Critical Literature Review on Gender In Leadership Essay

Critical Literature Review on Gender In Leadership - Essay Example Broadly speaking, when a leader motivates his subordinates, it means that one structures the work environment in such a way that their drives and needs are brought into play, instead of being neglected. This environment should be conducive to the satisfaction of those drives and needs so that workers may act in desired ways. However, leadership theories and concepts evaluate the effect of gender in leadership in terms of according the same prerogatives and benefits on equal terms. In this regard, the objective of the essay is to proffer a critical literature review on the topic of gender in leadership. Relevant research studies on the subject would be cited and significant points would hereby be highlighted, analyzed and evaluated in terms of presenting supporting or opposing viewpoints on gender in leadership. A study conducted by Christine R. Gedney, Major, USAF, entitled Leadership Effectiveness and Gender aimed to determine a correlationship between leadership effectiveness and gender through secondary sources of authoritative materials while seeking some explanation to her inquiry on identifying â€Å"why there is still a considerable absence in top military leadership by female officers† (Gedney, 1999, v). Initially, she provided essential qualities of effective leaders with the objective of indicating that â€Å"leadership effectiveness is not gender-specific, but there seem to be many attributes that are found in both males and females that lend themselves to becoming an effective leader† (Gedney, 1999, 2). Through her discussion of gender in leadership, the revealed that traditional views content a biased view of leaders to predominantly favor men over women. The author cited Kolb as indicating that â€Å"when we reviewed this literature we were struck by the prejudice against women. Research has demonstrated that there are