Gender, Media and Leader Emergence: Examining the Impression Management Strategies of Men and Women in Different Settings

This study examined the impact of media (face-to-face versus computer-mediated communication) on the process of leadership emergence by females and males. Specifically, we adapted the literature associated with impression management to investigate whether there are any differences in terms of two key impression management behaviorsself-promotion and supplicationbetween males and females who emerged as leaders in face-to-face and technology-mediated settings. Our findings challenge conventional gender-related findings. The results indicated that self-promotion plays an important role in influencing leadership emergence while supplication negatively impacts leadership emergence. In a face-to-face context, females who emerged as leaders were found to employ more self-promotion tactics than male leaders while female leaders and male leaders did not differ with respect to the amount of supplication tactics used. Females who emerged as leaders in a face-to-face context were also found to engage in greater self-promotion and more supplication tactics than females who emerged as leaders in a CmC context. Interestingly, there was no significant impact of media on the extent of self-promotion and supplication strategies displayed by male leaders. Future research avenues and implications are discussed.