Leader's social power sources, subordinate performance and leader effectiveness:A gender perspective

Role incongruity theory of prejudice predicts that achieving leadership roles and power is comparably more difficult for women on grounds of perceptions that disfavor female leadership. The study attempts to explore the reflections of any role incongruity on the followers' perceptions of male and female leaders' use of power and the relationship to organizational outcomes. Specifically, what happens in terms of followers' perceptions of leader effectiveness and subordinate performance when a woman leader uses soft power sources, and when she resorts to harsh power sources? Additionally, do women use less effective leadership styles compared to men as rated by their subordinates and reflected in levels of subordinate performance? Moreover, could the relative underrepresentation of women in leadership/management positions be explained by less effective leadership? In this context, this study attempts to investigate the role congruity between leader gender and leadership roles with a view to perceived leader power literature and varying bases of leader power (i.e. soft and harsh power), and deepen our understanding of perceptions of leader power differences based on gender and subsequent perceptions of leader effectiveness, and subordinate performance. Using a sample of Turkish white collars, the study examines the joint effects of leader power sources and leader-subordinate gender on perceived leader effectiveness and subordinate performance-task and contextual. The study also tests whether the gender-stereotypic sex differences in leader power sources that attribute the use soft power sources particularly to women and the use of harsh power sources to men hold true in Turkish organizational context. Key words: Soft and harsh power bases, leader effectiveness, performance, gender, Turkey, white collars