Leading Employees of Different Genders: The Importance of Gender for the Leadership‒Motivation Relationship

Abstract

Employee motivation is important for public organizations. However, it might not be the same kind of leadership that motivates Susan and Steve. This article examines whether the association between transformational (visionary leadership) and transactional leadership (verbal and pecuniary rewards) and employee motivation depends on the employee’s gender and gender-based traits. Based on gender differences in communal and agentic traits, pecuniary rewards are argued to motivate male/agentic employees more than female/communal employees. The opposite is argued regarding visionary leadership and verbal rewards. Analysis of 1,294 Danish high school teachers shows female teachers on average are more communal and less agentic than their male colleagues. Furthermore, female teachers, unlike male teachers, are less motivated the more pecuniary rewards they perceive. However, no other gender differences are significant, lending only partial support for gender-based differences in the leadership‒motivation relationship.

Keywords

gender personality traits transformational leadership transactional leadership motivation

Introduction

Like all organizations, public organizations depend on good and fitting leadership to help improve performance and motivation. Goal-oriented leadership (e.g., transformational and transactional leadership) has been found to have a positive influence on employee performance (Avolio et al., 2009; Jacobsen & Andersen, 2015; Wright et al., 2012). Both transformational and transactional leadership strategies seek to motivate the employee to work toward organizational goals but do so via different mechanisms. Transformational leadership tries to align employee’s goals with those of the organization, whereas transactional leadership tries to make it in the employee’s self-interest to work toward the goals. In that sense, both leadership strategies are meant to increase performance by influencing employees and their behavior. Nevertheless, we know very little about how employee characteristics matter for the effectiveness of leadership strategies. While gender has been shown to matter for employee motivation (Andersen & Kjeldsen, 2013; DeHart-Davis et al., 2006) as well as job trait preferences (Bigoness, 1988; Gooderham et al., 2004; Konrad et al., 2000), few studies have focused on whether gender matters for the degree to which leadership strategies motivate (Pedersen, 2018). Drawing on data from Danish public high school teachers, this article asks the question of whether employee gender, via differences in communal and agentic traits, moderates the correlation between goal-oriented leadership strategies and motivation.

This article seeks to contribute in at least three ways. Previous studies have used communal (e.g., being caring and interpersonal) and agentic (e.g., being ambitious and competitive) traits¹ to argue for gender differences in the use of transformational and transactional leadership (Bass et al., 1996; Carless, 1998; Eagly et al., 2003; Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001) or argued for gender differences in emotional labor (Guy & Newman, 2004; Meier et al., 2006). However, many studies of the differences in job attribute preferences do not include sufficient theoretical arguments as to why gender matters and should lead to differences; they mostly just examine the differences (Konrad et al., 2000). The first contribution is, therefore, to further examine the traits at the base of the argument for why some leadership strategies fit one gender better than the other—thus, to measure and test the importance of communal and agentic traits in a leadership context.

The second contribution is to increase the sparse knowledge of whether the employee’s gender matters to the relationship between transformational and transactional leadership and motivation. The previous studies connecting transformational and transactional leadership to different genders have focused on the manager and not the employee. Other studies have found differences between female and male employee traits (Nielsen, 2014) that are believed to affect motivation, performance, and possibly the effectiveness of leadership elements, such as wage systems (DeHart-Davis et al., 2006; Gneezy et al., 2003; Nielsen, 2014; Ors et al., 2013). It is, thus, a relevant next step to combine these insights and study whether the fit between goal-oriented leadership components and gender traits affects employee motivation. Motivation is both a goal in itself and an important step in increasing work outcomes such as performance, well-being, and commitment and decreasing turnover (e.g., Andersen et al., 2014; Bellé, 2013; Bright, 2008; Kjeldsen & Andersen, 2013; Vandenabeele, 2009).

Knowledge about how employee characteristics matter to the effectiveness of leadership is extremely relevant for managers interested in increasing motivation through leadership. The practical implication of gender differences in leadership effectiveness does not necessarily mean that managers should behave differently toward different employees, but they might benefit from understanding why their leadership behavior only seems to motivate part of the workforce or from using multiple leadership components to reach more of the employees. The third contribution is, thus, to increase managers’ knowledge about how (or whether) employee gender matters for the effectiveness of goal-oriented leadership, which can potentially improve the management of employees of different genders.

Leadership Strategies

Transformational and transactional leadership have been argued to appeal to female and male managers,² respectively. These goal-oriented leadership strategies seek to increase employees’ goal attainment via motivation and direction (Jacobsen & Andersen, 2015; Oberfield, 2012). As both strategies have been used in research and practice, it is important to know if they motivate employees differently dependent on their gender and gender-based traits.

Transformational leadership tries to align the employee’s goals with those of the organization to get the employees to work toward the organization’s goals (Bass, 1999, p. 11; Jung & Avolio, 2000, p. 950). The traditional transformational leadership concept has been criticized for confounding the effects of the leadership with its definition as well as for lack of clarity about the conceptual definition and the multiple dimensions (Knippenberg & Van Sitkin, 2013; Yukl, 1999). Thus, in line with the recent trend in the literature (Jacobsen & Andersen, 2015, p. 832; Jensen, Andersen, Bro, et al., 2019), the focus is on the visionary element of transformational leadership and the manager’s behavior instead of the effects of their behavior.

When using transformational leadership in this study, it is, therefore, labeled visionary leadership and conceptualized by three aspects consistent with how Jensen, Andersen, Bro, et al. (2019) and others conceptualize transformational leadership. First, visionary leadership involves developing a clear vision aligned with the main goals of the organization: Managers seek to translate the organization’s general goals into clear, specific goals that are more tangible for the employee. Second, it involves communicating and sharing the vision among the employees: Managers seek to set the direction for the organization and clarify how the employees can contribute to achieving the goals through their work. Third, it involves sustaining the vision in the short and long run: Managers seek to create sustained acceptance of, cooperation with, and excitement about the vision and organizational goals. Visionary leadership contains all three aspects and is understood as “behaviors that seek to develop, share, and sustain a vision intended to encourage employees to transcend their own self-interest and achieve organizational goals” (Jacobsen & Andersen, 2015, p. 832).

Transactional leadership, in contrast, builds on a quid pro quo logic whereby the manager uses an exchange to appeal to the employee’s self-interest to work toward organizational goals (Bass, 1999, pp. 9–10). Thus, instead of trying to move the employee’s self-interest to align it with the organizational goals as the transformational manager does, the transactional manager seeks to appeal to their employees’ self-interest by rewarding or sanctioning them, contingent on their behavior and achievement of organizational goals. The exchange must be contingent on employee behavior, and the connection must be clear to the employees. Only then can the employees’ aspirations to receive rewards or avoid sanctions get them to exhibit the desired behavior, thereby contributing to achieving the organizational goals. In line with Jacobsen and Andersen (2015, p. 832), transactional leadership is seen as “the use of contingent rewards and sanctions intended to create employee self-interest in achieving organization goals.”

In line with recent literature (Jacobsen et al., 2016; Jensen, Andersen, Bro, et al., 2019), transactional leadership is divided into three components: verbal rewards, pecuniary rewards, and sanctions. Verbal rewards involve the use of nonpecuniary benefits to reward the employee contingent on their behavior and mostly consist of verbal acknowledgements and compliments, whereas pecuniary rewards are of monetary value, such as wage supplements, training, and perks. Employees who do as the manager wants receive rewards, whereas those who do not meet the agreed expectations receive sanctions; this gives the employee an incentive to achieve the organizational goals—or, at least, not be counterproductive. Sanctions can be in the form of informal and formal reprimands and ultimately dismissal. Verbal rewards, pecuniary rewards, and sanctions are three different ways to conduct transactional leadership, which do not necessarily covary (Jensen, Andersen, Bro, et al., 2019). In their pure form, pecuniary rewards do not contain any verbal acknowledgment but can be given in an automated system or be applied for in a form. Given together with verbal recognition, it would be both a pecuniary and a verbal reward. Preliminary interviews with managers and teachers at Danish high schools have shown that the managers generally do not use sanctions. Therefore, they are less relevant to study in this context and are excluded from the remainder of the article. Three different leadership components are, therefore, discussed: visionary leadership, verbal rewards, and pecuniary rewards.

Multiple studies have found all three components important in relation to employee motivation (Andersen & Pallesen, 2008; Nielsen et al., 2019; Wright et al., 2012), commitment (Oberfield, 2012), and performance (Bellé, 2014, 2015). However, the leadership‒outcomes relationship is particularly true for employees’ perceptions of leadership behavior compared with the manager’s self-reported leadership behavior (Favero et al., 2018; Jacobsen & Andersen, 2015). The focus in this study is on the employee’s perception of the manager’s leadership, as the employee must perceive the leadership behavior to react to it and for the reaction to depend on the employee’s characteristics. Even though research suggests that each of the leadership components has a positive effect on employee outcomes, the effects might be larger or smaller for different employee groups, with groups in this study being employees of different genders. Similar theoretical arguments can be made in relation to different work outcomes, but the focus here will be on motivation, as it is both an important part of managerial efforts to increase performance and researchers’ attempts at developing useful theories on management (Steers et al., 2004). Motivation is “the energy a person is willing to invest in his or her job to achieve certain objectives” (Jensen, Andersen, & Jacobsen, 2019, p. 12).

The leadership components are expected to have a larger positive effect if they are compatible with employees’ gender-based traits. Employee gender moderates the average effect of leadership, because each leadership component fits one gender better than the other, and this moderation is mediated by the employee’s traits (as illustrated in Figure 1). Before arguing which leadership components fit which gender, existing research on gender differences in work-related values and needs is presented.

Figure 1.

Theoretical model.

Gender Differences

Gender differences are often described with different distinctions (e.g., masculine‒feminine, instrumental‒expressive, agentic‒communal). Many such distinctions cover similar sets of traits, and multiple studies using different distinctions have measured them with the same scales (Feather, 1984, p. 606; Ward et al., 2006, pp. 206–207). This article concentrates on the potential differences in agentic and communal traits (Bakan, 1966), as they consist of personality traits associated with transformational and transactional leadership (Eagly et al., 2003). Agentic traits cover a tendency to be assertive, controlling, and confident; for example, by being ambitious, independent, and competitive. Communal traits, in contrast, cover a tendency to be concerned with others, including being interpersonally sensitive, helpful, and sympathetic (Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). Communal people are, thus, more attentive and better at understanding the opinions and emotions of others. Agentic traits are more strongly ascribed to men, whereas communal traits are more strongly ascribed to women (Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001).

However, the debate is still raging as to whether men and women differ in traits (Eagly & Wood, 2011; Nielsen, 2014) and whether this difference is due to biology or socialization (Carli, 1997; Eagly et al., 2000; Pinker, 2008). The cause of gender differences is neither discussed nor examined in this article. If just some of the gender differences are caused by socialization, however, they could be expected to differ between societies, as the differences between the socialization of boys and girls vary between societies. The social expectations toward boys and girls might be more similar in some societies than in others, which might cause women and men to be more similar.

Furthermore, the gender differences are differences on the average. Some women are more agentic, and some men are more communal than the average. Based on the Person‒Environment Fit Theory, people will likely be attracted to jobs and organizations that fit their own traits, meaning that they self-select into organizations (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005). Likewise, organizations will often select the candidates that fit the given organization and job tasks. In organizations with emotional labor (Guy & Newman, 2004), such as child care, where communal traits such as being helpful and sympathetic are beneficial, male employees are likely to be more communal than the average male due to (self-)selection mechanisms. So, even if the gender differences are present on average, they are not necessarily present within a given organization or profession (Nielsen, 2014, p. 167), especially if women and men hold the same type of job in the same organization.

Thus, due to socialization, selection, and self-selection mechanisms, female and male employees might not differ in communal and agentic traits. Although this is tested later, it is assumed in the following section that, on average, women tend to be more communal and men more agentic.

Fit Between Leadership Strategies and Employees’ Gender

Based on the fit literature (e.g., Kristof-Brown et al., 2005), it is argued that the leadership components fit different gender traits, which will cause the employee’s gender to moderate the average effect of the leadership components. Person‒environment fit defined as “the compatibility between an individual and a work environment that occurs when their characteristics are well matched” (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005, p. 281) has been argued to influence and shown to correlate with, for example, higher motivation, satisfaction, and performance (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005). If the manager meets the employee’s psychological needs or if the employee’s values are similar to those reflected in the leadership component, there is a fit (Cable & Edwards, 2004, p. 823). It is, therefore, argued that when the leadership component fits the employee’s gender-based traits, it will have a larger positive effect on the employee’s motivation.

Previous studies have found gender differences in job trait preferences (Bigoness, 1988; Gooderham et al., 2004; Konrad et al., 2000); women tend to prefer feedback, working with people, and the opportunity to help others, whereas men prefer earnings and solitude. Gender differences in traits, thus, also seem to express themselves in the employees’ job-related preferences. In the following, each of the three leadership components is categorized according to how well it fits the communal or agentic trait; and, hence, the degree to which it fits female or male employees on average.

Transformational and transactional leadership have previously been related to, respectively, female and male managers (Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). However, the arguments in this article are still presented for three reasons: First, the previous studies have focused on managers, not employees. Second, they have not argued for the link for each distinct leadership component or even each strategy, focusing instead on transformational leadership. Third, their arguments build on the original critiqued transformational leadership concept, which differs from the definition of visionary leadership used in this article.

Visionary leadership is argued to predominantly have communal aspects, which is in line with the existing literature (e.g., Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). Visionary leadership includes communicating and convincing employees of a shared vision, which demands interaction between the manager and employees and can help increase a sense of togetherness in the organization (Jensen & Bro, 2018). This fits well with the communal traits, such as being communicative and interpersonal. Furthermore, communal employees are helpful, sympathetic, accepting of others’ direction, and supporting of others (Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001, p. 783), which fits well with visionary leadership. The desire to convince employees to work toward the vision fits well with the communal tendency to accept the direction of others and support others. Conversely, it does not fit with the agentic tendency to be controlling and competitive. Visionary leadership, thus, fits the communal traits very well, but not the agentic.

Verbal and pecuniary rewards build on the same transactional logic but are still quite different regarding communal and agentic traits. Even though verbal rewards are a transactional leadership component, it is also closely related to transformational leadership, both theoretically (Yukl, 1999) and empirically (Jacobsen et al., 2016). Thus, even though pecuniary and verbal rewards are both transactional, it is important to argue how they each relate to communal and agentic traits.

Verbal rewards are more personal than pecuniary rewards (Yukl, 1999, p. 289) because the manager must communicate the rewards to the employees, unlike pecuniary rewards, which can be put in an automatic system without much managerial contact or effort. Verbal rewards are typically also gentler and kinder than pecuniary rewards, which are less personal and can be more competitive as they are more tangible, limited, and easy to compare. The agentic tendency to be ambitious, competitive, and self-confident, thus, fits with pecuniary rewards, as bonuses and other pecuniary rewards make it easy to argue how well you are doing, and, hence, compete with your coworkers. The communal tendency to be kind, sympathetic, and sensitive, thus, fits well with verbal rewards, whereas the agentic tendency to be competitive, ambitious, and self-confident fits better with pecuniary rewards. There is some overlap between the two leadership components, however, and they both have elements that fit the other gender-based trait as well. Verbal rewards can be somewhat competitive, whereas an interpersonal, sensitive person can appreciate pecuniary rewards.

To sum up, the communal employees are expected to prefer a manager who is communicative, social, and nurturing, will be more likely to follow the manager’s vision, and value verbal appreciation; they are, therefore, expected to be more motivated by visionary leadership and verbal rewards. Conversely, the relatively agentic leadership component—pecuniary rewards—is expected to fit better with the agentic tendencies, such as being ambitious, competitive, and self-confident. The relation between leadership and motivation is, thus, expected to be moderated by communal and agentic traits. Women tending to have more communal traits and men more agentic lead to the following moderation hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1a (H1a): The association between visionary leadership and employee motivation is more positive for female employees than for male employees.

Hypothesis 1b (H1b): The association between verbal rewards and employee motivation is more positive for female employees than for male employees.

Hypothesis 1c (H1c): The association between pecuniary rewards and employee motivation is more positive for male employees than for female employees.

As H1a to H1c follow from the expectation that female employees are more communal and less agentic than male employees, these moderations are expected to be mediated by the gender-based traits. This leads to the following mediated moderation hypotheses:

Hypothesis 2a (H2a): The gender moderation on the association between visionary leadership and employee motivation is mediated by the employee’s communal and agentic traits.

Hypothesis 2b (H2b): The gender moderation on the association between verbal rewards and employee motivation is mediated by the employee’s communal and agentic traits.

Hypothesis 2c (H2c): The gender moderation on the association between pecuniary rewards and employee motivation is mediated by the employee’s communal and agentic traits.

The following model as shown in Figure 2 will, thus, be tested:

Figure 2.

Tested model.

Research Design and Data

This article is based on a cross-sectional survey of Danish high school teachers. Danish high schools are hierarchical organizations where the teachers identify with one principal, who has great autonomy (e.g., can hire, fire, and assign bonuses; Jacobsen & Andersen, 2015; Moderniseringsstyrelsen, 2012). While the board is formally responsible, the principal has the greatest influence on school decisions in practice (Jacobsen et al., 2014). Many high schools have expanded in recent years, and some principals have delegated leadership responsibilities to leadership teams; even though the principal remains responsible for hiring and firing, teachers sometimes have another immediate manager. In such cases, this study examines the leadership style of the immediate manager. The high school managers have been shown to use different leadership strategies (Jacobsen & Andersen, 2015; Jensen, Andersen, Bro, et al., 2019), which is also the case in the present study (Table A4 in the Supplementary Material). Finally, Danish high schools have an almost equal distribution of female and male teachers, which makes for a good case to study the importance of leadership and employee gender.

Danish high schools offer a least likely case for two reasons; the respondents are Danish and all high school teachers. Denmark is one of the countries with the lowest degree of gender segmentation and inequality (Human Development Reports, 2018). As gender differences might depend on socialization and social expectations toward boys and girls, the gender differences in Denmark might be smaller than in countries with more gender segmentation. Second, the aforementioned selection and self-selection mechanisms might result in teachers, especially within the same organization, being quite similar. This renders Danish high school teachers a least likely case, as the gender differences might not be as profound as elsewhere. Support for the hypotheses would, therefore, make it likely that gender also matters across organizations, in organizations where men and women hold different kinds of jobs, and in more segregated countries. Conversely, lack of support would not necessarily mean that gender does not matter in other contexts.

Despite the low degree of Danish gender segmentation, Denmark has one of the highest proportions of female workers in the public sector and one of the lowest in the private sector (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, 2017). The equal numbers of female and male employees might make the case of Danish high schools more generalizable to public sectors in other countries and less generalizable to other public organizations in Denmark, where the gender distribution is more skewed.

The survey was distributed in 2018 to approximately 9,000 teachers from 130 high schools with a response rate of approximately 18%. Some of the nonresponses were due to teachers no longer working in the organization or not feeling competent to answer questions about the manager due to limited experience with them. Others chose not to answer due to time constraints, as the survey took approximately 15 min to complete. The teachers have also become more reluctant to participate in voluntary surveys, as they are regularly asked or required to participate in surveys. Nevertheless, the participating teachers appear representative of the population. When compared with the members of the Danish National Union of Upper Secondary School Teachers, Gymnasieskolernes Lærerforening (GL), the differences are modest. GL (GL, 2019b) includes approximately 90% of the teachers in general subjects from different types of high schools; however, the sample only includes teachers in the general (STX) high schools. The share of female teachers was 52% in the sample compared with 53% in the union, and the median age was 45 years compared with 40 to 44 years in the union (GL, 2019a).

Measurement

The variables were all measured with employee-answered questionnaires, which could cause or increase a correlation between the dependent and independent variables and, thus, bias the first-order estimates. However, if this common source correlation is no different for each gender or gender-based trait, it would only increase the correlation between the first-order estimates, which would reduce the moderating effect, thereby making it a harder test of the moderation hypotheses (Jakobsen & Jensen, 2015). As the focus is on the moderations, the risk of common source bias causing Type I errors is, therefore, likely to be severely reduced; however, it could potentially cause Type II errors.

The dependent variable, motivation, was measured with four 7-point Likert-type scale questions that reflect work motivation. This general motivation measure was chosen in an attempt to limit the existing gender differences in motivation, which have been seen in, for example, public service motivation (Andersen & Kjeldsen, 2013; DeHart-Davis et al., 2006). The measure was rescaled so that 0 represents the lowest motivation and 100 the highest. The scale originally consisted of six questions, but as two of them can be argued to theoretically reflect something else and had mean lambdas below 0.4, they were not included (see Table A1 in the Supplementary Material). Confirmative factor analysis (CFA) showed that the remaining four items loaded with mean lambdas between 0.44 and 0.73. The low-scoring item was originally reverse-worded. The fit indicators suggested that the fit was acceptable (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation [RMSEA] = 0.098, Comparative Fit Index [CFI] = 0.965, Standardized Root Mean Square Residual [SRMR] = 0.030) because SRMR, which is the most useful estimator when the sample is large, as in this case, was well below 0.05. A translated version of the questions and the CFA analyses are shown in the online appendix (Table A1 in the Supplementary Material).

The independent variables (i.e., the employee-perceived leadership components) were measured with 7-point Likert-type scale questions. The wording and factor loadings can be seen in Table A2 (Supplementary Material). The measures have been validated and further described by Jensen, Andersen, Bro, et al. (2019). In accordance with the definitions, visionary leadership was measured using questions regarding developing, sharing, and sustaining a vision in the organizations, verbal rewards with questions about the managers’ use of nonpecuniary rewards contingent on employee behavior, and pecuniary rewards with questions on the managers’ use of rewards with monetary worth contingent on employee behavior. The CFA showed that all items loaded well on their respective factors with mean lambdas between 0.65 and 0.89. The fit indicators also suggested a good fit (RMSEA = 0.079, CFI = 0.965, SRMR = 0.040). Each leadership component was based on at least three questions, rescaled (to 0‒100), and mean-centered.

Based on interviews with three female and three male employees, there especially seemed to be a gender difference in their opinion on the use of pecuniary rewards. This led to the inclusion of questions about the respondents’ thoughts on the use of individual wage supplements as a tangible example of pecuniary rewards. Respondents were asked how much they agree/disagree with two statements (on a 7-point scale). The first was “Individual wage supplements could motivate me to put in an extra effort,” and the second was “Individual wage supplements would create a bad culture in the workplace.” Both scales were rescaled, 0 representing completely disagree and 100 completely agree. These variables were used to further examine the differences regarding pecuniary rewards.

Employee gender was measured using a survey question and coded 0 if man and 1 if woman. The few respondents answering “other” were not included.

The gender-based traits were measured with a short version (Helmreich et al., 1981) of the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (Spence et al., 1975) with eight 7-point Likert-type scale questions for each measure (Table A3 in the Supplementary Material). The respondents were asked how they are as a person (i.e., not only at work, but also privately). Each question contained conflicting traits, such as “not at all competitive” versus “very competitive.” Asking respondents to choose between two opposing statements can reduce social desirability bias (Paulhus, 1991). The CFA showed that some items loaded poorly on the factor, with the lowest mean lambda at 0.293. This is acceptable, however, as it makes theoretical sense that there will be some differences in which of the items the respondents score high (i.e., you can make decisions very easily but also give up very easily). The fit indicators suggested an acceptable fit (RMSEA = 0.079, CFI = 0.828, SRMR = 0.078). Both measures were rescaled (to 0‒100, with 100 being most agentic/communal). When used as independent variables, the measures were mean-centered.

Control variables that could cause bias if omitted (i.e., variables affecting both the interaction terms and motivation) were also included in the analyses. When testing the effect of each of the leadership components, the other leadership components were included as control variables. The manager’s leadership position was included, where 1 represents a principal and 0 represents other leadership positions. The number of years the employee worked under the immediate manager, measured by a direct question and mean-centered, was also included. Finally, the respondent’s age, measured as 2018 minus the year of birth, was mean-centered and included. As the respondent’s age is highly correlated with tenure, tenure was not included in the analyses. Robustness checks show similar results when including tenure instead of age. Descriptive statistics and correlations of all variables (before centralization) are shown in Table A4 (in the Supplementary Material).

Estimation Strategy

The cross-sectional data were examined using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. Cluster robust Standard Error (SE) at the organizational level was included to account for the clustered structure of multiple employees in the same organization. Fixed-effects models were only used when the leadership styles were not included, as this would otherwise control for variation in leadership behavior between organizations, which is essential for the analyses. The residual interclass correlation was only .013 (i.e., the organizational level did not explain much), which indicates that not using fixed or random effects was not too problematic. The analyses including interaction terms suffered from multicollinearity, especially those involving gender-based traits as seen by the Value Inflated Factors (VIF) shown in Table A8 (in the Supplementary Material). The VIF values were calculated before centering the variables, as centering can decrease the VIF values without reducing the essential collinearity (Dalal & Zickar, 2012) and, therefore, without reducing the uncertainty of the estimates (the SE). The analyses, thus, suffer from an increased likelihood of Type II errors (i.e., not rejecting false null hypotheses). Mean centering was still beneficial, however, as it enabled us to see the correlation for the average employee.

Results

Gender is expected to matter for the association between leadership components and motivation because men are expected to be more agentic on average, whereas women are expected to be more communal. The analysis consists of three steps: (a) first, an analysis of whether female and male employees differ in agentic and communal traits (Table 1); (b) second, an analysis of whether gender moderates the correlation between motivation and each of the leadership strategies (Table 2 and Model 3.2); and (c) third, an analysis of whether agentic and communal traits mediate the gender moderation (Models 3.3 and 3.4). Finally, the analyses are supplemented by an additional analysis of the importance of gender and traits for the teachers’ opinions about pecuniary rewards (Table 4).

Table 1.

Gender Differences in Traits.

	Fixed effects		OLS with control variables^a
Traits	Agentic(Model 1.1)	Communal(Model 1.2)	Agentic(Model 1.3)	Communal(Model 1.4)
Female employees	−2.466*** (0.738)	7.093*** (0.627)	−2.596*** (0.702)	6.835*** (0.607)
Controls	No	No	Yes	Yes
Constant	69.25*** (0.523)	71.36*** (0.444)	68.75*** (0.564)	71.67*** (0.489)
Observations	1,294	1,294	1,294	1,294
R ²	.009	.098	.022	.094
Adjusted R²	−.088	.009	.019	.091

Note. Fixed effects at high school level. Standard errors in parentheses. OLS = ordinary least squares.

To see the gender differences as they would be in the following analyses, OLS regressions with the following control variables are included: age (mean-centered), years being the manager’s employee (mean-centered), and the manager’s leadership position.

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Table 2.

Regression of Motivation on Leadership With Split Sample on Employee Gender.

Motivation	Female employees(Model 2.1)	Male employees(Model 2.2)
Visionary leadership (VL)	0.0465 (0.0391)	0.0183 (0.0451)
Verbal rewards (VR)	0.0393 (0.0315)	0.0765* (0.0352)
Pecuniary rewards (PR)	−0.0752* (0.0361)	0.0213 (0.0418)
Controls	Yes	Yes
Constant	79.12*** (0.658)	73.41*** (0.825)
Observations	677	617
R ²	.022	.045
Adjusted R²	.013	.036

Note. Standard errors in parentheses, cluster robust. Leadership components and continuous control variables are mean-centered. Control variables include age, years being the manager’s employee, and the manager’s leadership position.

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Gender Differences in Traits

First, the results show that even within the same profession and within the same high school in Denmark, female teachers are on average 2.466 percentage points less agentic (Model 1.1) and 7.093 percentage points more communal (Model 1.2) than male teachers. The communal gender difference is, thus, more pronounced than the agentic, and gender explains more of the difference in communal (9.8%) than agentic traits (0.9%). As gender only explains 0.9% of the variance in agentic traits, it is less likely to mediate a gender difference in leadership effectiveness. The results also show that male and female teachers both have agentic and communal traits on average, and Figure 3 illustrates the large overlap between male and female traits. Nevertheless, there is a substantial and statistically significant gender difference, particularly in the communal traits, even between teachers in the same high school. Furthermore, gender explains a substantial part of the individual differences in the communal traits.

Figure 3.

Gender distribution in agentic and communal traits.

Gender Moderation

The second step is to examine whether gender moderates the association between leadership and motivation as can be expected following the theoretical arguments and the empirical support for gender differences in agentic and communal traits. Table 2 shows the correlations for each gender, while Model 3.2 in Table 3 contains the moderation analysis. The high school teachers in general and female employees in particular are quite motivated, scoring between 70 and 80 on a 0 to 100 scale when they perceive the mean amount of the leadership components. Furthermore, male employees are statistically significantly more motivated the more they perceive their manager uses verbal rewards, whereas female employees are less motivated the more they perceive their manager uses pecuniary rewards. However, visionary leadership as well as verbal and pecuniary rewards for the other gender do not significantly correlate with motivation; that is, employees who perceive the mean amount of each of the other leadership components are not significantly more motivated when they perceive more of these leadership components. This is quite surprising taking previous results into account (Bellé, 2014, 2015; Nielsen et al., 2019; Oberfield, 2012; Wright et al., 2012) and makes it considerably less likely to find significant gender differences in the correlations. It does not indicate, however, that managers do not need to use any of these leadership components, as the correlations are for employees who perceive the mean amount of the other leadership strategies. The R² further shows that the models do not explain much of the variance in employee motivation, especially for female employees (Table 2). High school teacher motivation would appear to be explained by many other factors as well. To see whether the gender differences are statistically significant, a moderation analysis is necessary, as shown in Model 3.2 in Table 3.

Table 3.

Mediated Moderation Regression of Motivation on Leadership, Gender, and Traits.

Motivation	No moderation	Gender moderation	Agentic mediated moderation	Communal mediated moderation
Motivation	Model 3.1	Model 3.2	Model 3.3	Model 3.4
VL	0.0360 (0.0298)	0.0286 (0.0436)	0.0220 (0.0415)	0.0257 (0.0424)
VR	0.0570* (0.0222)	0.0685* (0.0341)	0.0762* (0.0319)	0.0601^† (0.0329)
PR	−0.0308 (0.0299)	0.0284 (0.0410)	0.0198 (0.0405)	0.0338 (0.0392)
Female employee	4.835*** (0.855)	4.854*** (0.860)	5.686*** (0.800)	3.130*** (0.902)
Female employee × VL		0.0112(0.0559)	0.0114(0.0540)	−0.0088(0.0536)
Female employee × VR		−0.0236(0.0486)	−0.0305(0.0446)	−0.0204(0.0466)
Female employee × PR		−0.110* (0.0495)	−0.107* (0.0485)	−0.118* (0.0494)
Agentic			0.320*** (0.0390)
Agentic × VL			−0.00172(0.00245)
Agentic × VR			−0.000371(0.00234)
Agentic × PR			0.00297(0.00264)
Communal				0.258*** (0.0429)
Communal × VL				0.00412(0.00252)
Communal × VR				0.000219(0.00222)
Communal × PR				0.000720(0.00264)
Controls	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Constant	73.89*** (0.772)	73.88*** (0.774)	73.56*** (0.719)	74.58*** (0.754)
Observations	1,294	1,294	1,294	1,294
R ²	.044	.050	.117	.085
Adjusted R²	.038	.043	.107	.075

Note. Leadership components, gender-based traits, and continuous control variables are mean-centered. Control variables include age, years being the manager’s employee, and the manager’s leadership position. Standard errors in parentheses, cluster robust. VL = visionary leadership; VR = verbal rewards; PR = pecuniary rewards.

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Gender statistically significantly moderates the correlation between pecuniary rewards and motivation (Model 3.2). In accordance with H1c, female employees are less motivated than male employees the more they perceive their manager to be using pecuniary rewards. Female employees who perceive more pecuniary rewards are actually less motivated than those who perceive less. Gender does not significantly moderate the associations between visionary leadership or verbal rewards and motivation (H1a and H1b).

Mediation by Gender-Based Traits

The third step is to see if the gender moderation is mediated by gender-based traits, and, thus, whether the gender differences described above weaken when the gender-based traits are introduced in the analysis. As just described, only pecuniary rewards are significantly moderated by gender (Model 3.2), and the mediated moderation analyses in Models 3.3 and 3.4 show that this moderation is more or less constant when including the gender-based traits. Thus, the gender-based traits do not seem to mediate the moderation, which does not support H2c.

Models 3.3 and 3.4 also show that none of the gender-based traits significantly moderates the association between motivation and pecuniary rewards or any of the other leadership components. However, regarding visionary leadership, communal traits have an SE of 0.00252; p = .104 (Model 3.4) and a VIF score of 111 (Table A8 in the Supplementary Material), which is more than 10 times higher than the recommendation. The high VIF score indicates a very high degree of multicollinearity, which increases the uncertainty of the estimates and, thus, increases the risk of Type II errors. The result is, therefore, explained even though it is not statistically significant. The association between visionary leadership and motivation tends to be stronger the more communal the employee is. The coefficient is 0.00412 while the direct correlation with visionary leadership is 0.0257 (Model 3.4). The average male employee who perceives 1 percentage point more visionary leadership is, thus, 0.0257 percentage points more motivated. However, if he were 10 percentage points more communal (female employees are on average approximately 7 percentage points more communal than male), he would be additionally 0.0412 percentage points more motivated for each percentage point more visionary leadership he perceives. Even though the gender moderation on visionary leadership is far from significant, it is worth mentioning that including communal traits decreases the coefficient from 0.0112 (Model 3.2) to −0.0088 (Model 3.4). Thus, even though the results are not significant, they are consistent with H2a; that is, that the employee’s traits mediate the gender moderation.

Table 3 also shows that the employees who are more agentic as well as those who are more communal tend to be more motivated, meaning that there is a direct correlation between the two traits and motivation. This could be due to common source bias and social desirability, even though this study attempts to reduce social desirability in the construction of scales. Another possible explanation is that simply having a strong identity, whether agentic, communal, or something else, correlates with being more motivated.

To sum up, the gender-based traits do not seem to mediate the gender moderation on pecuniary rewards. However, looking at the insignificant results, there are indications that the communal trait might moderate the correlation with visionary leadership and mediate any potential significance of gender.

Different Genders’ Attitudes Toward Pecuniary Rewards

The respondents were also asked more directly about their thoughts on the use of individual wage supplements as a tangible example of pecuniary rewards. Respondents were asked about the extent to which individual wage supplements could motivate them to put in an extra effort as well as whether such bonuses would create a bad culture in the workplace. The results are presented in Table 4.

Table 4.

Fixed Effects Regression on Attitudes Toward Pecuniary Rewards.

Attitudes towards pecuniary rewards	PR motivates		PR creates bad culture
Attitudes towards pecuniary rewards	Model 4.1	Model 4.2	Model 4.3	Model 4.4
Female employee	−0.473(1.932)	−0.107(2.021)	2.955^† (1.519)	1.596(1.592)
Communal		0.0929(0.0888)		0.0841(0.0700)
Agentic		0.416*** (0.0755)		−0.309*** (0.0595)
Constant	41.15*** (1.369)	40.94*** (1.396)	72.40*** (1.076)	73.12*** (1.100)
Observations	1,294	1,294	1,294	1,294
R ²	.000	.027	.003	.026
Adjusted R²	−.098	−.071	−.095	−.072

Note. Fixed effects at high school level. Communal and agentic traits are mean-centered. PR = pecuniary rewards. Standard errors in parentheses.

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

The first interesting finding is that high school teachers on average do not think pecuniary rewards can motivate them to put in extra work, and they think that it will create a bad culture in the workplace. The R² shows that gender and the gender-based traits explain very little of the variation. However, there still seem to be differences in the respondents’ attitudes, which are consistent with the expectations in H1c and H2c. As could be expected, female employees are more likely to think that pecuniary rewards will hurt the workplace culture (significant at 0.1), which might be mediated by their less agentic traits. Agentic employees are more likely to think they can be motivated by pecuniary rewards and less likely to think it will create a bad culture.

Conclusion and Discussion

This article has examined whether gender moderates the correlation between transformational and transactional leadership components and motivation, and whether this is mediated by gender-based traits. On this basis, there seems to be reason to investigate how employees of different genders respond to different leadership styles. The results suggest female employees are less motivated by their manager’s use of pecuniary rewards than male employees. Beyond that, the empirical support for gender and gender-based traits moderating the association between leadership and motivation was not as pronounced as expected, although some differences and interesting tendencies did correspond with the expectations.

The most important finding was that gender moderates the correlation between pecuniary rewards and motivation. For female employees, the perception of the manager’s use of pecuniary rewards is negatively correlated with motivation, whereas there is no correlation for male employees. However, the expected mediated moderation by gender-based traits could not be identified. Nevertheless, further analysis showed that female employees, more than male, think pecuniary rewards will create a bad culture in the workplace, and this difference seems to be mediated by their agentic attributes. This finding is consistent with Konrad and colleagues’ (2000) meta-analysis of sex differences in job attribute preferences, where men valued earnings more than women. Conversely, Pedersen (2018) did not find any gender differences in a survey experiment where some respondents could receive a monetary reward for participating. However, the survey situation differs substantially from a work situation, as there is no joint effort, and it will not influence the workplace culture.

Regarding pecuniary rewards, it is also worth noticing that it generally does not seem beneficial to increase the employees’ perception thereof; at least not for Danish high school teachers. On average, neither female nor male teachers think it will motivate them but instead that it will hurt the workplace culture. This result might not be broadly generalizable, however, as some studies have found a positive effect of pecuniary rewards on employee motivation, and especially public employees might regard this type of leadership differently than private employees. Even though the theoretical argument for gender differences is generic and expected to hold in public as well as private organizations, there are selection and self-selection mechanisms that could influence both the gender moderation and the direct correlation between the leadership components and motivation. Especially the type of organization (e.g., daycare vs. tax offices) could be expected to influence the kind of employees hired and, thus, the employees’ personal traits and differences therein. It is pertinent that this study examines Danish high school teachers, as it might not be generalizable to more gender-segregated organizations (e.g., daycare institutions). The least likely case of Denmark, however, makes it more likely to find significant gender differences in many other countries.

Even though all moderations regarding visionary leadership are statistically insignificant, the empirical tendencies are in line with the theoretical arguments. The results suggest that communal employees tend to be more motivated the more they perceive their manager to be using visionary leadership compared with less communal employees. This difference also seems to mediate any potential gender difference. Konrad and colleagues (2000) showed a large gender difference in the preference for the opportunity to help others. A next step for research on gender differences and visionary leadership is to investigate the content of the vision, as this might be important with respect to the gender or gender-based traits to which it speaks (Krogsgaard et al., 2014). A vision focused on helping others (e.g., on students’ well-being) would fit better with the communal tendency to be sympathetic and concerned with others, whereas being the best organization would fit better with the agentic traits of being competitive and ambitious.

The results did not support the expectations about verbal rewards. As described, verbal rewards contain both communal and agentic elements, which can explain why gender and gender-based traits do not seem to matter. Similarly, Konrad and colleagues (2000) did not find a significant gender difference in the importance of recognition. The degree to which verbal rewards can be seen as communal or agentic might depend on how they are communicated to employees. For example, it might matter whether appreciation and acknowledgment are given to an individual or a group, and whether given in person or in public. Public and individual appreciation might relate more to the agentic traits of ambition, competition, and confidence, whereas personal or group acknowledgment might fit better with the communal tendency to be interpersonal and concerned with others. This would be an interesting distinction in future research on verbal rewards and gender differences.

This article only considered employee gender, but the gender combination between employee and manager might also matter for how leadership is received and employee motivation (Grissom et al., 2012). It is also relevant that this study did not examine managers’ actual leadership, but the employees’ perceptions of it. Especially when examining the employee’s perception of the manager’s leadership, the gender combination might matter. I, therefore, urge future research to look further into this always present but understudied phenomenon.

None of the correlations is substantially very large, not even the correlations between each of the leadership components and motivation, so this study does not provide any clear answer to the importance of gender and gender-based traits for the effectiveness of leadership. Bearing the existing literature in mind, this raises several questions. First, multiple studies have found gender differences in leadership behavior; so is gender merely important at the leadership level? And if so, why not for employees? This is especially puzzling, as employee gender has been found to matter greatly for their motivation. Second, many of these studies build their arguments on the communal and agentic traits, but this study questions whether these traits should be at the base of the theoretical arguments for gender differences in leadership or whether there is another explanation for the gender differences in leadership behavior. Further research is needed to obtain a better understanding of gender differences and the importance of gender-based traits. Based on these findings and the existing literature, gender and gender-based traits only appear to be important under certain circumstances—but what characterizes these circumstances? A first step would be to disentangle the leadership components as well as gender and gender-based traits to test the importance of each individually.

The results shown here give limited support for the expectations on gender differences in the relation between visionary leadership, verbal and pecuniary rewards, and motivation. Still, the findings support that gender and gender-based traits do play a role, as they indicate that employee gender and traits can matter for which leadership strategy motivates them. The results also imply that, at least for Danish high school managers, it is probably more beneficial to divert to increasing the employees’ perception of visionary leadership and verbal rewards compared with pecuniary rewards, regardless of the teacher’s gender. The practical implication of the study is, thus, not so much that managers should be aware of which gender they lead but that Danish high school teachers in general, and female teachers in particular, are not motivated by pecuniary rewards.

Supplemental Material

Appendix – Supplemental material for Leading Employees of Different Genders: The Importance of Gender for the Leadership‒Motivation Relationship

Supplemental material, Appendix for Leading Employees of Different Genders: The Importance of Gender for the Leadership‒Motivation Relationship by Trine H. Fjendbo in Review of Public Personnel Administration

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Trine H. Fjendbo

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

Author Biography

Trine H. Fjendbo is a PhD student at the Department of Political Science at Aarhus University with affiliation to Crown Prince Frederik Center for Public Leadership. Her research focuses on leadership, gender, and motivation in the public sector.

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