Research-based view on personality and leadership
This is the second article in the series “Taking down barriers to career advancement of women in STEM and beyond”
Other articles in the series :
The existence of gender issues in STEM and a leaky pipeline stroke me around 2014, when I entered a university institute which employed no female postdoc or professor. To make sense of this phenomenon, I began my research into its origin, which was the beginning of an exciting chapter of activism.
The hurdles on women’s way to leadership
The following pyramid is a visual representation of categories of obstacles which women face on their career tracks to leadership. Their impact on each individual will vary depending on their background but each can influence women’s perception of what is possible.
The cultural obstacles come from the norms and standards in our environment (country, region, and home), which are developed in the process of gender socialisation. As an example, in this process traits such as strength, aggression, dominance vs. passivity, nurturing, subordination, get a gender assigned to them. Major agents such as family, school or mass media repeat the pattern over time until the individuals get a false sense of acting naturally, rather than following a constructed role. In turn, stereotypes and expectations are born, and lead to discrimination of any non-conforming behavior. Due to gender socialization of the leadership skills such as “taking charge”, assertiveness and competitiveness, both men and women essentially judge women as less effective leaders. Moreover, non-conforming behaviors of women exhibiting those leadership traits are meeting with hostility. The advancement of an individual’s career can be inhibited by such beliefs and reactions in a variety of ways. Women aiming for leadership positions have no choice but to recognize when they are being stereotyped and confront it. It is important to acknowledge that the persistence of such hurdles come at a huge personal cost, and show yourself some compassion for having to endure it.
The individual obstacles are a direct consequence of the existence of cultural obstacles. This is the category of career inhibitors that is the most straightforward to address in an individual scope because it represents the limitations we self-impose based on our own (internalized) expectations, perceptions and self-image. It is also the most powerful target for disruption as it is just a mental block inhibiting our existing career potential. Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook/Meta Platforms, discusses the leadership ambition gap in women in her growndbreaking book “Lean In”:
“Fear is at the root of so many of the barriers that women face. Fear of not being liked. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fear of drawing negative attention. Fear of overreaching. Fear of being judged. Fear of failure. And the holy trinity of fear: the fear of being a bad mother/wife/daughter.
Not equipping girls and women with the tools to combat gender socialization results in a variety of limiting perceptions, such as perception of limited opportunities (or failure to recognize opportunities) and the lack of role models to debunk that; presuming women have to choose between a career or happy family life; or self-doubt, to the point of downplaying their own abilities and achievements. The “feeling of incompetence despite evidence of competence” is known as the imposter syndrome or imposter phenomenon (IP). Highly-motivated individuals who are perfectionistic, have difficulty self-validating, or experienced high parental control, are particularly prone to this behavioral pattern (see the part on perfectionism). The introduction of the study of Joel Lane “The Imposter Phenomenon among Emerging Adults Transitioning into Professional Life: Developing A Grounded Theory” summarizes well the state of the art of research in this domain.
“While imposter feelings can lead some to work harder and over-prepare, it also can promote self-handicapping behaviors such as procrastination or lack of effort. Common IP correlates include anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, low self-efficacy, high neuroticism and low conscientiousness, narcissism, and proneness to shame. Essentially, the IP poses a significant threat to well-being.
It is the existence of individual obstacles that has inspired me to found 3 communities and eventually a non-profit organization. I have considered it my mission to help as many women as I can tear down the walls of individual obstacles. I am the most proud of the result which showed that by altering their perception of what a hackathon stands for, and whether their skillsets are sufficient to excel at it, their participation was dramatically increased (you can see the short documentary about the Hack’n’Lead project here).
Finally, the organizational obstacles comprise factors in the career environment that are unrelated to women’s abilities or interests but determine their chances of success within the organization. It can pertain to the organizational culture, such as procedures to eliminate biases in hiring or promotion, or considering family demands, which still largely fall on women (and the reasons are detailed in the the stalled revolution section discussed in part 1 of the series). For female academics, a tenure clock keeps ticking whether they work 100% or not. In fact, for women’s advancement in academic STEM positions, the National Science Foundation’s program ADVANCE detailed the following institutional issues that need addressing:
• Organizational constraints of academic institutions;
• Differential effects of work and family demands;
• Implicit and explicit bias; and
• Underrepresentation of women in academic leadership and decision-making positions.
and concluded:
The cumulative effect of such diverse factors has been to create barriers that impact the number of women entering and advancing in academic STEM careers.
Ending the “nature or nurture” debate
The idea that the low participation of women in STEM fields is the effect of our nature has been debated in psychology still in the 1970s. Even today some use this as an argument against campaigning for more diversity in leadership in politics worldwide (see the iconic speech by former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on her colleague’s mysogony from 2012), much like the notion of infertility caused by women’s education in late 1800s kept us away from universities (see part 1 of the series). Detailed studies of personality in psychology leave no shadow of a doubt that the assumption that we are driven by either nature or nurture is fundamentally wrong. In fact, the field has reached a firm consensus that our personality is influenced by biogenic factors (nature), sociogenic factors (nurture) and idiogenic factors (personal constructs). The profound essence of the latter is extremely important to grasp because it stresses that we are not just passive recipients of genes and the environment but we actively shape our brain due to its plasticity. This is why our idiogenic “layer” can make us a leader even if the sociogenic and biogenic factors don’t. To understand this framework better, we need to dive into the theory very accessibly summarized in professor Brian Little’s pop science book “Who are you, really?”.
Biogenic factors are products of underlying neural structures and pathways. Researchers generally agree that they can be categorized into five dimensions with a nice acronym OCEAN (scientists love acronyms): Open to experience (vs. closed), Conscientious (vs. casual), Extraverted (vs. introverted), Agreeable (vs. disagreeable), Neurotic (vs. stable).
- Open to experience: eager to find original ways of doing things, exceptionally creative, attracted to new ventures
- Conscientious: punctual, preservering, strongly focused on what is in front of them, successful in conventional problem solving
- Extraverted: needs positive stimulation in order to accomplish daily tasks, more likely to have brushes with authority, in task trade-offs opts for quantity over quality
- Agreeable: effective in conflict resolution and building alliances due to scoring high on empathy, altruism and warmth; disagreeable are rather hostile, similar to type A personalities, cynical, distrustful of others
- Neurotic: negative emotions which they experience interferes with their quality of life, evolutionarily tuned to sniff danger in the environment in unexpected places; disposed to anxiety and depression.
This is how Brian Little summarizes sociogenic factors:
If biogenic forces shape your first nature, then sociogenic forces sculpt your second nature. From this perspective, who you are and how you are doing do not hinge on your stable traits but on the recurring circumstances of your life. You are moulded by the nurturing and opportunities that you’re given, the norms you’re imbued with, and the ways others expect you to be.
In the context of harming women’s prospects for leadership, gendered sociogenic factors define “the roles and scripts through which they engage with their world”. The existence of individual obstacles to acting differently than what is regarded the “norm”, such as defying scripted good girl conditioning, should thus not come as a surprise.
Yet curiosity puts humans in the shoes of scientists who test the scripted hypotheses about the world that they are given and revise them. Idiogenic factors shaping our personality consist of such personal constructs which change as we grow. As an example, you may be a naturally agreeable type who has learnt from your environment that a rigid professional hierarchy needs to be respected, hence you never question what your supervisor demands from you, even when you disagree with it. Say you want to challenge that and make it your “personal project” to learn how to be more assertive, eventually gather all your courage and express your disagreement. The outcome of this is positive for your well-being and satisfaction from work, perhaps the supervisor is a good leader and welcomes your feedback, so you begin to speak up more. This is how a naturally agreeable person conditioned by a society to be quiet can become assertive in the process of idiosyncrasy. Quoting the book, “what you do can remake who you are”.
Curiosity and evolving your personality
For those who subscribe to the notion of being “curiosity-driven”, do you know how curious you are? And no, the answer to this question is not, very.
Turns out that the curiosity does not have one definition and recent research findings point to about 5 mechanisms enabling curious pursuits through a variety of triggers (see “The five-dimensional curiosity scale: Capturing the bandwidth of curiosity and identifying four unique subgroups of curious people” by Todd Kashdan et al).
- Joyous Fascination: the general feeling of interest and pleasure from discovery of new information or experiences, associated with valuing self-expansion over security; pursuit of rewards and moments of well-being through personally meaningful goals;
- Deprivation Sensitivity: the intrinsic desire to close the information gap; remove the frustration and “tension of not knowing” out of a belief that “a good life is about working to achieve one’s potential and cultivate knowledge as opposed to the pursuit of positive experiences”;
- Stress Tolerance: the ability to cope with the stress and negative emotions arising from exploring the unknown or complex, which is essential to experiencing intrigue and taking the plunge to explore;
- Thrill-Seeking: the drive to acquire unique experiences out of a belief that a good life is about pleasure and adventure, not learning or growing; puts at risk for impulsive problems but generates “effective leaders in volatile environments” (politics, entrepreneurship);
- Social Curiosity: the interest and fixation on how other people behave partly due to low stress tolerance and the unsatisfied need to belong.
How much of which drive you experience determines by what means, in which direction and how broadly you explore the world and formulate your new personal constructs. Furthermore, whether your pursuits propel you or wear you down depends on factors such as who instigated them — you or others; how much support you have from those with whom you are connected; whether the pursuits are meaningful to you, manageable, and induce positive or negative emotions. Some useful insights from the aforementioned research include:
- high deprivation sensitivity correlates the strongest with anxiety;
- stress tolerance is inversely related to social curiosity as people with low stress tolerance seek cultural knowledge to navigate through normative behavior;
- those who exhibit high stress tolerance and experience high levels of joyful exploration persevere through difficult learning curves, which allows them to gain in-depth expertise.
Key takeaways / action items
- On the way to leadership women deal with cultural, institutional and individual obstacles. In your lifetime or a reasonable time it is difficult to change the culture or institutions (that is not to say that we shouldn’t do the work to change them anyway).
- The greatest positive impact on your well-being though, which is entirely in your hands, is tackling the individual obstacles (aka unf***ing your brain after years of social conditioning).
- The assumption that we are driven by nature or nurture is fundamentally wrong. Our personalities are products of biogenic factors, sociogenic factors, and personal constructs. If someone uses their sociogenic lens to argue that women are not natural leaders, call out the BS and explain that our idiogenic “layer” can make us a leader even if the sociogenic and biogenic factors don’t.
- Our pursuit of leadership can take different forms depending on who initiated it, if it is meaningful to us, manageable at the time, how curious we are, and how much support we get.
