The Roles of Trust and Transformational Leadership in the Selection into Leadership Positions and Perceived Effectiveness of Women Business Leaders in Lebanon

Abstract

Several barriers exist that hinder women’s selection into leadership positions and their perception as effective leaders in the business world. The current study explored these barriers and proposed the role of lack of trust in women as a possible barrier, and how it interplays with the existing barriers, in particular, stereotype-consistent gender roles that are salient in Lebanon, where this study was conducted. The study also tested for the role of transformational leadership on the selection and perceived effectiveness of women in leadership positions. Participants evaluated four prospective leaders’ résumés and completed a short version of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire and McAllister’s trust measure. Then, they indicated the likelihood of selecting each candidate into the created leadership position and evaluated how effective they perceived each candidate to be as a potential leader. Mixed ANOVAs, t-tests, and mediational analyses were conducted to analyze the data.

Results showed higher trust in women potential candidates but a stronger correlation between trust in men candidates and selection into leadership positions and perceived effectiveness of leaders. In addition, we found positive correlations between transformational leadership and selection as well as perceived effectiveness. Additionally, women candidates were more likely to be selected into leadership positions, and married candidates were more likely to be selected and perceived as more effective. However, there was no interaction effect between gender of the participant, gender of the candidates, and the two dependent variables. Lastly, cognition-based mediated the relationship between each of intellectual stimulation, idealized influence, and inspirational motivation and the two outcome variables, and combined, affect-based trust and cognition-based trust mediated the relationship between each of idealized influence and inspirational motivation on selection and perceived effectiveness. We then discussed the interpretations and implications of these results, limitations, and future directions of the research.