Leadership Preferences: The Influence of Gender and Needs for Connection on Workers' Ideal Preferences for Leadership Behaviors

Abstract

Executive Summary The roles of age, educational level, work experience, gender and needs for connection in predicting workers' ideal preferences for relational and job-centered leadership behaviors within the workplace were investigated. Most importantly, the role of workers' needs for connections as a mediating variable between gender and their ideal preferences for worker-centered and job centered leadership behaviors was examined. Measures of ideal leadership behavior preferences and needs for connection along with demographic information were completed by 1009 participants from three mid-western organizations. Controlling for organizational variables, regression analyses revealed that age and educational level were negatively correlated with workers' ideal preferences for worker-centered leadership behaviors; age, educational level and work experience were positively correlated with ideal preferences for job-centered leadership behaviors. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that after the effect of age and educational level had been controlled for, employees' gender accounted for a significant portion of the variance in explaining workers' ideal preferences for worker-centered leadership behaviors and mediated the relationship between gender and ideal preferences for worker-centered relational leadership behaviors. Post hoc analyses revealed no significant gender differences in ideal preferences for job-centered leadership behaviors. The findings are discussed in light of self-in-relation theory and with regard to how leaders may tailor their leadership styles to more effectively meet workers' needs and preferences.