Joanna Lin on Gendered Leadership: Stereotype Threat, Structure, and Support

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/09/22

 Joanna Lin is the W. Richard and Emily Acree Professor and Associate Professor of Management at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business. She earned her PhD in Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management from Michigan State University in 2017, after completing graduate and undergraduate studies in business, finance, and accounting. Her research focuses on self-regulation, leadership, organizational citizenship, voice, and gender. Widely published in top journals, she serves on multiple editorial boards. Lin’s honours include the SIOP Distinguished Early Career Contributions Award (2025) and recognition as one of Poets & Quants’ Best 40 Under 40 MBA Professors (2023).

In this interview with Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Lin explores how gender prescriptions intersect with core leadership behaviours—initiating structure and consideration. She explains that agentic norms align with traditional leadership expectations, producing backlash for women who set direction decisively, even as meta-analyses show women’s effectiveness equals or exceeds men’s, depending on raters and context. In experience-sampling research, men were energized by both behaviors, while women felt depleted after initiating structure, risking next-day withdrawal. Follower support buffered women’s exhaustion and sustained effectiveness. Lin recommends framing structure-setting as in-role, rewarding clarity, and training followers and leaders to counter stereotype threat and sustain authentic leadership.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When women and men are young, society—through media and family socialization—teaches us different “prescriptive” expectations. Men are encouraged to be confident and assertive; women are encouraged to be warm and friendly. These gender prescriptions are well-documented in the field of social psychology.

Prof. Joanna Lin: Leadership norms have historically aligned more with agentic traits (assertiveness, decisiveness), which can clash with prescriptive expectations for women. Research shows that women who display highly agentic leadership can face “backlash”—they are often judged as competent but liked less and sometimes seen as less hirable than identically behaving men. This is not universal, but the pattern is reliable across studies.

Jacobsen: You mentioned “initiating structure.” Could you clarify that?

Lin: Yes. Initiating structure is a classic leadership dimension from the Ohio State studies. It involves setting clear expectations, goals, and direction. Alongside it is “consideration,” which focuses on support and respect for followers. Meta-analytic evidence shows both behaviours matter across roles and settings: consideration is strongly linked to positive outcomes, and initiating structure also shows meaningful positive relations.

Jacobsen: Do women leaders experience added pressure here?

Lin: Women leaders can experience stereotype threat in leadership contexts—psychological pressure arising from the risk of confirming negative stereotypes—which can affect feelings, effort, and performance depending on situational cues. This has been demonstrated in experiments that manipulate leadership-relevant stereotypes and group composition; effects vary with context and individual differences such as leadership self-efficacy.

Jacobsen: Does this vary by industry—say hospitals versus the military?

Lin: Context does matter—cultures, occupations, and evaluation settings can moderate perceptions. Still, when you aggregate across contexts, a large meta-analysis found that overall perceived leadership effectiveness does not favour men; in other ratings, women are actually rated as slightly more effective, while men tend to rate themselves higher. So the simple “women leaders are seen as less effective” claim is too broad; it depends on who is rating and the context.

Jacobsen: Are both initiating structure and consideration essential across all fields?

Lin: Yes. Taken together, initiating structure (rules, goals, expectations) and consideration (support, respect) are generally seen as core, in-role leadership behaviours across industries—even if particular sectors emphasize one more than the other. Women who enact strongly agentic behaviours can face context-dependent backlash due to role incongruity. However, broad-scope evidence shows women’s leadership effectiveness is at least on par—and sometimes rated higher—than men’s.

Jacobsen: What about follower support? Stereotypes are stressors, but follower support can buffer that stress—either by reducing it in the group or by providing an extra emotional boost. How does that play out in a real-life professional setting?

Lin: That is a good question. In our study, we found that when followers provide support, it reduces the exhaustion and depletion that women leaders experience due to gender stereotype threat. That support can be as simple as saying, “Thank you for giving us clear direction—it helps us.” Even small acknowledgments, like checking in with leaders to show you value their efforts, can make them feel, “My work is appreciated. I feel validated.” That reduces stress and depletion and helps leaders remain effective. Support can be as simple as that.

Jacobsen: Are there structural redesigns in organizations, particularly evaluation systems, that can minimize gender bias in leadership expectations? Or are more sophisticated and robust measures required?

Lin: Interesting question. Organizations could provide training programs that encourage followers to show visible support for leaders. This is especially important for women leaders when they are setting expectations, since support can help counteract the extra scrutiny they often face. Another approach is to reward leaders for engaging in initiating structured behaviours. If women see that setting goals, clarifying expectations, and providing direction are recognized and rewarded, they may be less likely to experience stereotype threat. It reinforces that “This is my in-role behaviour; this is part of being a leader.” That framing can alleviate some of the pressure of violating gender stereotypes.

Jacobsen: Not all, but many men come in with a paternalistic leadership style. This can penalize women who are seeking to take on leadership roles, simply because of how paternalistic styles approach the workplace. How do these styles interact with workplace dynamics in a way that penalizes women? Are there ways to either mitigate the toxic aspects of paternalistic leadership or structure the workplace so that, while paternalistic styles still exist, the outcomes align with women’s leadership approaches, rewarding them rather than penalizing them?

Lin: This is an interesting question. You are thinking about one of the surprising findings from our study. We expected that men, when they engaged in considerate behaviours—showing concern for followers, taking care of them—might feel some gender stereotype threat. After all, such behaviours do not perfectly align with traditional masculine norms. We thought they might feel exhausted or depleted afterward. However, that is not what we found.

Instead, men also benefited from engaging in considerate behaviours. So, it seems possible that men view these behaviours as part of a paternalistic or fatherly style of leadership: “I can show care and initiate structure at the same time. This is what I am supposed to do as a leader.” In other words, they do not see a conflict between their gender role and these behaviours.

In this study, men benefited from both initiating structure and consideration. Moreover, that is not a bad thing. These are in-role leader behaviours, meaning they are fundamental to the leadership role. If engaging in them energizes men and helps them continue those behaviours the next day, that is positive. It shows that when leaders consistently engage in these core behaviours, they remain effective and reinforce their leadership over time.

For men, these behaviours are reinforcing. They keep doing them, and they benefit from them. However, for women, it is different. After engaging in initiating structure, they often feel exhausted and depleted and may withdraw the next day. That is not good for long-term leadership effectiveness.

This means organizations need to think carefully about how to help women leaders. That could involve training programs for followers—teaching them how to support their leaders in visible ways—or training programs for women leaders themselves, making them aware of gender stereotype threat and equipping them with strategies to cope with it. The larger goal is to overcome stereotype-driven barriers so women can sustain effective leadership without the added burden of depletion.

Jacobsen: And what about stereotype threat across different groups of women? For example, in U.S. census categories, does it affect women differently depending on ethnicity, whether Caucasian, Asian, African American, and so on?

Lin: Can you clarify—do you mean, is there a racial or ethnic layer to how this plays out? 

Jacobsen: For example, if a woman takes on a more paternalistic leadership style and is penalized in the workplace, does that happen the same way for every category of woman?

Lin: That is an interesting question. In our study, we conducted an experience sampling method. Each leader completed daily surveys for ten days. What we examined was: on days when leaders engaged in more initiating structure or more consideration, how did that affect how they felt, and how did it influence their leadership behaviours the following day? Because the comparison was within-person, factors like race, ethnicity, or even industry were essentially controlled. In other words, we examined how a leader responded in relation to their own baseline.

So, in this study, we did not test race or ethnicity as a moderator. It is possible, however, that in some contexts, racial or ethnic stereotypes could play a role—maybe not strictly gender stereotypes, but other stereotype threats that intersect with gender. That would be an exciting area for future research.

Jacobsen: What about generational differences—say, Baby Boomers versus Gen Z?

Lin: That is another important dimension. I think attitudes about gender are evolving. What people experience today is not the same as what leaders experienced 30 or 50 years ago. Younger generations may feel less threatened by gender stereotypes when engaging in leadership behaviours, because norms are shifting. That said, when reviewers of our study asked whether stereotype threat still exists, we checked recent meta-analyses, and the evidence shows it remains real and measurable today. So, while I hope future generations will feel it less, I cannot say with certainty that it will entirely disappear. Gender stereotypes continue to evolve, but they have not yet gone away.

Jacobsen: What was the spark for the original study that led to this line of research?

Lin: Honestly, it came from my own experiences as a professor. I mentor students, and at times, I have noticed it takes extra energy to set expectations—reminding them of deadlines, giving clear directions. That personal awareness, combined with the literature on stereotype threat and leadership, motivated me to study how these dynamics play out systematically.

I often find myself saying to students, “I want you to focus on this, follow this direction, and do this.” Honestly, I notice that my male colleagues can say the same thing easily—it feels natural for them. They say it and move on. However, for me, it requires extra effort. Showing care, offering support—that comes easily. However, setting rules and engaging in initiating structure takes additional energy. Sometimes I even need to think about it in advance, rehearse it, or jot it down so I do not come across it the wrong way.

That personal experience was a key motivator for this study. I wanted to understand leadership behaviours through the lens of gender, and hopefully inspire future research that deepens our understanding of how gender dynamics shape leadership.

Jacobsen: Let us explore the factor of docility. How does that play into this? In other words, does being perceived as docile—passive, submissive, overly compliant—increase or decrease stress in the workplace? In some organizations, leadership demands decisiveness and leading from the front. At other times, it may involve stepping back. However, regardless of context, there is often a gendered expectation of docility for women. How does that undermine organizational effectiveness?

Lin: Interesting. So you are asking from two angles: first, when followers are docile—say, passive or disengaged—does that affect how leaders treat them in a gendered way? Moreover, second, when women leaders themselves are expected to be docile, how does that expectation affect their leadership?

Jacobsen: On the follower side, if subordinates are overly passive, leaders may struggle to motivate them or may have to exert more effort in direction-setting. On the leader side, the problem is that gender norms often expect women to be docile, supportive, rather than directive. That can undermine effectiveness, because when a woman leader acts decisively or assertively, she risks backlash for violating gender expectations. However, if she conforms to the expectation of docility, she may fail to provide necessary structure or direction. Either way, organizational effectiveness suffers.

Lin: This is interesting. In the leadership literature, what you described as “docile” leadership is often called laissez-faire leadership—when leaders essentially do nothing and avoid taking action. It is possible that when women leaders feel, “This takes me so much energy,” they withdraw and eventually slip into these more passive behaviours. That is unfortunate, but it could explain part of the broader pattern we see.

According to the statistics, there are fewer women in senior leadership roles, whether in the C-suite or other high-level positions. On the surface, people say, “We want equality. We want more women in leadership.” However, the reality is complex. It is not only that followers sometimes resist women leaders because their leadership does not fit traditional gender stereotypes. It is also possible that women themselves may feel depleted.

For example, initiating structure—setting expectations, telling others what to do—is a core leadership behaviour. However, for women, it often feels like it drains personal resources because it clashes with prescriptive gender norms. That exhaustion can lead them to withdraw, which in turn creates docile or passive leadership behaviours. Those behaviours reduce their effectiveness and perpetuate the cycle.

That is why it is crucial to determine how to support women in leadership roles. Much of my earlier research focused only on identifying problems. However, in this paper, we wanted to go further—how can we support women so they can overcome stereotype threat?

One solution we have studied is follower support. However, future research could expand on this. For example, training programs could help women anticipate stereotype threat: “This is something you may experience, and here are strategies to manage it.” Framing initiating structure as an in-role behaviour—something that is expected and rewarded in leadership, regardless of gender—may also help women view it as part of the job, rather than a violation of their identity.

In addition, support can come from multiple directions: followers, organizations, and peers. Visible encouragement and validation can help reduce stress, making it easier for women leaders to engage in essential leadership behaviours without feeling depleted.

Jacobsen: So that way, women leaders will be more effective the next day. Last question: How can research like this help women see greater flexibility in their leadership styles? Moreover, for men, who may feel stuck in a particular style of leadership, too?

Lin: There are many different ways to convey core leadership behaviours. One possible approach for women leaders—though we did not directly test this in our study—is to recognize that the same behaviours can be expressed in different ways. For instance, when setting expectations or giving direction, the language you choose matters. You can use words and phrasing that feel comfortable to you, even if they are less overtly assertive. The key is that you are still engaging in initiating structure—you are still providing clarity and direction—but in a way that feels authentic and genuine.

That could be one way forward. Initiating structure and consideration are both in-role leadership behaviours; leaders need to engage in them daily. However, the flexibility lies in how you enact them. Finding a style that is both effective and comfortable may help women sustain these behaviours and continue being seen as effective leaders.

Jacobsen: Joanna, thank you so much for your time. I will send this to you shortly.

Lin: Thank you—it was so lovely to meet you. I truly appreciate your thoughtful and insightful questions. Honestly, most of the interviews I have done have not gone into this much detail. This was wonderful.

Jacobsen: I appreciate the compliment. Thank you again.

Lin: Thank you.

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