Leadership style and gender. The case of health managers in Morocco.

Objective: to assess the gender leadership style of managers in the Moroccan health sector.

Method: Descriptive study. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), a questionnaire that evaluates leadership style, was used to collect data from 120 managers in the Moroccan healthcare sector (40 female managers and 80 male managers).

Results: In Morocco, the representation of women in positions of responsibility and power is still lower than that of men. However, the average score on the transformational leadership style scales for female managers among the 120 people surveyed was 15.51, while the average score on the transactional leadership style scales was only 6.073. While the average score on the transformational leadership style scales for male managers among the 120 respondents was 10.26, the average score on the transactional leadership style scales was 8.57. These results demonstrated the existence of a difference between the leadership style and gender of managers in the healthcare sector.

Conclusion: This study was able to confirm the theory underlining the difference between the two leadership styles of male and female managers, even in a sector such as healthcare.