Would you vote for a female presidential candidate? A 2013 poll shows 86 percent of Americans think the country is ready to elect a woman president. And nearly 75 percent think the country will elect one in 2016 (Fox, 2013). But why the concern over a leader’s biological sex? Is there really a difference between men and women as leaders?

With a few key exceptions, research has provided little support for the popular notion that men and women inherently lead differently, although the idea has nonetheless persisted. For example, we might assume that men would have a masculine style of leadership, emphasizing command and control, whereas women would have a feminine style of leadership, emphasizing more nurturing relationship environments. Some research has indeed suggested that feminine leaders think of organizations as webs of relationships, with leaders at the center of the web, in contrast to the more traditionally masculine view of organizations as pyramids with a leader at the top. Feminine leaders may also view the boundaries between work and personal life as fluid and may communicate their understanding of employees’ need to balance professional and personal obligations (Helgesen, 1990; Mumby, 2000; Rosener, 1990). However, meta-analyses (which examine the combined results from many different studies) have found that men and women do not differ in overall leadership effectiveness (Eagly, Karau, & Makhijani, 1995). In fact, one study (Rutherford, 2001) even notes that men and women’s leadership styles are often dictated by factors other than sex and gender, such as the general communication style of the group or organization.