PTLeading, caring and the prejudice women face
Why does a woman in charge still seem out of place to many people? With 108 professionals who wrote down the words that came to mind and 260 who answered a questionnaire, the thesis follows the path from beliefs about the roles of men and women to prejudice against women leaders. Explained in 12 screens.
Women have advanced, but the boss is still more often a man
The thesis opens with figures from Brazilian and international reports. Each square is 1 in 100. Pick a figure:
Figures cited in the thesis introduction: IBGE, the Brazilian statistics institute (2025), the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2025 and UNDP's 2023 Gender Social Norms Index. They are not results of the research.
Two lists of qualities: acting and caring
Social psychology calls qualities aimed at acting and achieving agentic, historically linked to men, and those aimed at others communal, linked to women. Sort the words the way the thesis did:
Leaders are expected to act
Direction, firmness, authority, focus on results.
Women are expected to care
Nurturing, motherhood, family, sensitivity.
Access
She is seen as less fit and has less chance of getting the job.
Success
Once there, if she acts firmly, she is judged harshly for stepping out of the expected role.
Role Congruity Theory by Eagly and Karau (2002), the basis of the thesis (sections 2.5 and 2.6). The words and their classification come from Chart 2, which links each scale item to a word the participants used.
Two studies: first the words, then the questionnaire
The words professionals wrote in the first study became statements for the scales. Six experts and 11 people from the target audience reviewed the statements before the final questionnaire, scored from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
Each dot on the right is one of the 260 people who answered the questionnaire. Pick a breakdown:
Convenience sample, shared on professional and social networks. Source: Tables 2, 3 and 41 to 46. In the first study, 64% were women and 72% were leaders.
When the question is about others, “fragile” appears
The 108 professionals wrote the first words that came to mind. The words that appear most often, and earliest, form the central core: what the group thinks in the most stable way. Pick a topic:
Number of times the word appeared in the central core (high frequency, early recall) in Tables 4 to 10. Synonyms grouped by the author; words translated from Portuguese. In Table 8 (male leader), the most cited word, with 30 mentions, has no printed name and is not shown here.
Hardly anyone says women cannot lead. Almost everyone says it is harder for them.
Tap a statement from the prejudice questionnaire to see how the 260 people answered, from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree):
Bar = average from 1 to 7 (Table 55). Answer distribution: Table 56; "agree" adds up scores 5, 6 and 7 (our count). The two gray statements, the openly prejudiced ones, were dropped from the final scale (factor analysis); the other nine form the prejudice measure used in the model. Statements translated from Portuguese.
For professionals, leading also means caring for the team
The thesis created and validated seven scales and adapted one. On average, leadership got very high scores for both acting and caring, above what society expects of women. Patriarchal beliefs found little support. Tap a block:
Height = simple average of the scores of the statements kept in each scale (our calculations, from Tables 47 to 55 and Appendix A). The hollow box marks the maximum, 7.
From beliefs to prejudice, step by step
The thesis's first model links patriarchal beliefs to stereotypes about men and women in leadership, these to what is expected of leadership and of women, and all of it to perceived prejudice. The thicker the arrow, the stronger the link. Tap an arrow:
Standardized coefficients (β) from model 1, estimated in SmartPLS 4 with 10,000 bootstrap resamples. Dashed arrows: not significant. Pill with a minus sign: negative link. They show association at a single point in time, not proof of cause. Source: Table 61.
The weight lies in women's role, not the leader's
Of the four expectations that reach prejudice, the two about leadership make no difference. What weighs most is the expectation that women care: people who see it more strongly also see more prejudice against women leaders. Seeing women as people who act and decide goes along with less prejudice.
Standardized β into prejudice (Table 61). Striped bars: negative link; gray: not significant. With respondent gender added, the thesis reports in the text only the change for the caring expectation (from 0.497 to 0.395) and the R² (Table 73 and section 4.6.2.6).
Seven of 14 hypotheses held up, and three came out the other way
In models 2a and 2b, the thesis measures the distance between what is expected of leadership and what is expected of women, in four combinations (acting or caring, on each side). Block height = size of the coefficient. Filter and tap a block:
Source: Table 82 (summary), with Tables 76, 79, 80 and 81. Green: confirmed; orange: significant, but with the opposite sign to the prediction; gray: no effect. The distance is the leadership average minus the women's average.
The distance shrank, and the prejudice did not go away
The theory predicted: the larger the distance between leadership and women, the more prejudice. In the data, for comparisons with the caring side, it came out the other way: less distance, more prejudice. Because leadership already gets caring scores close to the maximum, the distance changes mainly on the women's side. Move it and see:
Our illustration: the leadership scale stays at the average (6.28) and the control changes only the women's side; these are not real answers. The direction of prejudice comes from model 2b (β = −0.362, Table 79) and model 1 (β = 0.497, Table 61).
Direct, indirect and total effects: Tables 80 and 81, in a model with a direct path from the stereotypes to prejudice. Percentages and bars: our calculations (indirect ÷ total; dark gray = direct part, red = part passing through the distance).
Valuing care in leadership was not enough
For the author, today's leadership already includes empathy, trust and developing people, but traditional expectations about women still weigh on how women leaders are judged.
For people managers and HR
- Watch for stereotypes in hiring, promoting and evaluating the performance of women.
- Use leadership development to promote gender diversity in company culture.
For equity policies
- Identify what sustains the stereotypes, the distance between roles and the prejudice that keep women from reaching management.
- The scales validated in the thesis make it possible to measure this distance and track change.
For researchers
- Measure the distance with other methods (response surface analysis, Euclidean distance).
- Compare genders, generations, sectors and cultures.
What this research does not say
- A specific group. 74% women, 84% with a postgraduate degree, 74% born in São Paulo, a convenience sample. · according to the author, with data from Tables 41 to 46
- No comparison between women and men. Gender entered as a control, with no separate analysis by group. · according to the author
- Perceptions, not actions. The scales ask what "most people" or "society" think; they do not measure real hiring or promotion decisions. · our observation
- A single point in time. The links are associations in a single questionnaire, not proof of cause. · our observation
Credits
NAVAJAS, Rosemeire Colalillo. Fatores determinantes da incongruência entre o papel de liderança organizacional e o papel social de gênero feminino. Doctoral thesis (Business Administration) — Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, São Paulo, 2026. Advisor: Prof. Darcy Mitiko Mori Hanashiro.
Supported by Instituto Presbiteriano Mackenzie (full tuition waiver). Words analyzed in openEvoc; scales in Jamovi and SmartPLS 4. According to the author, ChatGPT helped with language editing and with clarifying concepts and methods. This version simplifies the work for a general audience.