The queen bee: A myth? The effect of top-level female leadership on subordinate females

We investigate the effect of female leadership on gender differences in public and private organizations. Our research used a sample of 8.3 million organizations distributed over 5600 Brazilian municipalities. Our main results show that when municipalities in which a woman was elected leader (treatment group) are compared with municipalities in which a male was elected leader (control group) there was an increase in the number of top and middle managers in public organizations. Two aspects contribute to the results: time and command/role model. Our work contributes to the literature on leadership by addressing some specific issues: an empirical investigation with a causal effect between the variables (regression-discontinuity design – a non-parametric estimation), the importance of role models, and how the observed effects are time-dependent. Insofar as public organizations are concerned, the evidence from our large-scale study suggests that the queen bee phenomenon may be a myth; instead, of keeping subordinate women at bay, our results show that women leaders who are afforded much managerial discretion behave in a benevolent manner toward subordinate women. The term “Regal Leader” instead of “Queen Bee” is thus a more appropriate characterization of women in top positions of power.

本研究探讨女性领导力对公共与私营组织中性别差异的影响。本研究的样本涵盖分布于巴西5600个市镇的830万家组织。核心结果显示：将女性当选为领导者的市镇（处理组，treatment group）与男性当选为领导者的市镇（对照组，control group）进行对比后发现，公共组织中的高层与中层管理者人数均有所提升。该结果可归因于两大因素：时间维度与示范/榜样效应。本研究通过解决若干特定问题丰富了领导力研究领域的文献：其一，采用回归断点设计（regression-discontinuity design，一种非参数估计方法）开展变量间因果效应的实证研究；其二，验证了榜样效应的重要性；其三，揭示了观测效应的时间依赖性。就公共组织而言，本大规模研究的证据表明，蜂王现象（queen bee phenomenon）可能仅是一则谬论：与该理论所称的女性领导者排挤下属女性的观点相反，拥有充分管理自主权的女性领导者会对下属女性施以善意之举。因此，用权威领导者（Regal Leader）而非蜂王来形容身居权力高位的女性领导者，是更为恰当的表述。