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    Too Nice to Lead? Unpacking the Gender Stereotype That Holds Women Back
    Research & Ideas
    Too Nice to Lead? Unpacking the Gender Stereotype That Holds Women Back
    10 Nov 2022Research & Ideas

    Too Nice to Lead? Unpacking the Gender Stereotype That Holds Women Back

    by Shalene Gupta
    10 Nov 2022| by Shalene Gupta
    People mistakenly assume that women managers are more generous and fair when it comes to giving money, says research by Christine Exley. Could that misperception prevent companies from shrinking the gender pay gap?
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    If you’re a woman in the workplace, chances are your boss and colleagues expect you to be nicer than your male peers, new research suggests. And that perception could contribute to differences in which jobs you are hired for, which tasks you are assigned, and how your performance is evaluated.

    A series of experiments led by Harvard Business School Associate Professor Christine Exley show that people generally view women as more generous and equality-minded than men—but actually, men and women have similar behaviors and beliefs around these values. In the workplace, those misperceptions can lead to no-win scenarios. If women are not nice enough, they may face backlash. But, if women are too nice, they may struggle to be hired for competitive jobs.

    “If we’re talking about more competitive workplaces, being seen as nice and equality-oriented could make women less likely to be hired and less likely to be seen as suitable leaders.”

    “In cooperative workforces where social skills are highly valued, being seen as nice and equality-oriented could be an advantage,” Exley explains. “On the other hand, if we’re talking about more competitive workplaces, being seen as nice and equality-oriented could make women less likely to be hired and less likely to be seen as suitable leaders.”

    It’s the latest potential wrinkle a long-running debate about why women are underpaid and how to right the situation. It’s widely known that women earn an average of 83 cents to every dollar earned by men, and hold fewer seats on the boards of Fortune 500 companies. Researchers have investigated everything from women’s behavior during pay negotiations to their choice of jobs in order to understand why this gap exists.

    Exley collaborated on the research with University of Exeter Associate Professor Oliver Hauser; Molly Moore, a doctoral candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School; and John-Henry Pezzuto, a doctoral candidate at UC San Diego.

    We believe women will be more generous

    Exley and colleagues conducted a series of experiments that tested how men and women behave as well as perceptions of how they should behave.

    First, they recruited about 800 participants to play a series of classic economics games. For instance, in one game, one player decides how to divide money between themselves and a partner. Then, participants were asked to predict the percent of men and women who would choose to keep more money for themselves rather than split the money evenly with their partner.

    In all of the games, there were no significant differences in how men and women split the money. However, on average, participants thought women were up to 13 percentage points more likely to split the money evenly. In fact, participants underestimated how generous men would be, and overestimated how generous women would be.

    And we doubt women will reward high performers

    In a second study, Exley and her colleagues evaluated participants’ pay equity beliefs. Participants were asked if they “mostly agree” or “mostly disagree” with statements such as, “society should aim to equalize incomes.” The researchers then asked participants to predict what percent of women and men would “mostly” agree to these statements. For most of the equality statements, men and women had similar beliefs—but participants thought women would be more likely to agree with the statements.

    Then, the researchers asked participants to make decisions as employers. Matched with a pair of workers—a high performer and a low performer—“employers” had to choose between paying the workers $3 each, or paying the high performer $6 and the low performer nothing.



    On average, both men and women favored equal pay: Men chose to pay the participants equally 69 percent of the time, and women 71 percent of the time. However, on average, participants thought 72 percent of women would choose equal pay compared to 52 percent of men.

    The researchers also asked participants whether they’d prefer to have a male or female employer. High performers chose a woman 47 percent of the time, but low performers chose a female employer 85 percent of the time, indicating that lower performers are more likely to choose female employers because they expected women to pay more equally.

    “We didn’t find any robust difference in behavior,” says Exley. “But, what we do observe is a robust difference in beliefs about how men and women behave. Across a variety of contexts, people think women are more generous and equality-oriented than men. I was surprised about the extent to which we couldn’t find any contexts in which these believed differences didn’t go away.”

    Would I be upset if a man did that?

    Women in the workplace needn’t change their behavior based on the findings, Exley says.

    However, she does have concrete advice for hiring managers and supervisors: Hold male and female employees to the same standards. If an employee seems to miss the mark on an assignment, “it’s possible that we might get unfairly upset about women not behaving in line with expectations that they should be nicer or more generous or more likeable.” Instead, she recommends, ask yourself: How would I react if a man did this?

    “Gender-specific expectations can really start to matter when we think about backlash and image concerns.”

    And pay attention to others expecting different behavior based on gender. “Gender-specific expectations can really start to matter when we think about backlash and image concerns. If I’m a woman, I might be expected to be nicer, and then if I’m not nicer, I might face more backlash than a man would,” Exley cautions.

    You Might Also Like:

    • Will Demand for Women Executives Finally Shrink the Gender Pay Gap?
    • Don't Bring Me Down: Probing Why People Tune Out Bad News
    • How Gender Stereotypes Kill a Woman’s Self-Confidence

    Feedback or ideas to share? Email the Working Knowledge team at hbswk@hbs.edu.

    Image: iStockphoto/cagkansayin

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    Christine L. Exley
    Christine L. Exley
    Marvin Bower Associate Professor
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