When Qualified Women Resist the Leader Label

Sarah, a manager in a bustling tech company, consistently delivers top results. Her team outperforms others, her strategic insights drive innovation, and her emotional intelligence allows her to easily navigate complex stakeholder relationships. By all measures, Sarah is an exemplary leader. Yet, when asked if she sees herself as a leader, Sarah hesitates. “I’m just doing my job,” she says with a shrug.

Sarah is not alone. Indeed, research reveals a startling disconnect: Although women often outperform men in leadership effectiveness, they are less likely to identify as leaders. This isn’t just about modesty or impostor syndrome; it’s an invisible misalignment between competence and identity that powerfully skews the leadership landscape. Seeing oneself as a leader is often a preliminary step to being seen as a leader by others, yet this identification process is more fraught for women than for men, particularly in the workplace.

The gulf between what women are capable of and how they see themselves raises critical questions: Why do highly competent women shy away from the “leader” label? How does this reluctance affect their career trajectories and organizational outcomes? And, most importantly, how can companies bridge this identity gap to take full advantage of their leadership talent pools?

The Leader-Identity/Competence Paradox

A comprehensive analysis of leadership effectiveness by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman provides compelling evidence of women’s leadership capabilities. Their study, which examined data from over 60,000 leaders through 360-degree reviews, found that women outperformed men in 17 out of 19 key leadership competencies, including taking initiative, developing new capabilities, displaying high integrity and honesty, driving results, developing others, inspiring and motivating others, building relationships, collaborating and working effectively in teams, establishing stretch goals, and championing change. Women particularly excelled at self-development, integrity, and at taking initiative.

Our research reveals that despite those findings, women are consistently less comfortable than men in applying the label “leader” to themselves. Data we recently collected in a University of Michigan survey of 275 full-time working adults quantifies this disparity. The study defined “strong leader identity” as scoring an average of 6 or higher on a 7-point scale across four leader-identity questions. These questions assessed participants’ agreement with statements such as “I am a leader,” “I see myself as a leader,” “If I had to describe myself to others, I would include the word leader,” and “I prefer being seen by others as a leader.” The results revealed that 32% of men demonstrated a strong leader identity, compared with only 25.5% of women.

The disparities between men and women in leader identity and leadership aspirations seem to emerge later on in one’s career. A study conducted by Bain found that in the first two years of their careers, 43% of women aspire to attain top management roles, compared with 34% of men. However, after just two years, the percentage of aspiring women drops to 16%, whereas it holds steady at 34% among men. Women’s confidence that they can reach top management positions showed similar patterns: Their confidence falls by half as they gain experience, while men’s confidence stays about the same. The Bain study, in which more than 1,000 men and women in the U.S. at all career levels were surveyed, identified several factors contributing to this shift: lack of supervisor support and feedback, an absence of role models in senior leadership positions, conflicts between work and outside responsibilities, and perceived gender bias in promotion decisions. While each of these factors surely contributes to the shift, we propose that these rationales omit a more basic, cognitive factor that is also at play: whether women are comfortable seeing themselves as leaders.

Endorsing Leaderlike Attributes Versus a Leader Label

Previous research by Olga Epitropaki and Robin Martin finds that across cultures, people tend to apply the label “leader” to individuals in whom they observe specific attributes: dedication, dynamism, intelligence, and sensitivity. In our study of 202 full-time workers, we found that people were significantly more comfortable describing themselves with these four prototypical attributes of leaders than they were with the label “leader” itself. Discomfort with that label relative to these prototypical attributes was especially pronounced among women.

This discomfort with the leader label isn’t merely semantic — it has tangible implications. In a second study, involving 324 participants from various professional roles and industries, we showed that the more uncomfortable that individuals are with the label, the less likely they are to see themselves as leaders and, consequently, to pursue leadership opportunities.

This self-perception influences how women present themselves. Alan Benson analyzed more than 10 million public LinkedIn profiles across various industries and job titles, using natural language processing techniques to identify and categorize self-reported skills. He controlled for factors such as job title, company, industry, and years of experience. Benson found that women are 16% less likely than men to report having leadership skills, even when they hold the same job titles within the same company. This gender gap in self-reported leadership skills was more pronounced in socially conservative states and in companies with low work-life balance ratings on Glassdoor compared with more liberal states and those with the highest work-life balance ratings.

And leadership is not the only skill that women underreport relative to men: Women on LinkedIn are also 12% less likely to report negotiation skills but 9% more likely to highlight teamwork and 13% more likely to mention their support skills, even when occupying the same roles as their male counterparts.

The words women use to define themselves have consequences, given that recruiters often use self-reported skills to identify potential candidates for leadership positions. When qualified women hesitate to see themselves as leaders, organizations overlook leadership talent, causing the leadership pipeline to narrow and perpetuating gender imbalances at higher organizational levels. So, what can organizations and individuals do to bridge this gap?

Strategy 1: Harness the Power of Narratives

Our research highlights that individuals’ beliefs about the nature of leadership ability also play a role in their willingness to adopt a leader identity. We found that people generally fall into one of two camps: those who believe that leadership ability is an innate, unchangeable trait (in other words, those who have a fixed mindset) versus those who believe that leadership skills can be developed and improved over time (that is, those with a growth mindset).

We found that individuals with a fixed mindset are more susceptible to the belief that the act of leading might harm their image with others — what we call image risk. Conversely, those with a growth mindset are more resilient in the face of image risk, viewing leadership challenges as opportunities for growth.

Most importantly, we found that these mindsets can be influenced. When participants were exposed to information promoting a malleable view of leadership ability, the negative relationship between image risk and leader identity was significantly attenuated. Organizations can apply this insight in the following ways:

• Promote a growth mindset culture around leadership, emphasizing that leadership skills can be developed and improved over time.
• Share stories of leaders who have grown into their roles, highlighting the challenges they’ve overcome and the skills they’ve developed. Stories of internal candidates who have earned leadership positions in the organization can be particularly powerful.
• Encourage leaders to share their own experiences of doubt and growth to normalize these feelings for aspiring leaders.

Strategy 2: Focus on Leadership Behaviors, Not Labels

Marjorie Rhodes, Amanda Cardarelli, and Sarah-Jane Leslie studied another label that is sometimes daunting for individuals to adopt: that of “scientist.” Their study found that students who were encouraged to engage in specific scientific behaviors (through messaging such as “Let’s do science! Doing science means exploring the world and discovering new things.”) showed higher levels of scientific engagement compared with those who were introduced to science with identity-cuing linguistic markers (such as “Be a scientist”).

This research suggests that these linguistic labels can inadvertently reinforce the idea that identities are fixed and stable over time and that only certain individuals (those who are “born to do it”) can rightfully adopt the label. Thus, instead of applying a leader label, organizations can further utilize behavior-specific language that may curb people’s reluctance to move toward a leader identity. Consider taking the following actions:

• Revise hiring processes to focus on specific leadership behaviors rather than self-reported leader identity or confidence.
• Shift development programs and performance reviews to emphasize specific leadership behaviors, such as supporting daily teamwork, rather than emphasizing the broad leader label.
• Design training modules focused on concrete leadership behaviors, such as facilitating effective meetings or providing constructive feedback.

Strategy 3: Provide External Validation

Given that many women are reluctant to self-identify as leaders, external validation is crucial. Scott DeRue and Sue Ashford argue that leader identities are cocreated through a process of claiming and granting: Individuals act as leaders, and others grant the identity back to them by following them. That granting is especially critical in light of the documented reluctance of women to adopt a leader identity. Granting a leader identity through external recognition or a formal designation may be especially important for women who might otherwise hesitate to claim this identity for themselves. To accomplish this, organizations can do the following:

• Implement formal processes for recognizing and celebrating leadership roles, including project-based or temporary leadership positions.
• Encourage managers to explicitly recognize leadership behaviors when they occur, regardless of an employee’s formal role. If they see leadership happening, they should name it and affirm it.
• Establish sponsorship programs that pair aspiring leaders with role models who can provide guidance and validation.

Strategy 4: Redefine Leadership to Include Service-Oriented Behaviors

The way organizations define and evaluate leadership can significantly impact who identifies as a leader. If organizations rethink their understanding of leadership and, in so doing, recognize the value of traditionally underappreciated skills and tasks, more people may see themselves as leaders. For example, Linda Babcock, Maria P. Recalde, Lise Vesterlund, and Laurie Weingart have shown that women are more likely than men to be asked to take on nonpromotable tasks — work that benefits the organization but does not contribute to career advancement — such as organizing office parties or taking meeting notes. They found that women volunteer 48% more often than men for these tasks and are 44% more likely to be asked to take them on. Such tasks can consume time and energy that could otherwise be spent on promotable work. Organizations can recognize these tasks as opportunities to demonstrate critical leadership behaviors, framing them as examples of servant leadership. Ways to expand the leadership definition and broaden the leadership pipeline include the following:

• Redefine tasks such as organizing team events or mentoring as examples of servant leadership, highlighting how they contribute to team cohesion and organizational culture.
• Explicitly evaluate and reward employees for taking on traditionally nonpromotable tasks, framing them as demonstrations of leadership initiative.
• Recognize and reward nonpromotable service roles as leadership behaviors in performance evaluations and promotion decisions.

How we conceptualize leadership matters. If women don’t see themselves in the word leader, they won’t develop a leader identity, which will negatively impact their engagement in leadership development activities and in actual leadership roles. If women hold a fixed mindset about leadership, they also won’t participate in developing their leadership abilities further. Finally, if organizations continue to see certain activities as indicative of leadership while ignoring others, and if engagement in those two types of activities is related to gender, they will fail to grant the identity of leader to women who rightfully qualify.

Taken together, these conceptualization issues represent a subtle yet significant obstacle to achieving gender parity in leadership. Addressing this gap requires more than providing opportunities or eliminating bias. It necessitates tackling the internalized barriers that deter talented women from embracing a leadership identity and expanding organizations’ views of what constitutes leadership. By implementing the strategies we’ve described, organizations can create environments in which all talented individuals, regardless of gender, feel empowered to see themselves as leaders. 

“The MIT Sloan Management Review is a research-based magazine and digital platform for business executives published at the MIT Sloan School of Management.”

Please visit the firm link to site