Copyright © 2017 by authors and IBII. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). Journal of Management Science and Business Intelligence, 2018, 3–1 July. 2018, pages 07-14 doi: 10.5281/zenodo.1174981 http://www.ibii-us.org/Journals/JMSBI/ ISBN 2472-9264 (Online), 2472-9256 (Print) In the Eye of the Beholder: Generational and Gender Differ- ences in the Assessment of Leadership Esther Gergen, Jared Montoya, Sarah Ceballos and Mark Green * Department of Leadership Studies, Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio, TX 78207 *Email: MTGreen@Ollusa.Edu Received on May 27, 2017; revised on February 12, 2018; published on February 17, 2018 Abstract This study analyzed age and gender differences in followers’ implicit assumptions of what constitutes outstanding leadership. Among the findings were that female participants believed that charismatic and participative leadership were more important to being an outstanding leader than did male participants. Males participant, were more tolerant of self-protective leadership than females. Partic- ipants who were Baby Boomers preferred more participative leadership than participants who were members of Generation X. Gen- eration X participants were more willing to embrace self-protective leadership than Baby Boomers. 1 Introduction When conducting research in the field of leadership many options exist. Some researchers, for example, perform focus group interviews or case studies. The information garnered in these types of studies is very rich. However, typically these types of studies are conducted with small sam- ples, which limit the ability to generalize their results. Additionally, even with methods of triangulation, these types of studies tend to lack some- thing equivalent to an alpha level for establishing significance. They are primarily very rich, but descriptive information. Many quantitative leadership studies tend to use the survey method. Generally, these types of studies fall into one of three designs. In Leader- Only types of studies, researchers ask leaders to complete self-assessments of how they lead. Demographic comparisons are often made, such as self- assessed leadership styles of women versus men. Leaders might also take a second instrument such as a personality assessment to assess the rela- tionship between the constructs measured. For example, a researcher might explore relationships between leaders’ personality scores and self - assessed leadership scores. Leader-Only types of studies suffer from the problem of leader self- perception. Any working adult has encountered at least one leader who was a megalomaniac. The followers of that particular leader likely be- lieved she/he was a very poor leader. Yet, the leader’s inflated sense of self would result in that leader completing a self-assessment that would indicate she/he was an extraordinary leader. To some degree, the law of large numbers eventually accounts for some of this self-assessment bias, but it will still be present in leader-only types of studies. In an Other-Than-Leader type of study, some combination of stake- holders assesses how the leader leads. Often these raters are the leader’s followers, but they can also be peers, the leader’s own boss or some other stakeholder group. This type of assessment provides a more realistic as- sessment of how the leader actually leads than does a leader-only study. One challenge to an other-than-leader study, however, is co-variation. While not absolute, in a large percentage of these types of studies follower independent variables such as age, experience and education often co-vary with the leader. For example, a 60-year-old leader who holds a masters degree and has been leading for 20 years “typically” is at an elevated level of an organi- zation, compared to a leader who is 22, holds a bachelors degree and who is in her/his first year as a leader. More times than not, the followers who work directly for the 20-year veteran are also likely to have many years of leadership experience, advanced education and so forth. Conversely, the followers of the younger, new leader, more than likely hold educational credentials of college or less and have more than likely had limited lead- ership experiences themselves. These co-variations between leader and follower demographics can be, to some degree, controlled for statistically, but a large number of other-than- leader types of studies do not report the results of the many spurious follower variables that might influence rat- ings of the leader. A third type of study is often called Implicit Leadership. In this type of study, no “actual” leader is rated. Rather, the concept of desired or out- standing leadership is measured. In these types of studies, participants complete a survey concerning their prototypes of what constitutes out- standing leadership. There may be a second instrument, such as personal- ity, as well, in order to examine associations between the second construct and participants’ implicit views of what constitutes outstanding leader- ship, or the leadership scores obtained may be analyzed for participant demographics.