Qualifications, Willingness to Lead, and Gender Debiasing in Leader Selection

Abstract

This study examines how leader selection is affected by individual qualifications and willingness to lead using laboratory experiments. The experimental treatments are whether the candidate’s information involves the willingness to lead (WTL), and whether the group leader’s task emphasizes ability or leader’s group responsibility. The votes for women increase when the selection does not involve willingness to lead.  In the ability setting, WTL is higher for men than for women;  leaders of both genders perform equally well.   In the responsibility setting, the level of WTL is similar for men and women; male leaders’ performance is invariant to the information treatment, while female leaders with elicited WTL perform better than their counterparts with no such elicitation.

Keywords: leader selection, willingness to lead, Gender differences, leader qualifications