Gender bias in the workplace can influence how supervisors view a manager — and the manager’s long-term potential, according to new research.
An occurrence — dubbed managerial derailment — can occur when seemingly up-and-coming managers are, as a result, fired, demoted or fail to advance.
Supervisors’ expectations for male and female managers’ behavior, according to the findings, can show subtle, even subconscious differences; when evaluating managers with equivalent ineffective interpersonal behaviors, researchers found supervisors were more likely to project managerial derailment for women managers than they were for men.
Female managers, due to such assessments, often receive less mentoring — and, by proxy, their advancement in the workplace can be hindered.
The research, led by University of Florida management professor Joyce Bono, involved analysis of data collected on nearly 50,000 managers in leadership development programs and two studies in which managers examined performance reviews for two fictitious employees who only differed in gender.
Find out more from the University of Florida.