ON BECOMING A LEADER - EFFECTS OF GENDER AND CULTURAL-DIFFERENCES ON POWER DISTANCE REDUCTION

The present research focused on power processes in a simulated organiz ational structure consisting of three hierarchical levels occupied by different numbers of males and females. Subjects were presented with a chart showing the organizational hierarchy of which they were a membe r placed at the lowest level, and asked to nominate any person for the leader position vacated by the current incumbent. The results of Expe riment 1 (n = 88 Dutch male and female university students) showed tha t male subjects strongly overnominated themselves, whereas a majority of the female subjects nominated either self or another female. Of the others that were nominated by both males and females, almost all were occupants of positions immediately below the leader position, indicat ing the normative influence of a bureaucratic rule of leader successio n. Experiment 2 was a replicational study carried out in a different c ulture (n = 101 Polish male and female university students). Polish su bjects adhered to the bureaucratic rule more strongly than their Dutch counterparts, and both females and males nominated mostly males. Resu lts are discussed with reference to gender self-stereotypes and cultur al differences.