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This is the third part of a three-part paper on the intersection between sex, gender and leadership in the UK Civil Service. The first part of this paper provided an introduction to the research, a literature review and some conjectures derived from it. The second part formulated specific null hypotheses, outlined the research methodology and presented research findings. The purpose of this paper is to explore the practical implications of the research findings, presents an evidence-based framework for understanding the transition into leadership, with prescriptions for its use and ends with a concluding discussion on the overall research findings.

Information was collected from a wide cross-section of UK Civil Servants between 1993 and 2013. Individuals were participants on training and development activities carried out by the authors. Individuals completed psychometric instruments, including self-assessments and 360 degree assessments and provided information on their sex, work role and work situation. Statistical analysis was carried out to identify behaviours associated with effective leadership, taking account of behaviours used, behaviours valued and behaviours valued more highly than in those in follower roles and situations. Comparisons were made between the effective leader behaviour profile and those for sex differences and gender stereotypes.

A very strong statistical relationship was found between the frequency with which individuals use a range of behaviours and the extent of their leadership role and situation. Moreover, particular behaviours were found to be more valued in leadership roles/situations, with clear differences between those valued in follower roles/situations. A combined leadership effectiveness profile had little in common with either the male/masculine or female/feminine profile.

The research was a by-product of the authors’ training and development work. It was not part of a purpose-built and wide-ranging research programme into sex, gender and leadership. It also relates to one context, the UK Civil Service, and may not generalise to other contexts. Nonetheless, there are clear parallels between these findings and previous research.

Gender stereotypes were best tackled by ensuring that all jobs are properly described and all assessments involved the use of relevant information against agreed job criteria, with appropriate training and development essential to maintaining best practice. Moreover, training and development activities should concentrate on actual individual differences, rather than stereotypical generalisations about such differences. Finally, an evidence-based, gender-neutral leadership framework was proposed. The leadership framework is relevant to would-be leaders, line managers and human resource professionals, including training and development specialists.

The research findings are relevant to understanding the intersection between sex, gender and leadership in the UK Civil Service. They relate to wider social issues concerning equal opportunities and diversity.

There is an extensive body of theory and research on the intersection between sex, gender and leadership. However, very little focuses specifically on the UK Civil Service. These research findings and the subsequent analysis are, therefore, original. The gender-neutral, evidence-based leadership framework is an original contribution to both theory and practice.

The purpose of this study is to explore gender gaps, values and practices in a Sub-Saharan African (SSA) country, specifically to identify gender inequality in Kenyan leadership and propose suggestions for advancing gender equity.

This Kenya study replicated the research design of the Global Leadership and Organizational Behaviour Effectiveness Project for gathering country data. It sampled middle and upper management in the commercial sector (finance and agriculture) and added the civic sectors of health care and education, using quantitative research (267 managers in over 100 organizations) and qualitative research design (30 interviewees from 23 organizations).

Gender had no apparent effect on leadership attributes nor on preferred modes of leadership. Statistical and thematic analysis revealed conflicting values and behaviours regarding gender equality and leadership. A high cultural dimension score on practices reflects a traditional leadership approach for male dominance, referred to as the Bwana Kubwa model. However, a high value score for gender equality reflects a more contemporary perspective, identified as the Inspirational Idealist. The gender gap presents a cultural paradox and a leadership constraint.

The Inspirational Idealist model advances African leadership theory as it identifies a preferred value-based paradigm of effective performance-based leadership. This is contrary to the prevalent patriarchal practices of the Bwana Kubwa (Big Boss) model, which reflects biased gendered preference.

Male and female leaders need to challenge the status quo and align leadership practices with the articulated cultural values expressed as an Inspirational Idealist model. It has considerable relevance to advancing African leadership theory and informing culturally relevant policies and contextualized practices focused on gender equity in leadership.

This research on practices and values pertaining to gender equality of Kenyan managers is the first in-depth managerial leadership study of any SSA country. It is unique in that it broadened the scope of study to include professional sectors, gender, age and ethnicity variables.

This paper aims to examine the discursive constitution of leadership identities by senior women leaders working in the City of London. This study draws on postfeminism as a critical concept to explore this constitution, as it has produced the cultural conditions for the reconfiguration of masculine and feminine gender norms in leadership.

In a qualitative study, 13 women leaders in positions of power in the City of London were interviewed. Discourse analysis techniques were used to unpack the postfeminist shaping of leadership identities

At the heart of the leadership identities that senior women leaders construct is a gendered hybridity that is a multifaceted calibration of masculine and feminine attributes and behaviours. Postfeminist discourses of individualism, choice and self-improvement are entangled with discourses of authenticity, relatability and connectivity as particular leadership assets. The gendered hybridity of leadership identities unfolds the possibility for a fundamental makeover of leadership by opening-up space for a transformative change that accommodates women leaders.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the very few studies that foreground the leadership identities that women leaders construct within the confines of postfeminist gender regimes. It shows how these women invoke authenticity, unfolding possibilities for the transformational change of and political challenge to traditional gendered leadership in their organizations.

This paper aims to critically reflect on current leadership development programmes (LDPs) and their potential in addressing the issue of women’s under-representation in leadership positions. To this end, this paper queries the current processes through which employees are selected to participate in LDPs as well as how these programmes are designed.

Drawing on Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, this conceptual paper draws attention to the pitfalls of current organisational practices aimed at women’s leadership development.

The introduction of gender quotas and the implementation of women-only LDPs are unlikely to address the persistent gender leadership gap. Instead, these practices are likely to intensify the negative effects of second-generation gender bias and perpetuate the issue of gender inequality and inequity in the workplace.

This paper critiques contemporary organisational practices aimed at women’s leadership development and suggests alternative practices which are more likely to respond to the issue of women’s under-representation in leadership positions.

This paper introduces intersectional situatedness to develop inclusive analyses of leadership. Intersectional situatedness recognises the contextual and situated nature of experiences and their interaction with socially constructed categories of difference.

The paper draws on memory work by three feminist academics who situate their understandings and experiences of leadership as part of socio-historical contexts.

Understandings and experiences of leadership are multifaceted and benefit from being examined in their intersectional situatedness. This way, the simultaneity of visible and invisible disadvantage and privilege, which accumulate, shift and get reconfigured across the life course and are based on particular intersectional identity invocations, can be integrated into narratives about leadership.

Interrogating gender-in-leadership adopting an intersectional situatedness helps to advance the field by embedding the recognition, problematisation and theorisation of situated difference as critical to understand leadership, its meaning and its practice in management and organisations.

In embedding intersectional situatedness in the analysis of leadership, more inclusive understandings of leadership are qualified that recognise differences positively and support changing the narratives around the meaning of “leader” and “good leadership”.

Intersectional situatedness helps to identify tangible ways to see how inequalities impact women’s career progression to leadership and enable more nuanced conversations about privilege and disadvantage to advance feminist social justice agendas.

The paper reveals the narrow and restricted understandings of leadership and how this influences who is regarded as a legitimate leader. In addition, it adopts a methodology that is not commonly used in gender-in-leadership research.

This feminist standpoint study aims to make an empirical contribution to the entrepreneurial leadership and HRD fields. Women entrepreneur leaders' experiences of gender will be explored through a framework of doing gender well and doing gender differently to unsettle the gender binary.

Against a backcloth of patriarchy, a theoretical gender lens is developed and a feminist standpoint research (FSR) approach taken in this study. There are five case studies of women entrepreneur leaders operating small businesses across North East England in sectors of IT, law, construction, beauty, and childcare. In each case study a two‐stage semi‐structured interview process was implemented and the women's voices analysed through a framework of doing gender well and differently.

This paper highlights the complexities of gender experiences offering four themes of women entrepreneurs' experiences of gender within entrepreneurial leadership: struggling with entrepreneurial leadership; awareness of difference; accepting and embracing difference; and responding to difference, which are offered to challenge the gender binary and capture the complexities of how gender is experienced.

The field must begin to shift its focus from the dominant masculine discourse to foster understandings of gender experiences by using gender as an analytical category to enable the field to truly progress.

Women are still an under‐represented group within entrepreneurship and within the higher echelons of organisations. This requires greater attention.

This feminist study calls for both scholars and practitioners to analyse critically their underlying assumptions and bring a gender consciousness to their HRD research and practice to understand gender complexities within entrepreneurial leadership and organisational experiences more widely.

Women continue to be disproportionately represented in top leadership positions. Leadership development programs typically focus on skills attainment. The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions and experiences of academic leaders in order to inform how leadership development programs may more effectively address the gender gap in leadership.

A sequential mixed methods study design was used. Participants completed the Leadership Practice Inventory ®(LPI) survey followed by individual interviews of a subset of participants. The survey results were analyzed and compared by gender using the t-test. Thematic analysis was used to compare themes across and between genders. Quantitative and qualitative findings were integrated in the final analysis.

In total, 65 leaders (38 women; 27 men) (37.7 percent response rate) participated in the survey. There were no significant demographic or statistical differences between women and men on any of the LPI® components. Five women and five men were interviewed. Thematic analysis revealed common leadership aspirations and values. Gender differences were noted in leadership attainment, mentorship and the influence of gender on leadership. While the male narratives reflected cognitive awareness of gender inequities, the female narratives also included lived experiences. Male participants focused on the importance of meritocracy whereas the female participants emphasized the gendered social and structural influences on leadership attainment.

Leadership development programs need go beyond generic “skills-building” in order to conceptualize leadership within a gendered social context. This framework will enable critical awareness and tools for developing both women and men’s fullest leadership potential.

This study was conducted in order to better understand how academic health leaders experience the intersection of gender and leadership. The findings contribute to the current literature by providing insight into perceptual gaps that exist at the level of practice between women and men leaders. In doing so, the authors discuss how leadership development programs may play a more effective role in addressing gender equity in leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the relations between management control system (MCS), leadership style and gender ideology. It investigates how a female leader’s gendered personal values are formed, translated, produced, and reproduced in her leadership style, the subsequent MCS and organisational life.

This is an interpretive case study that uses the anthropological lens of emic and etic views. The emic view is derived from the interpretation of the company’s subjects. The etic view refers to the interpretation of outsiders (the researchers and previous literatures). The combination of these two views enables an in-depth understanding of the case. Interviews, observation and documentary analysis were used to collect the data.

In a gendered society, a female leader will gain full respect if she demonstrates leadership behaviours that fit her subordinates’ gendered expectations. The leader’s and followers’ common gendered cultural background will result in leadership and followership that support each other. Gendered leadership produces gendered MCS. Gendered MCS is based on gendered cultural values that direct the behaviour of organisational members to focus on certain competencies based on a single gender perspective. In turn, the gendered MCS sustains and reinforces the gendered leadership.

The study does not focus on the potential value of including feminine measures in MCS. In the future, MCS literatures need to explore the strategic advantages of introducing measures into the system in order to develop feminine competencies in organisation. Furthermore, the processes by which MCS reinforces gendered practices in a society are not explored in the study. Therefore, another important next step is to examine the patterns of the reinforcement processes and their magnitude in strengthening the biases beyond organisational boundaries (e.g. in professional and industrial practices).

This study encourages leaders to consider the use of masculine and feminine characters in MCS to increase organisational effectiveness, build a more humane organisational atmosphere, establish organisational cohesion and harmonise different personal aspirations.

MCS literatures tend to hide gender bias in the system. This study offers insight on how MCS translates, produces and reproduces societal gendered practices in organisational life.

This paper aims to answer whether the notion of the gender and leadership stereotypes theory has already reached its boundaries.

To accomplish such a goal, it relies on the extant literature looking for more robust findings, problems, disruptions and pathways toward building a better understanding of this problematic.

The evidence gleaned throughout this paper suggests that the interplay between gender and leadership stereotypes theory has reached its boundaries. Moreover, the traditional sex stereotype or gender traits approach within companies seems to be highly limited taking into account that it tends to nurture rivalry and prejudice among people of different genders. Rather than focusing on leader sex approach or egalitarian quotas, in terms of leadership role and despite the fair argument of diversity, the author proposes that it is wiser to concentrate on a meritocratic view.

It suggests that an androgyny leadership style appears to be welcomed in organizations, yet some shift about this understanding may be occurring. At present, however, female aspirants of leadership roles should work increasingly toward adapting themselves to this profile. In doing so, it is likely that they may be benefited from organizational evaluations in which the merit issue constitutes an imperative.

Overall, it is expected to contribute to theory by arguing that the traditional understanding of gender and leadership stereotypes theory is not suitable anymore to deal with the uncertainties and complexities that shape today’s business arenas. On the contrary, it argues that such approach tends only to encourage gender bias and to nurture a somewhat sex war game in detriment of organizations efficiency and productivity.

Leadership theories have moved from viewing leadership as an innate trait, towards models that recognise leadership as a social construction. Alongside this theorisation, gender and leadership remain of considerable interest, particularly given the under-representation of women in leadership positions. Methodological approaches to understanding leadership have begun to embrace innovative methods, such as historical analyses. This paper aims to understand how high profile women leaders construct a gendered leadership identity, with particular reference to authentic leadership.

Thematic analysis of autobiographies, a form of identity work, of four women leaders from business and politics: Sheryl Sandberg, Karren Brady, Hillary Clinton and Julia Gillard.

Analyses reveal that these women construct gender and leadership along familiar normative lines; for example, the emphasis on personal and familial values. However, their stories differ in that the normative extends to include close examination of the body and a sense of responsibility to other women. Overall, media representations of these “authentic” leaders conform to social constructions of gender. Thus, in the case of authentic leadership, a theory presented as gender neutral, the authenticity of leadership has to some extent been crafted by the media rather than the leader.

The study reveals that despite attempts to “craft” and control the image of the authentic self for consumption by followers, gendered media representations of individuals and leadership remain. Thus, alternative approaches to crafting an authentic leadership self which extend beyond (mainstream) media is suggested.