Manager’s gender, supervisory style, and employee’s perception of the demanding work climate

Abstract

Prior research on the link between managers’ gender and workplace gender equity primarily focuses on career outcomes. The present study explores overly demanding work climates, which we see as a realization of the ideal worker norm, bad for all workers, but a particular barrier to women’s careers. We examine whether female managers are ‘agents of change’ toward better work climates, while also exploring the impact of gendered supervisory styles on employees’ experience of overly demanding work. Together we provide a novel elaboration of the doing gender framework and the question of whether women managers are agents of change. Two-level models with organization-fixed effects for a European manager-employee linked sample reveal overall support for female managers as change agents, particularly when they manage with a feminine supervisory style. A masculine supervisory style increases employee perceptions of being overworked irrespective of manager’s gender. When female managers only enact a masculine supervisory style, they produce particularly less favourable employee experiences. Male managers who combine both feminine and masculine styles also produce worse work climates for their subordinates.