p = 0.085 p = 0.200 p = 0.015 p = 0.920 p = 0.380

Individualised

consideration

6 4 11 3 - 2 1

x = 0.279 x = 1.686 x = 6.814 x = 5.866 x = 1.040 x = 0.453

p = 0.597 p = 0.194 p = 0.009 p = 0.015 p = 0.308 p = 0.501

Contingent reward 4 1 2 1 2 - 5

x = 2.198 x = 8.603 x = 6.618 x = 0.10 x = 1.040 x = 10.509

p = 0.138 p = 0.003 p = 0.010 p = 0.920 p = 0.308 p = 0.001

Active management

by exception

3 0 2 1 1 5 -

x = 0.030 x = 5.491 x = 0.789 x = 0.771 x = 0.453 x = 10.509

p = 0.864 p = 0.019 p = 0.374 p = 0.380 p = 0.501 p = 0.001

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show significant trends in how participants pair leadership factors within their descriptions of

their leadership style.

As with how women described leadership, when reviewing their responses to the question

‘What is your leadership style?’, no reliable clusters are formed. While participants’ descrip-

tions of their leadership style more frequently incorporate transformational leadership factors,

Table 4. Number of persons referring to each leadership factor in their definition of leadership and description of own leadership style.

Leadership Type Leadership Factor Number of participants who identified the leadership factor

Definition of leadership Description of own leadership style

Transformational Inspirational motivation 29 4

Idealised influence as an attribute 27 18

Idealised influence as a behavior 30 21

Intellectual stimulation 4 2

Individualised consideration 17 21

Transactional Contingent reward 13 10

Active management by exception 7 10

Passive management by exception 0 0

Laissez-faire No leadership 0 0

Note: Seven participants who provided a description of idealized leadership were not able, or were unwilling, to describe their own leadership.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185727.t004

Table 5. Pairs of factors identified by participants when describing their own leadership style.

Number of participants, Pearson’s chi square value and p value

Inspirational

motivation

Idealised

influence as an

attribute

Idealised

influence as a

behavior

Intellectual

stimulation

Individualised

consideration

Contingent

reward

Active management

by exception

Inspirational

motivation

- 2 12 0 0 0 0

x = 0.864 x = 0.168 x = 0.145 x = 2.247 x = 0.839 x = 0.741

p = 0.353 p = 0.681 p = 0.703 p = 0.134 p = 0.360 p = 0.389

Idealised influence

as an attribute

2 - 3 0 3 0 2

x = 0.864 x = 3.568 x = 0.866 x = 3.568 x = 5.007 x = 0.269

p = 0.353 p = 0.059 p = 0.352 p = 0.059 p = 0.025 p = 0.604

Idealised influence

as a behavior

1 3 - 1 7 1 1

x = 0.168 x = 3.568 x = 0.222 x = 0.017 x = 3.161 x = 2.542

p = 0.681 p = 0.059 p = 0.637 p = 0.896 p = 0.075 p = 0.111

Intellectual

stimulation

0 0 1 - 1 0 0

x = 0.145 x = 0.866 x = 0.222 x = 0.222 x = 0.405 x = 0.358

p = 0.703 p = 0.352 p = 0.637 p = 0.637 p = 0.524 p = 0.550

Individualised

consideration

0 3 7 1 - 5 4

x = 2.247 x = 3.568 x = 0.017 x = 0.222 x = 1.285 x = 0.469

p = 0.134 p = 0.059 p = 0.896 p = 0.637 p = 0.257 p = 0.493

Contingent reward 0 0 1 0 5 - 4

x = 0.839 x = 5.007 x = 3.161 x = 0.405 x = 1.285 x = 6.061

p = 0.360 p = 0.025 p = 0.075 p = 0.524 p = 0.257 p = 0.014

Active management

by exception

0 2 1 0 4 4 -

x = 0.741 x = 0.269 x = 2.542 x = 0.358 x = 0.469 x = 6.061

p = 0.389 p = 0.604 p = 0.111 p = 0.550 p = 0.493 p = 0.014

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185727.t005

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it is not possible to identify one or two descriptions of leadership that are ‘typical’ to this

group.

Exploring differences between how women in STEMM define leadership

and how they describe their own leadership style

As noted in the previous section, there is a difference in the factors participants identify in

their leadership definitions compared to those factors identified in their personal leadership

style descriptions. For example:

I see leadership to be the need to inspire and the responsibility to share knowledge. Wher-

ever I go now I see examples of such leadership, even if this is not how it is defined or

described, it is the type of leadership that is most respected.

In this definition, the participant emphasises inspirational motivation and idealised influ-

ence by behaviour. However, in her definition of her own leadership style, she emphasises

individual consideration and intellectual stimulation:

My leadership style is related to what I think a good leader be and do [sic]: To be a good lis-

tener; share knowledge; to obtain new learning skills; to be respectful; to take and deliver

constructive criticism always in a positive way; to easily understand the contextual situation

you are in.

Another participant describes leadership thus:

To be a good leader, you have to be a good listener and to believe in what you are doing so

you can enthuse people and take them on the journey with you. No one person has all the

skills and experience required to achieve all of the goals of an organisation or team. A good

leader has to gather a group of people with diverse skills and experience, encourage, support

and listen to everything each person has to offer. Then the leader has to pull together the

contributions that each person makes and generate a synthesis of all those efforts to prog-

ress the common aim. So a leader has to have the judgement to choose a good team, inspire

each member of the team, be supportive so they can do their jobs, have an open mind to lis-

ten to what the team contributes, then the ability to pull all those contributions together to

achieve the goals of the organisation.

In this extract, intellectual stimulation, individualised consideration, and idealised influence

by behaviour are emphasised as important for leadership. Yet in describing her own leadership

style, the participant emphasises active management by exception:

I am the focal point of a collaborative team, pulling together the threads to generate a cohe-

sive output. I ensure all voices are heard, however where necessary I will make a call as to

what we will do. I encourage subgroups of the team to work together.

While all participants in the survey could define leadership, seven participants were not

able to describe their leadership style. Some noted that perhaps after participating in the lead-

ership program they would be in a better position to describe their leadership style. For

example:

What style of leadership do women in STEMM fields perform?

PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185727 October 5, 2017 11 / 16

Leadership is about entrenching ethics and morals in the people that are working for you.

About encouraging and bringing out of people their strengths as well as identifying and

developing weaknesses. It is about bringing together a group of people and optimising their

output for a collective agenda.

However, when describing her own leadership style, she noted: “I’m not really sure”.

Although the definitions of leadership discussed above appear to be gender-neutral, it is

possible that the women’s assessments of their own leadership styles are influenced by the pro-

file of those holding leadership positions in their organisational contexts. For instance, it is

well known that women in STEMM fields have far fewer role models and less social support

when it comes to leadership. Women in traditionally male-dominated fields generally have a

much smaller pool of high-status women to network with and they also have less contact with

influential men in their fields [31]. Indeed, more than 50 per cent of the participants com-

mented that they applied for the leadership program for the opportunity to network with other

women leaders:

The prospect of developing my leadership and strategic planning skills in a focussed and

supportive environment with passionate and like-minded women . . .was an opportunity

that I could not overlook.

Even though the program includes women who are leaders or emerging leaders in

STEMM, and indeed, several of the participants occupy very senior leadership roles (e.g. head

of research group; chair of faculty; director of company), most survey participants do not see

their leadership styles as being that of the idealised leader. In this respect, most participants are

typical of high performing women who tend to see themselves as lacking the ‘raw materials’

for leadership [47]. However, it is notable that the participants identify individual reasons for

applying to the program and not structural/organisational ones. In this sense, women still tend

to look to improve their perceived personal failings without recognising the gendered organi-

sational climate in which they were working.

Conclusion

While our survey respondents are similar in that they all are existing or emerging leaders in

STEMM and are from similar race/class/cultural backgrounds, there is less agreement in terms

of how they define leadership or describe their own leadership style. Across the group there is

a tendency for participants to use transformational leadership factors to define leadership and

their own leadership styles. However, most emphasise only 2 or 3 of the factors and while

some factors are more frequently noted by participants, there is no observable pattern to how

participants cluster these factors. Over 25 per cent of participants also associate leadership

with transactional factors. None of the participants define leadership with reference to all the

transformational or transactional leadership factors. Likewise, none of the participants

describe their leadership style using all the transformational and transactional leadership fac-

tors. There is also little consistency in terms of how participants group leadership factors with

reference to their definitions of leadership and their own leadership styles. Furthermore, there

is no discernible pattern to how participants define leadership as compared to how they

describe their own leadership style. These findings challenge popular conceptions of a distinct

female style of leadership. We anticipate that future research (e.g. analysis of a post-program

survey) may provide more clarity on some of these points including how organisational con-

text influences leadership styles.

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The qualitative analysis of participants’ comments reveal how the participants understood

relational/interpersonal aspects of leadership (e.g. caring for others, building a team, active lis-

tening) that are often expected of women as leaders [48]. It is possible that valuing particular

leadership factors over others is reflective of participants’ knowledge that to be ‘legitimate’

leaders in STEMM they must avoid performing stereotypical masculine leadership styles [49].

It might also be related to cultural expectations that women will enact a stereotypical female

leadership style which is more participatory/collaborative [50, 51].

Previous research has revealed that the effectiveness of leadership style, irrespective of gen-

der, is dependent on the context in which it is being exercised. While it is widely recognised

that there is an underrepresentation of women in leadership in STEMM fields, very little is

known about how women in STEMM fields perform leadership and, in turn, if this relates to

the gender imbalance. Drawing on studies that examine gender difference, legitimacy, and

effectiveness in organisations, behaviours that are effective for men in STEMM contexts may

not be effective for women. This study reveals that women in STEMM value and perform

selected transformational leadership factors more so than transactional leadership factors.

However, tellingly, while the participants in the study identify inspirational motivation (a

transformational leadership factor) as an important leadership component, only four women

indicate that they practice this traditionally ‘masculine’ trait. In contrast, many more women

in the study are engaged in idealized influence (a transformational leadership factor) as a

behaviour such that they identify themselves as members of collaborative teams, a stereotypi-

cally female leadership behaviour. A critical point for women, then, is that organisational con-

texts and/or leadership expectations are gendered and recognising gendered variations in

organisational contexts may be key to enabling women to be effective leaders [52]. Further

research is needed about how women lead, why they lead in particular ways and the effective-

ness of different leadership styles in STEMM contexts.

Notes

1. The post-program survey will be conducted one-year post-program and will enquire about

participants’ perceived usefulness of the program, changes in their understandings of leader-

ship, and contextual factors.

Supporting information

S1 File. Questionnaire.

(PDF)

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: Meredith Nash.

Data curation: Meredith Nash.

Formal analysis: Meredith Nash, Amanda Davies, Robyn Moore.

Funding acquisition: Meredith Nash.

Investigation: Meredith Nash, Amanda Davies.

Methodology: Meredith Nash, Amanda Davies.

Project administration: Meredith Nash.

Software: Amanda Davies.

What style of leadership do women in STEMM fields perform?

PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185727 October 5, 2017 13 / 16

Supervision: Meredith Nash, Amanda Davies.

Validation: Amanda Davies, Robyn Moore.

Visualization: Meredith Nash.

Writing – original draft: Meredith Nash, Amanda Davies, Robyn Moore.

Writing – review & editing: Meredith Nash, Amanda Davies, Robyn Moore.

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