Organizational leaderships

https://doi.org/10.1177/0731121418808800

Sociological Perspectives
2019, Vol. 62(3) 346 –365

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Education

You Lead Like a Girl: Gender and
Children’s Leadership Development

Alexa J. Trumpy1 and Marissa Elliott2

Abstract
Recent leadership initiatives encourage children, particularly girls, to defy gender stereotypes.
Yet, those creating and participating in these initiatives, like all members of our culture, have
their own gender biases, have received gender socialization, and live in a society where the
masculine is more valued than the feminine. We conducted participant observation of two
gender-segregated leadership summer camps to examine how camp counselors and directors
teach leadership to boys and girls. We find counselors unintentionally reinforce gender
stereotypes and promote gender-typical behavior while attempting to break down these same
stereotypes and behavioral expectations. We argue the gender-segregated environment leads
to a problematic “separate but equal” approach to thinking about leadership that advances the
individual abilities of boys and girls but does less to decrease gender disparities in emotional
development, physical competition, or leadership styles. This research contributes to our
understanding of how well-intentioned organizations and authorities, seeking to minimize
gender disparities and develop strong leaders, unwittingly reproduce gender differences and
perpetuate gender inequality.

Keywords
children and youth, culture, emotions, sex and gender

Introduction

Children begin to absorb gender stereotypes and expectations in early childhood (Cvencek,
Meltzoff, and Greenwald 2011). By early elementary school, girls are less likely than boys to say
that their own gender is “really, really smart.” They are also less likely to opt into games described
as intended for “super-smart” kids (Bian, Leslie, and Cimpian 2017). This pattern continues
throughout the educational trajectory (Storage et al. 2016). There is growing interest in disrupt-
ing gender stereotypes and expectations (Eagly and Heilman 2016; Parker, Horowitz, and Stepler
2017). Most Americans believe exposing children to toys and activities typically associated with
another gender is a good thing. They also believe more emphasis should be placed on encourag-
ing boys to talk about their feelings and teaching girls to stand up for themselves (Parker et al.
2017). Yet, attempts to lessen gendered constraints are often less successful than intended (for

1St. Norbert College, De Pere, WI, USA
2Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA

Corresponding Author:
Alexa J. Trumpy, St. Norbert College, Boyle Hall 430, 100 Grant St., De Pere, WI 54115-2099, USA.
Email: alexa.trumpy@snc.edu

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Trumpy and Elliott 347

examples, see Kane 2012; Kissane and Winslow 2016; Ridgeway 2011; Ryan 2016). How does
this gap between the desire to undo, or at least reduce, gendered expectations and the continued
maintenance of gendered expectations and outcomes persist?

We focus on the mismatch between expectations and outcomes in the context of gender and
leadership. Despite increased participation in sports, higher education, and the workforce, women
are underrepresented in leadership positions (Budgeon 2014). Our research seeks to advance our
understanding of this underrepresentation by examining how childhood leadership programs
may affect future gender leadership disparities. How do the adults creating and implementing
children’s leadership initiatives reproduce or challenge gendered leadership behaviors and out-
comes? To address this, we engaged in participant observation of two children’s leadership day
camps, which we refer to as GLEAM and BEAM (acronyms for Girls’ Leadership Empowerment
and Mentoring and Boys’ Leadership Empowerment and Mentoring).1

While there have been excellent studies looking at children’s conformity and resistance to
gender expectations at camp (McGuffey and Rich 1999; Moore 2001), this research addresses the
role adults play in maintaining children’s gendered expectations and behaviors. Both camps
explicitly focus on developing leadership skills and self-confidence, as well as encouraging chil-
dren to defy gender stereotypes. Given this focus, we were interested in how camp activities and
counselors’ statements subverted or reinforced gender stereotypes. How, for example, do camp
authority figures’ stated attitudes toward gender and socialization intentions line up with the mes-
sages they actually send to children?

Counselors and directors at GLEAM and BEAM frequently downplayed the role of gender in
leadership development. They framed leadership obstacles as individual-level phenomena and
assured campers they could do anything they put their minds to, regardless of gender. As a result,
campers learned simplistic and individualistic strategies for developing leadership skills, such as
cultivating a positive attitude and finding strong role models. This focus may provide helpful
tools for individual boys and girls, but it fails to address broader structural and cultural con-
straints that impact gender inequality in leadership.

As we will discuss, there were surface-level similarities in how GLEAM and BEAM counsel-
ors discussed leadership, but the underlying styles, content, and supporting messages that made
up the substance of leadership lessons were strikingly different. Ultimately, these differences
reflected divergent ideas about gender and leadership. If taken seriously, these differences will
continue to socialize children in gender stereotypical ways and reproduce gender differences in
leadership styles and opportunities.

In the following sections, we describe the camps in more detail and review the relevant schol-
arship pertaining to gender, leadership, and barriers to and advancements in gender equality. We
then discuss our data, method, and findings. We conclude by discussing the future implications
of our results.

Theoretical Orientation

Even when parents want to expand the boundaries of gender, they often feel pressure to teach their
children to do gender “correctly” by conforming to the gender binary (Kane 2012; Ryan 2016;
West and Zimmerman 1987). Yet, parents, authority figures, and other adult role models can also
disrupt gendered beliefs, especially for girls (Rosenthal et al. 2013; Rahilly 2015; Riegle-Crumb,
Farkas, and Muller 2006). Gender socialization has important implications for leadership. The
gender socialization messages children receive and the gendered nature of the resources and
opportunities they have access to affect perceived leadership ability and future leadership oppor-
tunities. For example, boys still spend more time in formal competitions (e.g., sports tournaments,
debate teams, and chess competition) than girls (Friedman 2013). Competition helps children
develop confidence, independence, ambition, and strategizing skills, all of which are associated

348 Sociological Perspectives 62(3)

with leadership (Eagly and Heilman 2016). Because boys compete more frequently, they are more
likely to acquire skills and characteristics associated with strong leadership.

Gender stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination also affect the assessment of leadership
potential (Brescoll 2016; Shields 2013). Authority, agency, rationality, and other characteristics
associated with successful leadership are seen as masculine, contributing to perceptions of men
as more natural leaders than women (Eagly 2007; Hechavarria and Ingram 2016; Hoobler,
Lemmon, and Wayne 2014). We examine what happens when adults attempt to disrupt these
inequalities by teaching boys and girls leadership skills. Do leadership camps that try to teach
children to be strong leaders and challenge gender stereotypes succeed, or do they reproduce
these stereotypes despite their intentions?

Adult Attitudes, Cultural Messages, and Children’s Understanding of Gender (In)
Equality

Even when they do not intend to, adults often socialize children in a gender stereotypical manner
(Kane 2012; Ryan 2016). Emily W. Kane (2012) finds parents can fall into a gender trap, a set of
expectations and structures that inhibit social change and reinforce the limits of gender. Research
on the mothers of gender questioning, nonconforming, and transgender children finds many
mothers provide trans-affirming messages and challenge dominant gender beliefs to a degree
(Ryan 2016). They help children imagine alternative gender possibilities, provide children with
knowledge and confidence to challenge gendered logics, and support their children’s identities
and choices. Yet, the way they talk about gender sends the message that while it is okay for boys
to like “girl” things and vice versa, there are, in fact, boy and girl things, and children normally
like gender-typical things.

In contrast, authority figures and role models can disrupt gendered beliefs, especially for
women (Riegle-Crumb et al. 2006). High school and college women who learn about successful
women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields are more likely to do well
in STEM classes, feel a greater sense of belonging among STEM classmates, and have scientific
career aspirations. Girls who see other women in STEM fields are less likely to associate these
subjects with masculinity and display more confidence in their own abilities (Levy et al. 2013).
Yet, girls must see similarities between themselves and role models to receive these beneficial
effects. When girls do not identify with role models, their aspirations and self-perceptions can be
negatively affected (Asgari, Dasgupta, and Stout 2012).

When they do intentionally address gender, parents are often more interested in lessening
feminine gender socialization (Kane 2012; Messner and Bozada-Deas 2009). One reason for this
may be that masculine characteristics are more frequently associated with professional success
(Alfrey and Twine 2017; Friedman 2013; Kissane and Winslow 2016). Another is that a soft
essentialist understanding of sex and gender frames girls’ nature as more potentially malleable
than boys’ nature, which is understood as more rigid and driven by biology (Messner 2011).
Adults are more likely to see girls as “flexible choosers” with the freedom to decide whether or
not to participate in formerly masculine arenas. This view portrays girls as bridging two realms—
their natural realm of home and family and a chosen public realm of culture, politics, career, and
sports. Boys are more frequently seen as defined by biology. Their participation in sports and
public life is attributed to their rowdy, hyperactive, testosterone-fueled nature. Such beliefs per-
sist into adulthood, as when middle- and upper-class women’s work outside the home is seen as
a choice but men’s (regardless of class) is not (Messner and Bozada-Deas 2009).

Soft essentialism also manifests in cultural messages encouraging girls to cultivate a mix of
stereotypically masculine and feminine attributes. Magazines aimed at teen and preteen girls
encourage readers to conform to some traditional norms of femininity (e.g., being nice and polite)

Trumpy and Elliott 349

while also asserting individuality (McRobbie 1991). Girl power femininity implies girls are pow-
erful and can do anything they want, but also strongly encourages them to appear heterosexual
and feminine to sustain gender complementarity and hierarchy (Budgeon 2014; Ringrose 2006;
Schippers 2007). This understanding of power and femininity emphasizes individual choice and
ability, obscuring the role of broader structural forces in maintaining gender disparities (Acker
1990; Cairns and Johnston 2015; Rauscher and Cooky 2016). Emphasizing individual choice
reconciles the dominant discourse of gender equality with patterned gender outcomes (Volman
and Ten Dam 1998). Gendered inequalities are explained away as different preferences.

While adults’ attitudes, organizational initiatives, and cultural messages influence children,
children can accept, reject, or repurpose what they learn (Moore 2001; Thorne 1993). This com-
bination of accepting, resisting, and repurposing cultural dictates persists across the life course.
For example, in their study on women’s participation in fantasy sports, Rebecca Joyce Kissane
and Sarah Winslow (2016) found participants simultaneously resist and reproduce gendered
dynamics by questioning gender stereotypes in some cases and accepting some level of gender
inferiority in others. Players often accepted gender stereotypes about women as a group, but
positioned themselves as atypical women who defied these stereotypes (Kissane and Winslow
2016). Although our research examines the initiatives adults create to teach children about gen-
der and leadership, it is important to remember that children can interpret and react to these initia-
tives in unpredictable ways.

Gender, Emotions, and Perceptions of Leadership Ability

The camps we examine are a response to the growing interest in gender and leadership, as well
as the push for more women to enter leadership positions (Eagly and Heilman 2016). So why,
despite interest in increasing the number of girls and women in leadership positions, are there not
more women leaders (Parker et al. 2017)? Some research focuses on the role leadership capital
plays in selecting leaders. High levels of early leadership capital lead to future opportunities that
give access to further leadership capital and opportunities (Bourdieu 1990; Fitzsimmons and
Callan 2016). Gender affects children’s leadership capital accumulation. Growing up, girls still
spend less time in formal competitions, such as sports tournaments and debates (Friedman 2013).
Competition helps children develop leadership capital in the form of independence, self-
confidence, ambition, and strategic decision-making skills (Eagly and Heilman 2016). Because
boys compete more often, they are more likely to acquire skills and characteristics associated
with strong and decisive leadership.

Other research focuses on how gender stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination affect lead-
ership opportunities (Brescoll 2016; Shields 2013). Cultural beliefs about masculine and femi-
nine characteristics disadvantage women in leadership evaluations (Eagly 2007). Men are more
frequently seen as natural leaders because authority, agency, rationality, emotional self-control,
career motivation, and other characteristics associated with strong leadership are seen as mascu-
line (Hechavarria and Ingram 2016; Hoobler et al. 2014). Many characteristics linked to poor
leadership, such as passivity, low ambition, irrationality, a preoccupation with emotions, and lack
of emotional control, are associated with femininity (Eagly and Heilman 2016; Shields 2013).

Cultural beliefs affect how people are perceived and evaluated. Aspiring women leaders
encounter more skepticism than men about their ability to control emotions, be appropriately
competitive, and make rational decisions (Brescoll 2016). Gendered beliefs also affect how indi-
viduals see themselves and the choices they make (Cech 2013). Hierarchies are created and
sustained through relational dynamics (Schippers 2007). Men and women must see themselves
as sufficiently different in a way that justifies men’s increased power and privilege for gender
inequality to persist (Ridgeway 2011). To achieve a more complete change, gender expectations
must be disrupted. Simply providing new opportunities and positive messaging for girls and

350 Sociological Perspectives 62(3)

women is not enough (Budgeon 2014). If outdated cultural expectations regarding the obliga-
tions for girls and women persist in the face of new opportunities, change will remain elusive and
incomplete (Rauscher and Cooky 2016). Our study helps to uncover how children’s leadership
training, and the presence or lack of gendered messaging associated with this training, can make
change or stasis more likely.

Data and Method

GLEAM and BEAM take place on a Midwestern college campus. Both camps are nonprofit and
affiliated with the college’s educational outreach program, which provides programming for
interested area primary and secondary school students. The director of the educational outreach
program, Courtney, is also a local middle school teacher and the GLEAM camp director. Given
her position as director of all educational outreach programming, she technically oversaw Mike,
the BEAM camp director, and all BEAM activities. Nonetheless, Mike and the BEAM counsel-
ors seemed to have autonomy over BEAM programming and activities. We never heard Mike or
any of the BEAM counselors mention Courtney or any other source of external expectations
placed on them.

GLEAM began in 2009 and BEAM began in 2013. When we started our research in 2015,
GLEAM had 400 campers (200 per session), 12 counselors, and 13 assistant counselors. BEAM
had 150 campers (75 per session), six counselors, and seven assistant counselors.2 All GLEAM
and BEAM staff identified as heterosexual and cisgender. More than 90 percent of the staff at
both camps was white, reflecting the demographics of the surrounding community. GLEAM
counselors were all state-certified teachers in their mid to late 20s, working at elementary and
middle schools during the academic year. Most were in long-term relationships, recently engaged,
or recently married. None had children. GLEAM assistant counselors were local high school and
college students. Many of them planned to become teachers after college.

BEAM counselors were also state-certified teachers, working at local elementary, middle, and
high schools during the academic year. Many coached school sports teams as well. Counselors
ranged in age from their mid-20s to mid-30s. The majority were married and had children. The
assistant counselors were students attending nearby high schools and colleges during the aca-
demic year. These counselors varied in career aspirations. Some had plans to become teachers or
school counselors. Others planned on going into law, medicine, or business. Many of the assistant
counselors went to the same college and learned about the camp because they had run track with
one of the counselors who had graduated the year before and now worked at a local elementary
school.

BEAM and GLEAM campers ranged in age from six to 13 and attended local elementary and
middle schools during the academic year. Because they were not the direct focus of our research,
we did not ask campers about their race, gender, or sexuality, but the majority of campers
appeared to be white. Counselors told us the majority of campers were middle class, reflecting
the demographics of the surrounding community. The names of the camps have been changed,
but were picked deliberately. GLEAM is meant to have a slightly feminine ring to it; BEAM is
meant to have a slightly more masculine connotation. The real names also had these elements.

All GLEAM and BEAM activities were chosen and planned by the camp director and camp
counselors during a series of planning meetings. At these meetings, the director and counselors
planned each week’s activities and events. They also decided the age of the campers each coun-
selor would work with, who their assistant counselor(s) would be, and what extra activities they
were responsible for (beyond the general activities every counselor and assistant counselor did
with their primary group of campers). At both camps, counselors began and ended the day with
their “core” group of campers. They also did activities with their core group before and after
lunch. During the rest of the day, assistant counselors would accompany campers from activity

Trumpy and Elliott 351

to activity, while counselors would stay in the same room or area to run an activity with rotating
groups of campers. At GLEAM, these activities were divided into the themes of (1) math and
science, (2) technology, (3) drama, and (4) expression (activities related to speaking up and
expressing feelings). At BEAM, the activities were divided into (1) strategic games and problem
solving, (2) physical games and activities, (3) engineering, math, and science projects, and (4)
leadership skills.3 Each counselor was in charge of one of these four sets of activities and would
implement an activity with various groups of campers (adjusting the difficulty of the activity
based on the age of the group) throughout each day.

Camps were an ideal site for this research for many reasons. First, the camps we observed
were explicitly focused on leadership. Second, the camps encompassed a mix of formal learning-
based activities, social activities, project-based activities, and physical activities, allowing us to
see approaches to leadership across a variety of contexts. Finally, we were able to watch many
counselors and many groups of campers do the same things multiple times over multiple weeks.
This gave us a sense of which exchanges were idiosyncratic or anomalous and which were more
patterned and pervasive in a relatively brief amount of time.

We engaged in more than 200 hours of participant observation. We primarily observed camp
sessions held in June and July of 2015 and 2016. We also observed camp planning meetings held
four weeks and two weeks prior to the first camp session each year and counselor debriefing ses-
sions, which occurred at the end of the day throughout the first week of each camp. We supple-
ment this with information gained from camp Web sites, lesson plans, the daily e-mails sent
home to parents summarizing each day’s major activities, and camp social media posts.

We took a grounded theory approach to our observation and analysis. Both authors recorded
their observations. These notes were read multiple times, and memos were written to help iden-
tify significant events and patterns. Memos and notes were then coded according to themes that
inductively emerged throughout the research process (Glaser and Strauss 1967). As research
progressed, we began to narrow our focus to examine how gender influenced the leadership les-
sons taught at the camps.

Gender is our primary focus. Although relevant, less significance was placed on camper age,
class, race, or sexuality. While we often refer to campers’ ages in activity descriptions, age is not
a major focus of this research.4 There were situations where age, class, and sexuality became
more salient in interactions, and we describe a few such occurrences. It is possible our position
as white, heterosexual, middle class, cisgender women influenced what we observed, as well as
what camp staff and participants revealed to us, making us less sensitive to issues of class, race,
and sexuality (Bonilla-Silva 2010; Musto 2014). It is also likely that race, class, age, and sexual-
ity appeared less relevant because while camps were gender segregated, the race, class, age, and
sexual orientations of staff and participants were largely similar across camps.

Counselors generally seemed untroubled by our presence. There are likely a few reasons for
this. First, despite the extensive amount of planning and organization that went into the camps,
parts of each day could also be hectic and unpredictable. Early on in each camp session, counsel-
ors did not have much spare time to think about our presence, and once things slowed down and
routines were better established, we had become familiar and unremarkable. In addition, camp
activities occurred across the college campus. College faculty and staff frequently slowed or
stopped to briefly observe camp activities as they walked by. Although our presence was more
consistent, campers and counselors were used to being observed by outsiders.

The major difference we observed in counselor reception was that BEAM counselors were
more likely to initiate conversations with us while campers were busy with activities. They asked
follow-up questions about our research and shared their perspectives on the camp and campers.
This is probably partly because as cisgender women researchers, we stuck out more at BEAM.
Another likely contributing factor is that BEAM counselors frequently talked to each other when
campers were doing activities, whereas GLEAM counselors typically participated in activities

352 Sociological Perspectives 62(3)

with the campers or circulated among the campers and talked to them. BEAM counselors were
also more likely to assume we were bored,5 and a few seemed to initially feel an obligation to
entertain us, as if they were our hosts. Nothing we observed at GLEAM suggested that counsel-
ors worried about whether we were bored or felt any need to entertain us.

Campers initially took more interest in us. We each followed a different group of campers
every day. While our presence was less noticed and commented on at GLEAM, campers at both
camps were initially curious. We found the best strategy was to introduce ourselves to the group
we were shadowing first thing in the morning. We told them we were doing research on the
camps and said we would be following their group for the day and that they could ignore us or
ask questions if they wanted. Most campers at GLEAM treated us like a cross between an older
camper and temporary visitor. Campers did not assume we were experts on camp, and many were
eager to tell us about it (especially those that had come for multiple years). They never asked us
questions about camp rules, schedules, or expectations, suggesting that they did not see us as
authority figures.

At BEAM, we were treated like outside observers but typically quickly ignored once we intro-
duced ourselves. There were a few exceptions. For example, one boy came up to the second
author and asked how she was allowed at camp as she was a girl. Another time, a counselor told
boys not to make jokes about “nuts” in front of a lady (the second author). Finally, when one boy
became separated from his group and distressed, he approached the first author and asked for
help. He looked like he was holding back tears, and we suspect he approached her because he did
not want boys or men to see him cry, not because he saw the researcher as an authority figure.
Before the first author could do anything, a counselor saw the interaction and intervened. All of
these interactions happened on the first day of camp. We became less of a source of novelty for
campers and were accepted as an unremarkable feature of the camp as each week progressed.

Findings and Discussion

Gender and Conceptualizations of Barriers to Leadership

GLEAM and BEAM had similar objectives, including building leadership skills, developing
self-confidence, fostering an understanding of diversity and respect for others, and promoting
healthy lifestyles. Yet campers’ gender influenced how counselors thought about leadership.
GLEAM counselors confidently discussed their perceptions of the biggest leadership obstacles
girls faced—low self-esteem, “mean girls” and bullies, shyness and the inability to express one’s
thoughts, and blatant gender stereotypes. BEAM counselors rarely linked leadership obstacles to
gender. They saw goofing off, being disrespectful, and lacking initiative as genderless leadership
impediments. The absence of an involved father was the only gendered barrier BEAM counselors
discussed. This emphasis on uninvolved fathers allowed BEAM counselors to reconcile their
views of boys as natural leaders with their participation in a boys’ leadership camp. Despite dif-
fering perspectives, counselors at both camps suggested simplistic individual-level solutions for
overcoming leadership obstacles. These solutions imply leadership deficits are best conquered by
cultivating a positive attitude and finding a strong role model. All campers were elementary and
middle-school-aged, limiting the complexity of gender-related discussions. Yet, these simplistic,
individual-level portrayals of gender obstacles inaccurately frame gender as largely inconse-
quential and the barriers to gender inequality as minimal and easily overcome.

The individual-level focus emerged during the pre-camp planning meetings. Here, counselors
chose daily themes (e.g., “brave,” “friendship and kindness” “teamwork”), brainstormed role
models and activities to pair with each theme, selected the role models and activities they liked
best, and then spent the majority of their time ironing out details related to when activities would
occur, how much time was needed, and what supplies were necessary. The specifics of each camp

Trumpy and Elliott 353

day were extremely well organized as a result. Yet, there was no discussion of systemic social or
political issues affecting gender inequality in leadership. Counselors capitalized on their preex-
isting knowledge of cultural role models, children’s books, and educational activities that could
embody their positive “believe in yourself and you can do unbelievable things” style messages.
Counselors did not receive training or resources to learn about how larger structures of inequality
might contribute to gender biases and unequal outcomes in leadership. If they were familiar with
any of the broader research on gender and leadership, they did not mention it.6 This produced a
very narrow narrative regarding the relationship between gender and leadership that positioned
leadership success or failure in the realm of the individual.

GLEAM counselors viewed low self-esteem, bullies, shyness, and blatant gender stereotypes
as the biggest barriers to leadership for girls. They taught girls to change the way they thought
about themselves to overcome these barriers. The lessons and activities on the third day of camp
were related to the theme of perseverance. In one activity, girls were given a sheet with negative
statements such as “I’m not good at this” and “I give up.” They had to rewrite each statement in
a positive and encouraging way. Girls wrote things such as “I’ll be better if I try harder.” These
activities were then connected to “girl power” statements about how girls could do anything. In
their concluding remarks to the reframing activity, counselors said things such as “don’t ever let
anyone tell you you can’t do something because you’re a girl.”

GLEAM counselors discussed the role gender played in girls’ leadership abilities and oppor-
tunities. Yet, gendered obstacles were framed as easily overcome. Counselors pointed to role
models as proof girls can do anything if they ignore other people’s negativity. One of the featured
role models was Misty Copeland, the first black principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater.7
Counselors said Copeland’s commitment and perseverance were the keys to her success. As part
of the lesson, we observed Miss Carly8 read Misty Copeland’s (2014) book, Firebird, to a group
of fourth- and fifth-grade campers. In this picture book, Copeland encourages a young black girl
to become a ballerina. After she finished, Carly asked what the girls thought of the book. The first
camper to respond said, “I like her outfit.” Another asked if Misty was married (Carly had gotten
married a few weeks before camp began, and marriage and weddings were a favorite topic of
conversation in free time). The girls discussed whether Misty was married. One said, “If Misty is
married then the girl in the book could be her daughter.” Carly eventually redirected the conver-
sation, emphasizing that Misty’s story was about perseverance and overcoming obstacles.

Carly then played an Under Armour commercial featuring Copeland (Dockterman 2014). The
commercial zooms in on Copeland’s lean and muscular form as she warms up and energetically
dances in an Under Armour sports bra and underwear while we hear a series of girls read portions
of a mock rejection letter informing Copeland she will not be admitted into ballet school because
she does not have the right body. We observed this lesson with four different sets of campers and
counselors. Counselors emphasized the same individualistic girl power message in every discus-
sion—that girls should follow their dreams and ignore criticism. Misty Copeland clearly faced
larger structural and cultural barriers, especially related to racism in the ballet world and culture
at large. In the author’s note at the end of Firebird, Copeland explains she never saw girls with
brown skin or curly hair in the ballet books she read as a child. Yet, race was not mentioned in
any of the GLEAM discussions; the lesson was to keep trying and ignore negative comments.
This classless, raceless gender messaging, which assumes a common feminine experience, is
characteristic of empowerment messaging aimed at girls (Budgeon 2014; McRobbie 1991). It
suggests a commonality among girls’ experiences that ignores intersectionality and obscures the
role of cultural and structural dynamics in maintaining gender relationality, hegemony, and
inequality. It also gives campers a limited and inaccurate understanding of the complex obstacles
women leaders face (Rauscher and Cooky 2016). Any success or failure they encounter will
likely be attributed to their individual abilities, ignoring the very real, but less visible, forces that
sustain inequality.

354 Sociological Perspectives 62(3)

Counselors referred to BEAM as a “mini boot camp” for boys to learn social, physical, and
leadership skills, especially if they were not learning these skills at home. The most experienced
counselors were especially likely to discuss connections between a lack of masculine role models
and low levels of leadership capital. The following observation of outdoor team-building activi-
ties illustrates this perspective:

During Alex’s activity, the boys seemed particularly uninterested. Half of the group sat on the side
and did not participate. When the boys moved on to Mr. Aaron’s activity, Alex followed. He told the
boys they were being disrespectful and that they better start behaving. Aaron then continued, telling
the boys that they need to listen and participate. One boy started to giggle. Aaron pointed to him and
said, “You need to grow up. Go sit over there” and motioned to a nearby tree. The boy sheepishly
walked over to the tree and sat down.

Aaron continued his lecture. He called out some boys, pointing to them and saying things like “I
know you can get sucked into the negative behavior” or “you’ve been instigating the group all day.”
He then told the boys they could turn their day around.

Once the boys started the next activity, Aaron came over to talk with me. He told me this group is a
bunch of screwballs and that he’s had some of the boys [in his group of campers] before so he knows
not to take crap from them. He said that BEAM functions like a boot camp and that some of these
boys need it and have problems because they don’t have dads who are involved in their lives.

Other counselors echoed these sentiments. They felt the father-son relationship was integral for
developing a boy’s character and leadership potential. BEAM counselors saw themselves as role
models who could foster or supplement the skills boys might otherwise learn from men at home.
Counselors did not distinguish between boys raised by single mothers and boys that had unin-
volved or very busy fathers. They believed boys were harmed regardless of whether their fathers
were physically absent or present but uninvolved. Therefore, although their understanding of
leadership development could have been framed in terms of class and gender, it was not.

Yet, counselors’ concerns about uninvolved fathers were based more on vague cultural narra-
tives than campers’ actual experiences or living conditions. When the third counselor (Ethan)
brought up the uninvolved fathers issue with the second author, she asked if this was a problem
a lot of boys at BEAM faced. Ethan seemed surprised by the question and said that, on the con-
trary, most of the boys were from “really solid” families with involved parents. When asked if he
was thinking of any campers in particular, Ethan seemed slightly annoyed. “No, it’s not like that,”
he said. “It’s not usually any one of them . . . It’s just happening more and more these days.” In
another interaction, Ben, one of the first counselors to work at BEAM, told the first author about
his participation in camp:

Yeah, when Mike [the camp director] first asked me to do this, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to give up
part of my summer. But now I couldn’t imagine not doing it. It’s great and there’s such a range of
boys. Some have dads, but they don’t do much with them at home so they come here. And some don’t
have dads. But a lot have dads that are really involved. They’re really involved with their family and
you can tell. Dads and moms. Everyone’s involved in the family.

This vague and slightly confused statement was characteristic of BEAM counselors’ discussions
of uninvolved fathers. Beyond these statements, nothing we observed suggested absent or unin-
volved fathers were a particular problem for campers. Boys were dropped off at camp every
weekday morning at 8:00 a.m. and picked up around 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon. Mothers and
women babysitters were more likely to drop off and pick up, but we also saw many fathers pick-
ing up campers on a daily basis. Fathers were especially likely to drop BEAM campers off on the

Trumpy and Elliott 355

first day and arrive an hour or two before the end of the last day of camp to watch the closing
ceremonies and take campers home. The family friendly reputation, high rate of married-couple
-headed families, and favorable quality of life ratings of the area in which the camps took place
also serve to complicate counselors’ narratives about absent and uninvolved fathers (Area9
Demographics Data [Actual City and State Name Removed for Confidentiality Reasons] 2016;
Area Life Study [Actual City and State Name Removed for Confidentiality Reasons] 2016).10

BEAM was created four years after GLEAM and imitated GLEAM’s model of providing
leadership training in a single gender environment. Yet, BEAM counselors did not believe gender
presented many leadership obstacles for boys. They saw boys as natural leaders who would ben-
efit from fine-tuning and practicing their skills. The research on gender and leadership shows this
view of boys and men as natural leaders is fairly common (Eagly 2007; Hoyt and Murphy 2016;
Ridgeway 2011). The emphasis on uninvolved fathers allowed BEAM counselors to reconcile
their views on gender and leadership with their participation in a boys’ leadership training camp.
Framing leadership training as necessary for boys raised in overly feminine or resource-deprived
environments allowed their participation in boy’s leadership training to coexist with their view of
boys as innate leaders. To avoid contradictions between their thoughts and actions, however, they
had to ignore the competing perception that most of the campers came from “solid families” with
involved fathers.

Challenge, Competition, and Differential Skill Development

Most activities at GLEAM were collaborative; competition was rarely involved. Girls were
taught to encourage one another and create a supportive communal atmosphere. Most BEAM
activities had winners and losers. Boys were trained to use competition to motivate themselves
and others. Throughout this section, we discuss how variations in challenge and competition
reinforce gender differences in leadership capital and potentially influence future leadership
styles. Because leadership is correlated with masculine characteristics and skills, boys are more
likely to benefit from gendered leadership training, reproducing gender gaps (Eagly and Heilman
2016). If the socialization elements of these activities are not acknowledged, differences in train-
ing, and the differential skills acquired from this training, may reinforce beliefs that boys are
naturally more competitive and girls are naturally more communal (Ridgeway 2011).

Competition pervaded BEAM. Even when in groups, boys competed against other groups for
the best time, strategy, or performance. Running out of time was common during BEAM activi-
ties. Most activities were challenging and had a clear outcome signaling the group was finished.
A few activities were only completed by a handful of groups. One example was a code-breaking
activity. Each group was given a lockbox and a piece of paper containing a clue: a series of letters
and the equation A = 10. Campers had to figure out the numerical value of other letters and
translate the letters in the clue into numbers to unlock the box. Inside the box was a code (a long
series of numbers and the message “the third time’s the charm”) and a smaller lockbox (the com-
bination was every third number in every third line in the series). The lockbox contained more
locks. The boys had to use the clues in the boxes and other clues hidden around the room to open
each lock. This was especially difficult because some of the clues placed around the room were
intentionally misleading, and others were hard to decipher. Less than a third of the groups was
able to unlock all of the locks by the end of the allotted time.

There was always enough time to finish activities at GLEAM. Girls often had extra time,
which they spent sitting around, talking, or watching music videos with educational or girl power
themes. This was partially because most GLEAM activities were participation-based. Girls were
expected to do something, but there was rarely a clearly defined winning outcome. For example,
in one drama session, girls played a game called “The Doctors.” The five girls who volunteered
to be doctors sat on a bench. The rest of the group sat on the floor facing them and asked nonsense

356 Sociological Perspectives 62(3)

medical questions (e.g., “How do you cure a bad case of the stripes?”). The doctors answered by
each saying one word at a time until one said “the end.” This usually produced a funny nonsense
answer. For example, the response to the stripes question was,

Girl 1: A
Girl 2: bad
Girl 3: case
Girl 4: of
Girl 5: the
Girl 1: stripes
Girl 2: is
Girl 3: cured
Girl 4: by
Girl 5: eating
Girl 1: apples
Girl 2: and
Girl 3: drinking
Girl 4: polka-dots
Girl 5: until
Girl 1: you
Girl 2: puke!
Girl 3: The end!

Counselors encouraged girls to participate and demonstrate effort, but whatever that effort led to
was seen as a valid outcome.

As a result, however, GLEAM campers were rarely clearly challenged by activities. Counselors
talked about perseverance and recovering after making mistakes, but campers were not given
opportunities to test out these skills. Research suggests some degree of failure and disappoint-
ment in the face of challenging circumstances can enhance resilience and personal growth (King
and Rothstein 2010). Dealing with complex situations, where success is not guaranteed, can
foster leadership development (Rothstein, McLarnon, and King 2016). While encountering
adversity or failure can produce feelings of cynicism and victimization, leaders who are able to
reflect on the adversity they face report that difficult situations helped them to mature, adapt, and
fine-tune their skills (Elkington and Breen 2015). Combining some of BEAM’s competition and
challenge with GLEAM’s open discussion and reflection would likely help both groups of camp-
ers develop leadership skills.

Another way to understand how GLEAM and BEAM approached challenge and competition
is to compare each camp’s final activity. At both camps, there was an activity campers partici-
pated in every day throughout the week and performed for their parents on the final day of camp.
At BEAM, this was an athletic game called Tchoukball. It requires a foam ball and two square-
shaped frames laced with netting and bungee-cords. The rules state no one can run with the ball,
so teammates pass to one another to move the ball across the field. Each team tries to move the
ball down the field and throw it at a frame. A team earns a point if the other team fails to catch
the ball when it bounces off the frame. The space surrounding the frame is off-limits. If the ball
bounces in this area, or if a player enters it, the other team gets the ball. The boys learned and
practiced the game throughout the week. On the final day of camp, parents watched the boys play
in a Tchoukball tournament.

On the first day of each session, counselors played a brief demonstration game. They often
used this opportunity to show off for the boys and one another—throwing the ball harder than
necessary, jumping higher than they needed to to catch passes, and passing the ball behind their

Trumpy and Elliott 357

backs. A few minutes into the game, Mike stopped the counselors and told them to tone it down.
Addressing the campers, he said, “You don’t have to play that way. They’ve been playing for a
week [this was the second session of camp]. Start with focusing on solid passes.” He told the
boys they were learning and should not give anyone a hard time for dropping the ball. Instead,
they should just say, “we’ll do better next time.” As the week wore on, however, counselors
increasingly encouraged their campers to compete, hustle, and display athleticism in practice. If
there was a lack of effort (such as walking or jogging slowly instead of running), some counsel-
ors would try to motivate players by yelling, “are you being the best you can be?” or “Is this
helping your team?” They also made sarcastic comments, such as, “wow guys, one heck of a
game we got here!” when boys were moving slowly. They loudly celebrated when their campers
beat other teams during practice games. The assistant counselors were the most vocal in their
celebrations—yelling, flexing muscles, and hurling the foam ball to the ground in the style of
pro-football players’ touchdown celebrations.

The overarching activity at GLEAM was very different. Throughout the week, girls rewrote
lyrics to the Tim McGraw song “Humble and Kind.” They performed their rendition of the song
for their parents on the last day of camp. Everything started with a lesson on being humble. Miss
Carly asked her group of third- and fourth-grade girls what humble meant. The girls answered
with responses such as “don’t brag” and “being nice.” Carly said it also meant not having a big
head. She then gave an example:

“What if I said you were the best at kickboxing?” she asked [her campers had just come from a
kickboxing fitness session]. “What would you say if you were humble?”

“Everyone was good,” one girl said.

“Yes, or maybe you would say thank you, but you would not be telling everyone you are the best,”
said Carly.

She then played a cover version of “Humble and Kind” a GLEAM counselor had recorded (one
lyric was modified as the original song briefly references sexual activity). Throughout the week,
this song was played when there was downtime and while campers worked quietly on projects.
Each group of girls rewrote a stanza of lyrics to create a new version of the song that reflected the
humble and kind theme.

Near the end of the week, the teachers passed out the new lyrics for the final performance. The
first lines of rewritten lyrics were:

No act of kindness is ever wasted

No matter how big or how small

Help others to shine

Always stay humble and kind

The lessons girls learned from rewriting, singing, and performing “Humble and Kind” were to be
confident, to be a force for good in the world, and, above all, to always stay humble and kind.

We do not want to minimize the quality of either camp. Both were very well run and taught
important lessons. The potential problem is that boy and girl campers learned different lessons about
self-confidence, personal expression, teamwork, and leadership. These differences are divided down
gender lines, reinforcing gender divisions, and potentially maintaining gender stereotypes.

358 Sociological Perspectives 62(3)

Take the differences in competition. The choice of Tchoukball was the result of a thoughtful
decision. Tchoukball is not a full-contact sport. It is not hierarchical because there is not a set divi-
sion of positions; everyone does the same things. It is also collaborative—players cannot run with
the ball and rely on passing to score goals. These reasons, along with the assumptions that it is easy
to learn and most of the boys were not familiar with it before camp (and are all learning a new
skill), made it a good choice of activity. Nonetheless, the skills taught in Tchoukball align with
gendered expectations that boys should be assertive, competitive, and athletic. Again, there is
nothing inherently problematic about developing these skills. The problem arises when we com-
pare these skills with the very different skills, such as singing about being humble and kind, that
girls develop at GLEAM. These differences will likely reproduce gendered patterns of leadership
capital accumulation and skill development. These findings coincide with research that shows
girls are less comfortable with competition than boys, are still socialized to downplay aggressive-
ness and competitiveness, and experience difficulty balancing competition with being a nice girl
(Friedman 2013). This is one way organizations and authorities that are attempting to minimize
gender disparities and develop strong leaders actually reproduce differences and inequality.

Camp organization perpetuated gender differences in competition and skill development.
Most counselors were unaware of the leadership training children on the other side of the binary
received. As a result, counselors did not have a clear opportunity to identify differences between
GLEAM and BEAM or reflect on how these differences might contribute to gender inequality.
Differences in training and skill development can lead to future gender disparities in leadership
(Fitzsimmons and Callan 2016). If the majority of authority figures when campers enter the
workplace continue to be men, it is likely that the more assertive, competitive, task-oriented
style of leadership taught at BEAM will be privileged. If this is the case, while GLEAM camp-
ers are learning important lessons about personal development, self-confidence, kindness,
expression, and empathy, the style of leadership they have been socialized to embrace may be
seen as “inappropriate” or “not the way things are done” in masculine or gender neutral environ-
ments (Alfrey and Twine 2017). Furthermore, if men and women do not realize they have been
taught different styles of leadership, differences in how they approach challenges and manage
others may reinforce gender essentialist beliefs. They may see leadership differences as natural
instead of recognizing how differential gender socialization and leadership training contributed
to these outcomes.

Emotions and Gendered Expectations for Leadership

In this section, we examine how GLEAM and BEAM counselors discussed emotions and how
emotions relate to perceptions of leadership ability. BEAM counselors rarely discussed emotions.
When they mentioned emotions, it was usually during brief statements at the end of an activity.
GLEAM counselors discussed emotions in an elaborate manner, in varied contexts, and at multi-
ple points every day. While GLEAM campers will likely develop more emotional awareness and
competence as a result of their training, these qualities are not typically associated with strong
leadership. Instead, GLEAM campers may be seen as more communally (as opposed to competi-
tively) oriented and more emotionally inclined (as opposed to rational and unemotional; Brescoll
2016; Eagly and Heilman 2016; Shields 2013). These perceptions reinforce beliefs that girls and
women are better suited for “taking care” than “taking charge” (Hoyt and Murphy 2016).

Many GLEAM activities required campers to imagine what others were feeling. This was
seen in the “cotton and sandpaper words” activity, which occurred on the second day of camp.
Kindness was the day’s theme. One of the authors observed Miss Caroline’s group of first- and
second-grade campers. The following description is from her notes:

Trumpy and Elliott 359

Caroline explained that some words were mean and hurtful and felt like sandpaper when you heard
them and other words were nice and soft and fluffy and felt like cotton. She passed around pieces of
cotton and sandpaper so the girls could feel each. Then she asked the girls to think of examples of
cotton and sandpaper words.

Miss Jen [another counselor who had joined Caroline’s group with her group of third and fourth
grade campers] asked the girls to shout out sandpaper words. They said things like “you’re fat,”
“you’re ugly,” “get lost,” “you suck,” “you can’t play with me,” “you’re gross.”

Jen had a tube of toothpaste. She squeezed toothpaste onto a paper plate every time a girl said
something mean until all the toothpaste was out of the tube. Caroline and Jen compared the difficulty
of putting toothpaste back in the tube to regaining trust and friendship after you say something mean.
They said it takes a lot of work to make someone feel better after you’ve made her feel bad. So the
girls should all think about what they say before they say it and use cotton words instead of sandpaper
words.

Following this discussion, each girl was given a paper doll called Ginger. Caroline read a story
about how Ginger moved to a new school and was teased and bullied. Campers were instructed
to rip their dolls every time someone in the story said something mean to Ginger. When the story
was over and the Gingers were ripped to pieces, the girls glued their dolls back together on sheets
of construction paper. Then they were asked to write kind words on one side of Ginger and mean
words on the other. Most girls wrote the same things. The mean side listed phrases such as
“you’re ugly,” “you’re fat,” “you’re stupid,” “you can’t sit with me,” “what’s wrong with you,”
“you’re weird.” The nice side had phrases such as “I like your hair,” “you’re pretty,” “you’re
smart,” “you can play with me,” “you look nice.” The lesson was that even though Ginger can be
put together again, she is scarred by the mean words. The counselors told the girls that they have
the power to make others feel good or bad, so they should use their power to make others feel
good.

The theme of kindness was reiterated in every activity that day. For example, it was incorpo-
rated into a science activity described in one author’s notes:

For this activity, the girls went outside. They were in groups of five. Each group had a small container
the size of a film canister filled with citric acid, another filled with baking soda, a large plastic bowl
with liquid soap, and a cup of water. They were supposed to mix the ingredients together to make a
“foamy explosion.”

The group I was with produced a large and foamy bowl of bubbles. The mixtures of the other groups
did not react as anticipated and stayed liquidy instead of bubbling up. After this happened, Miss
Ashley said sometimes experiments do not work and that is ok.

We came back inside and Ashley talked about how feelings can explode or build up like bubbles if
you don’t express them and how if someone says something mean, you need to tell a friend so that
your feelings do not build up and cause an explosion. Ashley reinforced the message by talking about
how mean words can mix and amplify like the ingredients combined in the activity.

Although this discussion occurred in a science session, it did not focus on chemical reactions.
There was no discussion of why the combination of ingredients might produce a “foamy explo-
sion.” Instead, the lesson focused on the importance of expressing feelings.

These extended lessons on emotions and how to treat others sharply contrast with the way
BEAM counselors dealt with feelings and the power of words. There were not explicit lessons
devoted to emotions. Instead, counselors would occasionally intervene when they heard campers

360 Sociological Perspectives 62(3)

say things they judged to be excessively inappropriate or insensitive. The following example
occurred during a fitness session. The owner of a local cross-fit gym visited camp, demonstrated
proper technique for push-ups, squats, burpees, and running, and led the boys in a workout.
During the squats portion of the workout, some campers complained that they were hot and tired.
Jonah, one of the assistant counselors, told the boys to “stop being a bunch of babies.” Another
counselor, Ethan, acted like he was going to climb on the back of a boy who was complaining.

“Do squats with me on your back,” Ethan said. It seemed Ethan wanted to distract the complaining
boys by joking around.

“That’s gay,” said the boy.

“Don’t say gay,” Ethan said immediately.

“That’s retarded,” the boy said.

“Don’t say retarded,” Ethan said.

Ethan then walked away, ending the interaction.
When BEAM counselors did directly address emotions, a brief or nonverbal response suf-

ficed. On the first day of camp, Mr. Jake asked his group of campers to rank their level of enthu-
siasm for the upcoming week from 1 (“very anxious” or “unexcited”) to 10 (“super stoked”).
Campers were hesitant to answer and looked around nervously or stared at the floor.

“C’mon,” Jake urged. “Everybody hold up your hands to show me your answer,” indicating the boys
should hold up 1-10 fingers to demonstrate their level of excitement.

One boy held up 1 finger, the rest held up 5-10.

“That’s ok, that’s cool,” Jake said. “By the end you’ll all be 10s. You’ll be stoked.”

Then he moved on to outlining the plan for the day.

This interaction was characteristic of the cursory discussion of feelings at BEAM.
GLEAM programming presented meanness and negativity as problematic for advancement

and development. To be a strong leader, girls were told they need to recognize their own emo-
tions and consider others’ feelings. They were repeatedly encouraged to be kind and required to
participate in acts of kindness throughout the week. In this way, they were taught a slightly more
enlightened version of what middle-class white women have been taught for centuries (Becker
2005). Feminine power is still framed as stemming from women’s ability to relate to others, to be
kind, and to nurture emotional needs. This framing was omnipresent at GLEAM.

BEAM campers learned to treat one another with respect, or at least not to actively disrespect
others. They were not explicitly encouraged to think about their own emotions, other people’s
feelings, or how their actions might influence others. These observations are in line with research
that shows boys and men often avoid discussing or displaying emotions because they see them as
stigmatized and feminine (McCormack 2013; Way 2013). If emotions are not addressed or por-
trayed as important, it is likely this stigma will remain.

This very different treatment of emotions in the context of leadership may lead to future dif-
ficulties when men and women work together or when a woman is in a position of authority over
a man or vice versa. Differential leadership training regarding the management of emotions may

Trumpy and Elliott 361

lead men and women to see contrasting leadership styles (and the gendered bodies they are
attached to) as ineffective or illegitimate. A man may see his woman boss’s concern for employ-
ees’ feelings as coddling and inappropriate for the workplace. A woman may see her man boss’s
reluctance to address emotions as evidence that he is emotionally stunted, immature, or uncon-
cerned with employee well-being. This judgment prevents the development of mutual respect
and authentic relationships. Different leadership styles may also prevent people from seeing
someone of another gender as a valid role model and maintain gender disparities in mentoring,
hiring, employment.

We do not believe the solution to the gender disparity in emotional training and stigmatization
of emotions is to stop discussing emotions with girls. Instead, the best course may be to acknowl-
edge emotions are not masculine or feminine; they are human. Some boys and men may resist
discussing emotions as long as they are seen as feminine (McCormack 2013). Work needs to be
done to overcome this resistance, but change is possible (Way 2013). Essentialist beliefs about
emotion can be disrupted by pointing out the contrast between the belief that men are inexpres-
sive and real-life examples of men expressing many different emotions (Shields 2013). There is
concern that men who do address emotions will be just as stigmatized as women. Yet, some
leadership research suggests this is not the case (Fitzsimmons and Callan 2016). Men can be
attuned to emotions and communicate in a warm manner without having their leadership ability
questioned, suggesting a greater emphasis on emotions for men would not negatively affect per-
ceptions of them or their future opportunities. This is not a perfect solution. It does not address
the general cultural devaluation of the feminine (Budgeon 2014; Schippers 2007). Yet, emphasiz-
ing the omnipresence of emotions may help to disrupt beliefs that women are “too emotional” to
be great leaders. Therefore, this may be a practical step toward better incorporating emotional
competence into boys’ leadership training without simply masculinizing emotions.

Conclusion

This research contributes to our understanding of how well-intentioned actors reproduce gender
inequality. Gender is a stratification system that cannot be reduced to individual choices (Risman
2004). Yet, counselors taught simple, individual-level strategies to develop leadership skills,
including cultivating a positive attitude and finding positive role models. They portrayed gender
inequalities as primarily a thing of the past, obscuring the dynamics maintaining modern gender
hierarchy (Budgeon 2014; Schippers 2007). There are limits to what can be accomplished in a
fun and extracurricular summer environment. There are also limits to what elementary and mid-
dle-school-aged children can understand when it comes to gender inequality. Yet the single-
minded emphasis on free choice obscures the chronic problems people face when they run into
unacknowledged gender barriers (McRobbie 1991; Messner 2011). A more nuanced discussion
of gender inequality, beyond the individualistic “don’t listen to other people when they say you
can’t do things” messages, could help campers to recognize, understand, and potentially chip
away at gender boundaries (Budgeon 2014; Rauscher and Cooky 2016). Finding age-appropriate
ways to address more complex gendered leadership issues head on would help campers to under-
stand and deal with these issues in a more intentional and enlightened manner.

Even on the individual level, however, these camps will likely contribute to gender disparities
in leadership. Emphasizing competition at BEAM while avoiding it at GLEAM means boys are
more likely to accumulate the leadership capital that competition has shown to produce in the
form of confidence, independence, ambition, and strategizing skills (Eagly and Heilman 2016;
Fitzsimmons and Callan 2016). As a result, boys will continue to be seen as more “natural” lead-
ers than girls. The emphasis on emotions at GLEAM, but not BEAM, reinforces the association
between emotion and femininity (Becker 2005). This is problematic because being emotional, or
concerned with the emotions of others, is associated with poor leadership (Shields 2013). Overall,

362 Sociological Perspectives 62(3)

the skills boys learn at BEAM are much more clearly correlated with leadership than the skills
girls learn at GLEAM. This means camp training will likely reproduce gender gaps in leadership
(Eagly and Heilman 2016).

One way to disrupt gender stereotypical leadership training would be to integrate the camps.
Gender segregation works to normalize the gender binary and conceal evidence that might oth-
erwise challenge essentialist beliefs (Messner 2011; Travers 2008). Spending large amounts of
time with same-gender peers exaggerates gendered behaviors and attitudes and reduces opportu-
nities for cross-gender interaction (Halpern et al. 2011). Gender segregation also guarantees that
gender will act as a salient organizing principle (Musto 2014). Co-ed sports, educational, and
leadership programs help counter the gender-essentialist attitudes children develop in gender-
segregated arenas (Messner 2011).

In contrast, counselors and camp directors were committed to single gender environments. In
informal conversations, GLEAM counselors discussed their beliefs that gender segregation
helped build girls’ confidence and created a safe space where they felt freer to be themselves and
make mistakes. BEAM counselors’ rationales for gender segregation reflect cultural tropes of
feminine stigmatization and masculine privilege (Budgeon 2014). They felt enrollments would
drop if camps were integrated because boys would be less interested in a co-ed camp. Teachers
and other stakeholders at same gender schools express similar beliefs (Pahlke, Bigler, and
Patterson 2014). Given the commitment to gender-segregated camps, we believe the most viable
option for decreasing gender disparities in this type of leadership training involves a more con-
certed effort to decrease gender stereotypical messaging, a clearer discussion of the role gender
plays in leadership opportunities, and more hands-on training for recognizing and navigating
gendered-leadership outcomes.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

1. The names of all camps, counselors, and administrators have been changed to protect confidentiality.
2. GLEAM and BEAM (acronyms for Girls’ Leadership Empowerment and Mentoring and Boys’

Leadership Empowerment and Mentoring) campers were recruited through informational booths at
community events, flyers in community businesses, word of mouth, and social media. Camp registra-
tion is first-come, first-served, until camps are full.

3. We describe specific examples of these activities in the section “Findings and Discussion.”
4. Campers engaged in similar activities based on similar themes, but the actual content and difficulty of

activities was often adjusted based on camper age. We did observe a few patterns based on camper age.
Younger campers at both GLEAM and BEAM seemed more excited about activities and were more
likely to fully participate. As the groups got older, campers became more likely to question activities
and make more comments about whether they liked them or not. At GLEAM, some of the older camp-
ers displayed a mildly mocking attitude toward the activities they deemed uninteresting or childish. At
both camps, counselors working with older campers dealt with more behavioral issues, which affected
how they ran activities. At BEAM, if a counselor thought campers were “acting up,” he would often
try to connect the activity to a lesson about respect or good behavior. BEAM counselors addressed
behavioral issues in front of the entire group of campers, regardless of whether issues were caused
by an individual or larger minority. Clear behavioral issues were very rare at GLEAM, but on the one
occasion a counselor had a concern about camper behavior, she took the camper away from the group
to talk to her.

Trumpy and Elliott 363

5. A few said things to us such as “this must be so boring for you.”
6. They did mention other education research, however, such as Carol S. Dweck’s (2008) research on

fixed versus growth mind-sets. This was not provided as part of their camp training. It was just research
they were familiar with from their educational training.

7. At GLEAM, a different role model was featured every day. Other role models included Ellen
DeGeneres, Malala Yousafzai, and women Olympic athletes.

8. Campers typically addressed counselors as Mr. or Miss. Counselors alternated between referring to
each other as Mr. or Miss and just referring to each other by first name. We mirror these patterns in our
notes.

9. In reality, the first citation contains the name of the county in which the camps took place, and the sec-
ond citation contains the name of the town in which the camps took place. For confidentiality reasons,
we have replaced the town and county names with “Area.”

10. In 2016, married-couple families made up 82 percent of all families in the area (compared with 73
percent nationally). Female-alone-headed households only made up 11 percent of families (compared
with 20 percent nationally; Area Demographics Data [Actual City and State Name Removed for
Confidentiality Reasons] 2016). We do not have information on the marital status of campers’ parents,
but there was no evidence that campers came from families that were significantly different from the
general population in the area. We also do not have information about the average hours parents, espe-
cially fathers, worked per week, but we cannot find any evidence that fathers, or any workers in this
area, work a higher number of hours per week than the national average. In a 2016 study on the area,
community members rated their quality of life as an average of 8.5 on a 10-point scale, indirectly sug-
gesting that overwork is not a major problem (Area Life Study [Actual City and State Name Removed
for Confidentiality Reasons] 2016).

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Author Biographies

Alexa J. Trumpy, BA, MA, PhD, is an associate professor of sociology at St. Norbert College in De Pere,
Wisconsin. Her research focuses on gender, leadership, culture, and social movements.

Marissa Elliott, BA, is a Master of Public Health candidate in Chronic Disease Epidemiology with a
Regulatory Affairs Track at Yale University.

The Hearts of Boys

The Hearts of Boys

Vision
20(2) 111–120

© 2016 MDI
SAGE Publications

sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0972262916637260

http://vision.sagepub.com

Leadership Styles, Leader’s Effectiveness
and Well-being: Exploring Collective
Efficacy as a Mediator

Kiran Sakkar Sudha1
M. G. Shahnawaz2
Anam Farhat3

Abstract
The present study explored the relationships among leadership styles, leader’s effectiveness and well-being directly as well as indirectly
through collective efficacy among the employees of the education industry, the latest entrant on the Indian scene. Ninety full-time
employees participated in the study. They were administered the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ; Bass & Avolio, 2004.
The multifactor leadership questionnaire: Third edition manual and sampler set), Job-related Affective Well-being Scale (JAWS; Van Katwyk,
Fox, Spector & Kelloway, 2000. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5[2], 219–230) and Collective Efficacy scale (Karrasch, 2003.
Lessons learnt on collective efficacy in multinational teams. Alexandria, VA: United States Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and
Social Sciences). Mediation regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. The results revealed that transactional style has influ-
enced both the outcome variables directly as well as indirectly more than the other two leadership styles. The study contributes to
the scantly explored indirect linkages of collective efficacy on leadership styles, effectiveness and well-being.

Key Words
Leadership styles, MLQ, Leader’s effectiveness, Well-being, Collective efficacy and Mediation analysis

Article

1 IILM School of Business and Management, Gurgaon, Haryana, India.
2 Department of Psychology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India.
3 Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal, India.

Corresponding author:
M.G. Shahnawaz, Department of Psychology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi 110 025, India.
E-mail: mgshahnawaz@gmail.com

Introduction

In the contemporary flat networked organizations, individ-
ual resources and affective states are not sufficient to attain
competitive advantage; therefore, there is a need to explore
team/group-related constructs (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000).
Collective efficacy is one such construct, as it represents
values, beliefs, affective states and emotions, as exhibited
by the group members with reference to ‘the performance
capability of a social system as a whole’ (Bandura, 1997,
p. 469). Leadership plays an important role in the develop-
ment of collective efficacy. There are studies to support
that transformational leadership is positively related to
trust in team leaders, collective efficacy and team perfor-
mance (Hoyt & Blascovich, 2003). Hannah and Luthans
(2008) opined that positive psychological states (such as
well-being, affect and happiness) and efficacy processes
directly promote effective leader engagement, flexibility
and adaptability across the varying situations which lead

to attainment of the goals. The role of emotions, affect,
positive emotional states, happiness and well-being has
received considerable attention in the past few years
as there are strong linkages between one’s affective states
and outcome variables. Job-related affective well-being or
well-being at workplace in simple terms is the experience
of volleys of emotions at workplace in response to work-
place stimulus. There is a strong association between
measures of employees wellbeing and job performance
(Wright, Cropanzano & Bonnett, 2007), leading to enhance-
ment of personal resources (affect, efficacy, happiness,
satisfaction etc.); however, there is a need to explore these
linkages at the group level.

In the organizational context, direct one-to-one relation-
ship between constructs negates the complexities of the
organization. Therefore, it is essential to understand the
strength of indirect linkages among the work-related con-
structs and beyond. There are relatively fewer empirical
studies conducted to explore the indirect role of collective

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112 Vision 20(2)

efficacy on leadership styles, leaders’ effectiveness and
job affect, even though there are many which explored
the direct one-to-one linkages in general as well as in the
context of teams (Chou, Lin, Chang & Chuang, 2013). The
present article is an attempt to provide some insight in
the so far neglected area of research by exploring the
indirect/mediating role of collective efficacy on leader-
ship styles, leader’s effectiveness and well-being among
employees from the education industry in India.

Collective Efficacy

Collective efficacy is a recent addition to the growing body
of research in the area of self-efficacy. Collective efficacy is
‘a group’s shared belief in its conjoint capabilities to organ-
ize and execute the courses of action required to produce
given levels of attainments’ (Bandura, 1997, p. 477).
Collective efficacy is manifested through shared goals
and collaborative decision-making in the organization
(Maddux, 2002). Research on collective efficacy is not as
extensive as on personal efficacy, and there still exists
empirical evidence that collective efficacy is related to
team-effectiveness and motivation (Prussia & Kinicki,
1996), transformational leadership, potency and high unit
performance (Bass, Avolio, Jung & Berson, 2003) and so
on. The link between collective efficacy and performance
has been reported across industries such as corporate,
educational, sports, nursing and military (Bandura, 2000;
Zaccaro, Blair, Peterson & Zazanis, 1995). Collective
efficacy also contributes to well-being and is instrumental
in the achievement of long-term goals (Bandura, 1997;
Blecharz, Luszczynska, Tenenbaum, Scholz & Cieslak,
2014). The indirect role of self-efficacy on well-being,
studied by Pomaki, Karoly and Maes (2009), revealed that
self-efficacy impacts work behaviours, which in turn influ-
ence well-being and happiness at work. However, there
are not many studies which explored indirect linkages. As
leadership plays a very important role in the organizational
context, the present article is an attempt to explore the
mediating role of leadership styles between collective effi-
cacy and some outcome variables.

Leadership Styles

Leadership is one of the widely studied and ever-advancing
concepts. Leadership researches have historically evolved
across three eras—trait, behaviour and contingency (Chemer,
2000; Yukl, 2002) and they are also considered as three
approaches to leadership. However, there are many more
new developments which are coming up (Yukl, 2006),
which is beyond the scope of this article; hence, a widely
used notion of leadership was used in the current study. The
‘Multifactor Leadership’ (Bass & Avolio, 1994, 2004)
is one of the important models of leadership which is
also referred to as ‘full-scale leadership’ as it identifies
transactional, transformational and laissez-faire or passive/

avoidant leadership. There is a famous tool, Multifactor
Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), which is based on this
conceptualization and the present research followed this
tradition. A brief description of these three is as follows:

1. Transformation leadership is associated with most
positive connotations where behavioural facets such
as motivation, emotional connect and sense of effi-
cacy are contributory factors and has significant
impact on performance and other organizational
outcomes (Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978). Idealized influ-
ence or charisma, intellectual stimulation and indi-
vidual consideration are some of the key factors
associated with transformational style. Transforma-
tional leadership style is based on mutual admira-
tion with common vision, and creative exchange
of ideas. Reviews suggest that the worldview of
leaders affects transformational leadership and lead-
ers’ effectiveness (Kejriwal & Krishnan, 2004).
Singh and Krishnan (2005) found that 44 per cent of
the universal construct of transformational leader-
ship is valid in India and the rest 56 per cent of
the construct consists of unique formulations of
transformational leadership.

2. Transactional leadership style operates as a kind of
social exchange between the leaders and the follow-
ers (Bass & Avolio, 1993). It is a kind of leadership
in which compliance from the follower is obtained
through the use of reward and punishment. The
focus of this style is to supervise, organize and
perform individually as well as a group. The leader
closely monitors the work of the followers and
ensures that he/she follows the prescribed paths.

3. Laissez-faire leadership style has been explained
as ‘abdicates responsibilities and avoids making
decisions’ (Luthans, 2005, p. 562; Robbins, Judge &
Sanghi, 2007, p. 475) or a failure of taking a manag-
ing responsibility (Avolio, 1999; Bass, 1998). For
many researchers it has negative connotations
and therefore it is also called as avoidant or non-
leadership style (Harland, Jones & Rieter-Palmon,
2005; Kurfi, 2009). This style has been found to be
less effective compared to the transformational and
transactional leadership styles (Goodnight, 2004).
According to Avolio (1999), laissez-faire style
is ‘poor, ineffective and highly dissatisfying for
followers’ (p. 55).

Leadership and leadership styles are fertile areas of
research and previous researchers have reported direct
linkage between leadership styles and effectiveness
(Sadeghi & Pihie, 2012), efficacy (Jung & Sosik, 2002)
and well-being (Nielsen & Daniel, 2012; Renehan, 2007).
While indirect linkages have not been explored much,
some studies report indirect relationship between leader-
ship style and collective efficacy (Chou et al., 2013), as

Sudha et al. 113

well as leadership style and well-being (Lee, Kim, Son &
Lee, 2011; Ogbonna & Harris, 2000).

Leadership Effectiveness

Leadership effectiveness is a significant concept in the area
of leadership. Bass and Stogdill (1990) catalogued more
than five thousand definitions of the same. In a nutshell,
leadership effectiveness focuses largely on output measur-
ability and accomplishment of shared goals. Cooper and
Nirenberg (2004) see it as coping with changing demands
so as to establish successful relationship at the level of cus-
tomer, employee and organizational purpose and building
strong positive relationships. The leadership style is the
most essential factor which influences leadership effective-
ness (Bruno & Lay, 2006; Hur, Van den Berg & Wilderom,
2011). In the context of multifactor leadership taxonomy
(Bass & Avolio, 1995), transformational leadership style is
more effective leadership style than transactional and
laissez-faire (Judge & Piccolo, 2004). Transformational and
transactional styles generally share positive relations with
effectiveness while laissez-faire shares a negative one.
Leadership effectiveness has also been studied as a direct
and positive predictor of collective efficacy (Walumbwa,
Wang & Lawler, 2003). Some studies have explored the
indirect relationship among the constructs and found that
collective efficacy mediated relationship between transform-
ational leadership style (Ross & Gray, 2004) and outcome
variables, as well as between leadership effectiveness and
well-being (Krishnan, 2012; Tabbodi & Prahallada, 2009).
In the present research, leadership effectiveness has been
assessed with the help of nine items of MLQ.

Job-related Well-being

Job-related well-being refers to a variety of emotional
experiences at work and how they influence personal and
organization related outcomes. The construct of well-being
is quite old; however, it has got momentum in the past few
years, especially with the advent of the positive psycho-
logy movement. There are many conceptualizations of
well-being and Warr (1987, 1990) gave one of the earliest
conceptualizations of the construct in the context of work.
For Warr, well-being is a two-dimensional construct:
arousal and pleasure, the various combinations of these
two would result in many work-related affect. Van Katwyk
et al. (2000) extended the work of Warr and developed a
construct and a tool known as job-related affective well-
being scale (JAWS) using the same two dimensions of
Warr. It has four sub-dimensions (based on the original two
dimensions of arousal and pleasure) and 30 work-related
affects. The conceptualization of Van Katwyk et al. (2000)
was used in the present research. Extensive literature exists
on the relationship among affect, emotions, collective effi-
cacy, performance, effectivity, group dynamics and so on
(Lent & Schmidt, 2005). Kuoppala, Lamminpac, Liira and

Vaino (2008) conducted a meta-analytic review of the con-
struct and reported that there existed small to moderate
impact of good leadership on employee well-being across
thousands of studies. A number of studies show that trans-
formational leadership is positively related to health and
well-being (Hetland, Sandal & Johnsen, 2007; Walumbwa,
Wang, Lawler, & Shi 2004). In recent years, besides these
direct relationships, many indirect/meditational models
have been examined showing the relationship between
transformational leadership and outcomes, such as (a) trust
and value congruence on performance (Jung & Avolio,
2000) and (b) empowerment, cohesiveness and collective
efficacy on performance (Jung & Sosik, 2002). In the present
research, we have used not only transformational leader-
ship but also transactional as well as laissez-faire to see
how these styles influence job-related well-being and
leaders’ effectiveness directly as well as indirectly through
collective self-efficacy.

Hence, on the basis of the review, the following hypoth-
eses were formulated:

H1: Collective efficacy would be related differently to
three leadership styles (transformational, transac-
tional and laissez-faire), leader’s effectiveness and
well-being.

H2: Collective efficacy would mediate the relationship
between three leadership styles (transformational,
transactional and laissez-faire) and leader’s effec-
tiveness and well-being.

Research Context: Education
Management Industry

Spending on education in an average Indian household has
increased manifold as a result of globalization (Indian
Brand Equity Foundation, 2014). It is presumed that Indian
education sector’s market size will rise up to ` 6,024.1
billion (US$100.23 billion) by 2015 (Ministry of Finance,
Press Information Bureau (PIB), Media Report, Ministry
of Education, Department of Industrial Policy & Promo-
tion (DIPP). The education management industry is not
blossoming in the area of education or research alone, cor-
porate investments are among the new trends as many
leading industrial houses such as HCL, Wipro, Hero Corp,
Jindals and so on are trying their fortune in the booming
educational industry. As this is one of the emerging new
wave industries, stakes are very high and there is an urgent
need to empirically explore the linkages among leader-
ship styles, collective efficacy, well-being at work, leadership
effectiveness, just to mention a few of the constructs. As
these constructs have already been explored in other organ-
izational contexts and proved to be vital for their survival
and growth, there is a need to take them to new industries
such as ‘education’. Like any other industry, the ‘educa-
tion’ industry would also be complex entity, so indirect
linkages would be explored among the constructs, as

114 Vision 20(2)

already mentioned in the text besides the direct relation-
ship. The education industry is also organized around
teams; therefore, it is believed that collective efficacy
would be mediating the relationship between leadership
styles and effectiveness as well as with well-being. The
present study is a modest attempt to explore these linkages
in a new form of industry in the Indian context.

Method

Sample

The data were collected from 90 management employees
from an education management organization situated in
Delhi/National Capital Region (NCR). Minimum qualifi-
cation was a master’s degree and with at least four years’
work experience. Participants were informed about the
aims and objective of the research and had the freedom
to withdraw any time from the research process. All the
participants were in the age group of 28 to 32 years, 30.22
years being the mean.

Design

The present study is designed to examine the direct and
indirect relationship among the variables collective effi-
cacy, leadership styles (transformational, transactional and
laissez-faire), leader’s effectiveness and job affect follow-
ing a correlation design. Leadership styles were treated as
the predictors, leaders’ effectiveness and wellbeing were
the criterion and collective efficacy worked as the mediator
between the two. For mediation, ‘process’ of Hayes (2012)
was used. ‘Process’ is the latest software available to test
moderation-mediation which follows the bootstrapping
method.

Measures

The following tools were used:

1. MLQ (Bass & Avolio, 2004) is a 45-item question-
naire (5-point) that identifies key aspects of leadership
behaviour, namely transactional, transformational and
laissez-faire leadership style as well as leader’s effec-
tiveness. The first 36 items measure three leader-
ship styles and the last nine items measure leader’s
effectiveness. MLQ is a widely used tool to measure
leadership styles, and many published studies have
reported reliability and validity of the tool (Ackermann,
Schepers, Lessing & Dannhauser 2000; Bass &
Avolio, 1997; Yammarino & Bass, 1990). On the cur-
rent sample, Cronbach alpha (a) was reported as 0.94
for transformational (20 items) and for transactional
(12 items) as 0.54, lasseiz-faire (4 items) as 0.51 and
leader’s effectiveness (9 items) as 0.90.

2. JAWS (Van Katwyk et al., 2000) is a 30-item (full
version) and 20-item (short version) scale designed
to assess people’s emotional reactions to their job
on a 5-point scale. Internal consistency reliability
estimates are available from at least three studies
(Bruk-Lee & Spector, 2006; Spector, Fox, Goh &
Bruursema, 2003; Van Katwyk, et al., 2000) using
the different versions with heterogeneous working
samples. On the current sample, Cronbach alpha
(a) was reported to be 0.93.

3. Collective efficacy: A 15-item scale was developed
to assess the collective efficacy of the teams to assess
the team members’ efficacy on the recommend-
ations based on considerable points of Karrasch
(2003). In accordance with recommendations by
Bandura and Adams (1977), the items were tailored
to capture the essence of the team tasks. Responses
are rated on a 5-point Likert scale. The inter-item
reliability for this scale as reported by the author
was 0.93. On the current sample, Cronbach alpha (a)
was reported to be 0.96.

Results

The aim of the study was to explore the relationships
among collective efficacy, leadership styles (transform-
ational, transactional and laissez-faire), leader’s effective-
ness and well-being and to examine the role of collective
efficacy as the mediator between leadership styles, leader’s
effectiveness and well-being. The sample was taken from
the education industry, and mediated regression analysis
was used to make inferences from the obtained data. As
different constructs of the present study have different
numbers of questions to assess them, all the obtained mean
values for all the variables were divided by the number of
items to obtain the scale values.

As is evident from Table 1, the lowest mean score was
obtained for laissez-faire style, followed by transactional
style, and the maximum mean value was for transform-
ation style. Means for transformational and transactional
leadership are 2.59 and 2.19, indicating that the scale
response of ‘sometimes’ and that of laissez-faire is 0.71,
indicating the response towards ‘once in a while’. These
results imply that laissez-faire is the least-preferred style as
compared to the other two styles for the participants of the
current sample. Although transformational style appeared
to be the most preferred style, there was higher variability
in the scores (SD = 0.83) than that in transactional styles
(SD = 0.49), indicating the high concentration of scores
around the mean value in the latter. The mean values for
collective efficacy and job affect are 3.90 and 3.84 (close
to 4), indicating responses as ‘very confident’ whereas
for leader’s effectivity, the mean value is 2.77 (or 3) which
is towards a ‘fairly often’ response.

Sudha et al. 115

Table 1. Mean and SD Values of 90 Employees from Education Management Industry

Variables Minimum Maximum Mean SD

Collective Efficacy 1.27 5 3.90 0.74
Transformational Leadership Style 0.50 4.42 2.59 0.83
Transactional Leadership Style 0.97 3.25 2.19 0.49
Laissez-faire Leadership Style 0.00 3.00 0.71 0.73
Leader’s Effectiveness 0.33 4.00 2.77 0.88
Job-related Well-being 2.63 4.8 3.84 0.58

Source: Result output by IBM SPSS.

Table 2. Correlation Among Collective Efficacy, Leadership Styles, Leader’s Effectiveness and Well-being

Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6

1. Collective Efficacy 1
2. Transformational Leadership Style 0.50* 1
3. Transactional Leadership Style 0.52* 0.72* 1
4. Laissez-faire Leadership Style –0.40* –0.52* –0.37* 1
5. Leader’s Effectiveness 0.50* 0.82* 0.64* –0.49* 1 0.
6. Well-being 0.55* 0.63* 0.53* –0.39* 0.61* 1

Source: Result output by IBM SPSS.
Note: *p < 0.01.

The results show that transformational and transactional
leadership styles were positively and significantly related to
collective efficacy (p < 0.01), whereas laissez-faire leader- ship style was negatively related to collective efficacy (p < 0.01). Collective efficacy was significantly and posi- tively related to the leader’s effectiveness (p < 0.01) as well as with well-being (p < 0.01). Transformational and trans- actional leadership styles were positively related to each other (p < 0.01); however, both these dimensions were neg- atively related to laissez-faire leadership style (p < 0.01). And lastly, leader’s effectiveness was negatively correlated with laissez-faire leadership style (p < 0.01) and positively with well-being (p < 0.01).

It is evident from Table 3 that (a) collective efficacy
significantly mediates the relationship between transac-
tional style and leader’s effectiveness, Beta = 1.79, 95%
boot strapping CI {0.40, 3.61}, representing medium effect
size as K2 = 0.14, 95% boot strapping Ca CI {0.02, 0.23);

Table 3. Direct and Indirect Regression Coefficients for Leadership Styles (Predictor/s) and Leadership Effectiveness (Outcome
Variables) Through Collective Efficacy

Predictor
Variable

Mediating
Variable

Outcome
Variable

Direct
Effect

Indirect
Effect

Effect
Size

Leadership
Styles

Collective
Efficacy (b)

Leadership
Effectiveness (b) Leadership Styles and Leadership Effectiveness

LS & CE CE & LE Beta With Bootstrapping CI Kappa Square

Transformational 0.50* 1.13* 6.63*** b = 0.51, 95% CI (–0.13, 1.32} K2 = 0.10, 95% BCa CI {0.01, 0.21)
Transactional 0.79* 2.25* 7.71*** b = 1.79, 95% CI {0.40, 3.61} K2 = 0.14, 95% BCa CI {0.02, 0.23)
Laissez-faire 0.40* 3.61* 3.38*** b = –1.47, 95% CI {–2.79, –0.74} K2 = 0.15, 95% BCa CI {0.08, 0.27}.

Source: Result output by IBM SPSS.
Note: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. BCa= Bias Corrected and accelerated.

(b) however, collective efficacy failed to mediate the rela-
tionship of transformational and laissez-faire styles with
leadership effectiveness. In order to make the mediation sig-
nificant, it is necessary that bootstrapping confidence inter-
vals should not contain zero (Field, 2013); and (c) all the
three direct effect regression coefficients were significant.

Table 4 regression coefficients, the indirect effect and
the bootstrapped confidence intervals of collective efficacy
on transformational leadership style and well-being (a) It is
observed that there is a significant indirect effect of trans-
formational leadership style on well-being through collec-
tive efficacy, Beta = 0.11, 95% bootstrapping CI {0.05,
0.19}. This represents high effect size as K2= 0.18, 95%
boot strapping CI {0.09, 0.29). (b) There was a significant
indirect effect of transactional leadership style on well-
being through collective efficacy, b = 0.24, 95% CI {0.11,
0.38}. This again represents high effect size as K2= 0.20,
95% bootstrapping CI {0.10, 0.31). (c) However, the

116 Vision 20(2)

laissez-faire style again failed to mediate the relationship
collective efficacy and well-being. (d) The direct effect of
leadership styles on wellbeing was positive and significant
except for laissez-faire style.

Discussion

The current study explored the direct and indirect linkages
of collective efficacy and leader’s effectiveness with job-
related well-being through three leadership styles. There
are many ways to test indirect/mediation paths, the most
recent one being the Hayes process mediation model
(2012), which is used in the present research. Two hypoth-
eses were formulated: one explored the direct relationship
among the constructs while the second explored the indi-
rect linkages among the constructs, three leadership styles
being the mediators independently.

Table 1 depicted the descriptive statistics for all the con-
structs used in the study. It is evident that among the three
leadership styles, transformational style (M = 2.77) was the
most dominant pattern, followed by transactional, and
laissez-faire being the least-preferred style. This reflects a
very promising kind of scenario as transformational and
even in some cases transactional patterns have been associ-
ated with positive organizational outcomes. The review
indicates that the transformational leadership style is stim-
ulating where there is certain transcendence in terms of
self-interest leading towards the sharing of goals, shared
mission and vision as well as the experience of positive
affective states by the employees (Bono & Ilies, 2006). The
results also show that the respondents have scored reason-
ably high on collective efficacy and well-being. These two
results have important implications as they are linked to
many positive individual and organizational outcomes,
reviewed above. Table 2 showed correlation coefficients
among the constructs of the study. It was observed that
collective efficacy is significantly related to all the three
leadership styles undertaken in the study (p < 0.01), as well as with leader’s effectiveness and job-related affective well-being (p < 0.01), all the relationships being positive except the one with laissez-faire style. The results are along

Table 4. Direct and Indirect Regression Coefficients for Leadership Styles (Predictor/s) and Job-related Well-being (Outcome
Variables) Through Collective Efficacy

Predictor
Variable

Mediating
Variable

Outcome
Variable

Direct
Effect Indirect Effect Effect Size

Leadership
Styles

Collective
Efficacy (b)

Job-related
Affective Well-

being (b) Leadership Styles and Job-related Affective Well-being

LS and CE CE and Well-being Beta With Bootstrapping CI Kappa Square

Transformational 0.50* 0.25*** 0.32*** b = 0.11, 95/CI {0.05, 0.19} K2 = 0.18, 95% BCa CI {0.09, 0.29)
Transactional 0.79* 0.30*** 0.38** b = 0.24, 95/CI {0.11, 0.38} K2 = 0.20, 95% BCa CI {0.10, 0.31)
Laissez-faire 0.40* 0.37*** –0.16 b = 0.15, 95/CI {–0.25, –0.07} K2 = 0.19, 95% BCa CI {0.10, 0.29).

Source: Result output by IBM SPSS.
Note: *p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0 .001.

expected lines as many previous studies have reported
these relationships (Krishnan, 2001, 2012; Nielsen &
Daniel, 2012; Sadeghi & Pihie, 2012). Transactional lead-
ership style was also found to be related to collective
efficacy. Review from previous studies suggests that since
a transactional leader is task oriented, there is a possibility
of locating some commonalities on the basis of mutual
tasks/goals between the leader and the followers (Howell
& Avolio, 1993) which would pave the way for collective
efficacy. Kahai, Sosik and Avolio (2003) found that transac-
tional leadership style was directly linked to higher group
efficacy. Rowold and Rohmann (2009) found that positive
emotions are associated directly with both transactional and
transformational leadership styles. There are studies link-
ing well-being facets directly to the leader’s functioning/
effectiveness (Nguni, Sleegers & Denessen, 2006).

Laissez-faire leadership style was found to have negative
relationships with all the variables of the study. Several
studies report that this leadership style inversely impacts
satisfaction and performance criteria, leading to experience
of negative emotions and poor well-being (Judge & Piccolo,
2004), thereby reducing the efficiency of the employees.
These results are also in sync with the existing research;
therefore, the first hypothesis of the study is supported
by the results obtained.

As mentioned earlier, the current research also explored
indirect linkages among the variables. It is evident from the
results presented in Table 3 that collective efficacy success-
fully mediated the relationship between transactional style
and leader’s effectiveness. Researchers in the past have
reported that collective efficacy mediated the relationship
between transformational leadership style (Ross & Gray,
2004) and effectiveness as well as well-being (Krishnan,
2012; Tabbodi & Prahallada, 2009). In a study by Walumbwa,
Wang, Lawler, & Shi, (2004), collective efficacy mediated
the relationship between transformational leadership and job
attitudes. Chen and Bliese (2001) found that more positive
and engaging leadership was associated with higher levels
of collective efficacy among followers. Further supporting
this contention, Sivasubramaniam, Murry, Avolio and
Jung (2002) found that laissez-faire leadership style was

Sudha et al. 117

negatively related to collective efficacy in intact teams.
Collective efficacy was also found to be a mediator between
leadership style and performance (Ross & Gray, 2006;
Taggar & Seijts, 2003), supporting the argument that leader-
ship style by itself may not be sufficient to produce desirable
outcome variables, emphasizing that it is imperative to
explore the indirect pathways through which leadership
takes organizations towards success.

The results show that collective efficacy only mediated
the relationship between transactional leadership style and
leaders’ effectiveness. It could not produce mediation of
transformational as well as laissez-faire styles on leaders’
effectiveness in this research. Collective efficacy is mani-
fested through shared goals and collaborative decision-
making in the organization (Maddux, 2002). It is shaped by
four major sources: mastery experience, vicarious experi-
ence, verbal persuasion and affective state (Bandura, 1997).
Ross and Gray (2006) found support for transformational
leadership as the mediator of teachers’ collective motiva-
tion and effectiveness; however, there is a dearth of studies
linking transactional style directly/indirectly to outcome
variables. Like many other constructs, transformational—
transactional leadership too evolved in the western culture
where transformational style is believed to have an edge
over transactional leadership style. However, Pauliene
(2012) questioned this and found that in many collectivis-
tic cultures such as Africa, Malaysia and United Arab of
Emirates transactional leadership style is more relevant. In
the Indian context, the famous task-nurturant leadership of
Sinha (1995) is also a kind of transactional leadership in
which the care and affection of the leader is contingent on
the task performance. Although transformational leader-
ship has always been credited with positive outcomes, it is
not always needed, and especially in the everyday func-
tioning of the organization, transactional style is more
relevant (Hargis, Watt & Piotrowski, 2011). By invoking
contingent reward as well as management by exception
(active), leaders help the followers achieve mastery as well
as vicarious experience. This, in turn, results in the experi-
ence of positive affective states by the employees, resulting
in collective efficacy, which eventually results in the
perception of leaders’ effectiveness. As the present study
has been conducted in the new ‘educational sector’ where
work is organized around teams, in most cases leadership
is about supervising the team members to attain the goals
which are achieved through collaborative decision-making
processes, which is the crux of collective efficacy (Maddux,
2002). This result partially supports the second hypothesis
of the present research.

Results in Table 4 showed the direct and indirect
pathways among leadership styles, collective efficacy and
well-being. Collective efficacy significantly mediated the
relationship of transactional and transformational styles
with job-related affective well-being. The relationships
were significant as shown by large effect sizes (kappa
square). In most part, full-range leadership has been

conceived largely in the context of organization-specific
outcomes (Warr, 1987); however, available data suggest
that leadership has the potential to influence well-being
(Kelloway & Barling, 2010), and transformational leader-
ship in particular is linked to employees’ health and well-
being (McKee, Driscoll, Kelloway & Kelley, 2011). In the
recent past, indirect linkages of transformational relation-
ship with well-being have also been explored (e.g., Munir,
Nielsen & Carneiro, 2010). Many work characteristics
such as meaningfulness (McKee et al., 2011), involvement
(Nielsen, Randall, Yarker & Brenner, 2008), self-efficacy
(Nielsen & Munir, 2009; Nielsen, Yarker, Randall & Munir,
2009), employee trust in leadership (Kelloway, Turner,
Barling, & Loughlin, 2012) and so on have been explored in
the past as mediating the relationship between transforma-
tional leadership and well-being. The present study added a
new construct (i.e., collective efficacy) as the mediator of
the relationship between transformational leadership and
well-being which is needed in the present-day team-based
organizations. Transformational leadership has the potential
to develop collective identity (Kanungo, 2001) and, in a
similar vein, it can also be argued that some of the dimen-
sions of transformational leadership would be instrumental
in attaining collective efficacy. For example, individualized
consideration is more relevant in the collectivistic culture
(Bass, 1985), and this has implications for getting mastery
and vicarious experience, which in turn would result in
experiencing well-being at work.

Transformational leadership has almost shadowed all
other forms of leadership, including transactional leader-
ship, despite the fact that these two are complementary
to each other rather than polar opposites (Bass, 1985).
Bass et al. (2003) further argued that the context in which
leaders and followers interact also determines the suit-
ability of leadership styles. Transformational leadership
is more suited when organizations are undergoing change,
and during normal routine life transactional leadership is
more suited. The results indicate that transactional leader-
ship also influenced collective efficacy, which in turn
influenced well-being of the employees. Interestingly, the
effect size was stronger for transactional than for trans-
formational one. Some of the dimensions of transactional
leadership, such as contingent reward and management by
exception (active), would result in getting mastery experi-
ence and positive affect, which in turn influence well-being
of the employees. India is a special case since both transac-
tional and transformational leadership styles are well suited
depending on the context of the organization (Biswas &
Varma, 2011). These results provide support for the second
hypothesis.

Conclusion and Implications

The present study explored thee leadership styles of MLQ
taxonomy in the education industry and examined how
these styles influence leadership effectiveness as well as

118 Vision 20(2)

well-being directly and also indirectly through collective
efficacy. Standardized tools were used and their reliabili-
ties were ascertained before proceeding with further data
analysis. Data were analyzed using SPSS, where descrip-
tive statistics were computed and indirect linkages were
computed using the ‘process’ add-on for SPSS developed
by Andrew Hayes. Transformational style was the most
preferred style of leadership followed by transactional
style; however, data were more dispersed in the case of
transformational style, implying that some of the partici-
pants used it very often and the rest very less. Other
two variables, leaders’ effectiveness and well-being, were
towards the higher side of the scoring. All the correlation
coefficients were as per the expectations. Transactional
style influenced effectiveness significantly through collec-
tive efficacy; however, transformational style failed to do
so. In the context of well-being, both transactional and
transformational styles affected it indirectly through col-
lective efficacy. Even here, transactional leadership had a
better effect size than transformational one. These findings
have important implications as transactional style emerged
as the most important style, even better than transforma-
tional style, in influencing both the outcome variables
directly and indirectly. This implies that for leaders and
followers, the context is important (Bass et al., 2003) in
deciding which style would be best suited. In the early
stages of an organization, transactional style is more rele-
vant for effectiveness as roles and tasks are being struc-
tured and things are still in the process as compared to
when an organization has a long history. Moreover, in
the changing times, when employees largely operate from
a transactional psychological contract, the suitability of
transformational style needs to be re-assessed.

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Authors’ bio-sketch

Kiran Sakkar Sudha (kiran_ssudha@yahoo.com) is an
assistant professor of organizational behaviour and human
resource management at IILM institute of Business and
Management. She has interest in research and explorations
in the area of industrial psychology and social contexts.
Her core interest is in the area of personality and leader-
ship. She is also a member of American Psychological
Association.

M. G. Shahnawaz (mgshahnawaz@gmail.com) is a
professor of organizational behavior at Department of
psychology Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He is well
versed with research, statistics, industrial psychology and
indigenous psychology. With more than two decades of
experience and with numerous quality research contribu-
tions, Prof. Shahnawaz is also a consultant to few Navratna
and Maharatna companies.

Anam Farhat (anam.farhat11@gmail.com) is a Teacher
Trainee Associate at IIM Calcutta. With practical experiences
from both industry and academia, she intends to explore and
challenge real life workplace setting and theories revolving
workplace context.