A comparative study of leadership style by gender: a case study of government agencies and statutory bodies in Kota Samarahan / Siti Mazeni Junaidi and Tati Hikmah Sapawie @ Pawi

Fortune 500's list of successful companies showed that a majority of the companies are still managed by men. This brings about to the debate as to whether women have achieved the goals set up by Second Wave Feminists, in which the aims include attaining the same economic and social stand with men. A further increment in the number of women taking up the mantle of leadership is most likely to continue in the 21st Century (Davidhizar & Cranner, 2000). The ever growing presence of women in the workspace ever since World War 2 spurred the continuous efforts to probe deeper into the influence of the feminine trait in what was once seen as a masculine domain. This brings a tricky situation into the picture, as the influence of female leadership in a research is most highly debatable. Other than that, the integration of women into the working society did not come smoothly as the popular thoughts then were that women were incapable of assuming the masculine role of leadership, thus highlighting the fact that the inclusion of women as part of leadership is not merely putting a woman to do men’s works and tasks but also on the issue of how women capitalize feminists’ concept of superiority on certain fields to their advantage, thus creating a form of new female leadership.