This is an age-old debate. And it’s one that keeps going, because, while leadership approaches and styles do not fall strictly along gender lines, research has tried to explore gender-related differences in some contexts. This leads to a ‘sometimes, this, but other times, that’ sort of conclusion, which means opinions can differ depending on the experiences people are drawing from.
Some may play on assumptions about gender differences in leadership. The safest place to go in such discussions is the evidence. This blog explores the arguments and their relation to education.
Those who argue that there are distinct gender characteristics in leadership styles point at the more frequent display of nurturing and cooperation by women leaders compared to men’s relatively more common displays of assertiveness and dominance. Empirical research has also focused on the extent to which women’s leadership is more democratic (rather than autocratic or directive); relationship-oriented (rather than task-oriented); and transformational (rather than transactional).
Some studies say that differences are found between individuals more than between genders. Others identify few, if any, differences between male and female leadership practices.
Even if differences exist, it would be silly to ignore the role that different policies in different countries might have on the way that men and women lead. If a country has a strict testing environment, for instance, both men and women might end up taking on more directive styles to meet targets.
Clearly, discriminatory stereotypes remain, although there has been progress towards eliminating them. Over the past 70 years, there has been a significant increase in the percentage of people in the United States who believe that both men and women are competent leaders, for instance.
Everyline Banda, a female principal for over two years in Kenya said “My challenges are stereotypical perceptions of female leadership – cultural beliefs that demean women in society and this goes right into the school, where even other teachers don’t believe a woman can teach technical learning areas like science and math”
Theory 1: Women prefer to be collaborative rather than directive
The 2024/5 GEM Report on leadership in education emphasized the importance of collaboration for encouraging peer feedback and enhancing teamwork.
Women prefer collaboration, inclusion and participation, some studies find, while men tend to emphasize structure, hierarchy, performance and control. Women tend to apply more democratic and consensus-building methods, in contrast to directive and authoritative approaches more typically associated with male leadership.
It has been argued that adopting a distributed leadership approach may help women appear as ‘invisible leaders’ to protect themselves. The idea of being an authority and making decisions unilaterally may make some women uncomfortable because their exercise of authority may be perceived as negative. Analysis of 2018 TALIS data for the 2025 Gender Report, Women lead for learning, showed that more female (36%) than male (28%) lower secondary school principals strongly agreed that a collaborative school culture was important. Studies have shown female leaders leaning towards distributed and participatory types of leadership in Chile, Pakistan, and Indonesia, while a study from the Lao People’s Democratic Republic showed more focus among female principals on engaging and empowering teachers.
Theory 2: Women are more oriented towards relationships rather than tasks
Women’s leadership has also often been characterized as relational, with attributes such as nurturing, empathy, intuition, compromise and care often given to them. As described above, female principals are more likely than their male peers to spend time interacting with parents and students according to the 2018 TALIS. Similar findings emerge from PASEC learning assessment data in Benin, Congo, Madagascar and Niger and in the United Arab Emirates. In Saudi Arabia, similarly, female academic leaders rated strong communication as the second-most important attribute that enables them to negotiate with and convince others.
Dr Chinedum is a school leader in Nigeria: “My favourite task as a school leader is working alongside a struggling teacher until that teacher emerges on the other side as a super, capable, confident teacher”.
Such social and emotional skills are seen as crucial for successful leadership. Listening, empathy, teamwork and conversation are important tools for effective leadership. Such skills are also important components of resilience, which enable growth, adaptability and the ability to drive change in risky environments.
Theory 3: Female leaders are more transformational, and learning focused, than transactional
A clearly articulated and compelling vision guides collective decision-making driving at a common purpose. Doing this requires education leaders to know the context and identity of their institutions, for which having good interpersonal relationships with staff is an advantage, something that women leaders are well placed to do in some contexts. In Pakistan, research on female leadership has shown that transformational, vision-oriented leadership is associated with increased levels of trust, better interpersonal connections and innovative behaviour among staff. In the United Kingdom, a study of principals found that women spent more time working with others in planning and setting goals. In the United States, a survey on college presidents showed that women were more likely to weigh the consequences of decisions on different groups.
Women have been found to be more likely to engage in instructional leadership in various different studies. A meta-analysis of 28 studies on teachers’ and principals’ perceptions, for example, showed small but statistically significant gender differences in instructional leadership. A systematic review of school leadership and gender in 54 African countries found the same result. Data from the 2019 Southeast Asia – Primary Learning Metrics survey suggested that female primary school principals were less likely to directly monitor student attendance and more likely to focus on high-value tasks, such as evaluating teacher practices. Various other country level studies cited in the 2025 Gender Report found the same results.
Transformational leadership requires a rethinking of conventional power dynamics to engage individuals not merely as subordinates but as peers with values, aspirations and agency. Principals are expected to safeguard ethical standards, integrity and accountability. For female leaders, integrity-based leadership can serve to counteract any residual bias that questions women’s authority or professional acumen. An emphasis on ethical standards can help them challenge and change gender norms – and to promote greater equity and fairness in educational settings.
But…
The notion that leadership is a process of social influence clearly exposes the challenges that women face. If the source of influence is the position a person has or the recognition and respect they have, then discrimination and unequal power dynamics put female leaders in a challenging situation.
Yes, having a compelling vision and transparent communication can mitigate such biases and spotlight women’s capacity not only to lead large and diverse teams effectively, as was seen in Eswatini, but also to shift community and teacher mindsets toward gender equity, as seen in Ghana. However, where discrimination against women has been deeply entrenched, they may struggle to fulfill their potential as leaders using skills they have because the barriers are simply too high. This is likely to skew the evidence we have on the real extent to which there are gender styles of leadership, as well.
What do you think?
