The effect of gender on leadership styles: the case of UAE public sector

The business life has been generally percieved as a male activity because of its energy-exhaustive nature. Consequently, organisations have been expecting a work quality taht reflects male standards of living in terms of availability and assertiveness, which led organizations to shape their leadership model by masculine principles and values. The present study examines whether female leadership is seen as effectice as male leadership in a Middle Eastern context. A survey has been distributed to a random sample of employees wiorking in the public sector and based in the United Arab Emirates, and a group of informal interviews were held to investigate the quantitaive findings. The results obtained from 117 participants revealed that an average of 66.7% (p<0.0001) of the population see that Male leaders can gain more control over employees than female leaders, and 10.3% (P=0.005) see that male leaders are better than female leaders in making decisions versus 0.9% see the opposite. On the other side, 54.7% (P<0.0001) see that female leaders are more insirational than male leaders, and 31.6% (p<0.0001) viewed female leaders as having better observational abilities than male leaders in the Middle East work environment (Cronbach's alpha 0.740). The paper conludes with a highlight on the role of educaiton in building the social construction of gender and how it forms the individuals' perception of gender roles. As a result, stereotypes emerge, affecting the view of leaders, regardless of ther actual current abilities. (C) 2016 IASE Publisher. All rights reserved.