Leadership in Action: Seven Common Beliefs About Teams: Are They True?

Men make better team leaders than women.

False.

In fact, women may have a slight edge over men in the leadership of teams. Our findings here are tentative and mixed but intriguing. Results from the TLP suggest that women on average are slightly more effective in performing team-leadership behaviors (as rated by members). Female leaders are rated about one-third of a standard deviation higher than male leaders overall—not a huge difference but not insignificant either. Female leaders also rate themselves slightly higher than male leaders rate themselves.

The differences are most prominent when one examines the extremes of the team-leadership continuum—those leaders scoring very high or very low. Although males made up 57 percent of the leaders ...