<p>Now for the whole story (or a shortened version of it!):</p>
<p>I've spent the past year and a half researching and collecting data concerning perceptions of gender and leadership. I worked the past year on doing a large amount of research and running a survey at the Academy dealing with this issue. </p>
<p>The survey was divided into several parts, one of which dealt with choosing 5 traits, as I asked you all to do. Participants were then asked to apply them to scenarios (in which either stereotypically masculine or feminine leadership styles were exhibited by the leader) and rank the leader's overall leadership based on the scenario and how well they demonstrated the chosen traits. They were also told to say how masculine or feminine each of their traits was seen as, according to their own perceptions. There were also two published sexism scales (one for old-fashioned sexism and one for modern sexism) that were inserted. The very last question asked the participant how sexist, on a scale, they thought they were. </p>
<p>Half of the traits are masculine (according to previous research studies) and half of them are feminine. Participants were not told this ahead of time, but it was hypothesized that masculine traits would be chosen more often than feminine ones. Another hypothesis, concerning the scenarios, was that leaders would be seen as more effective when the gender of the leader, leadership sytle, and trait were in congruency (and less effective to various degrees when they were not). Participants were asked how feminine/masculine each trait was in order to see if they were in agreement with previous research; this was not always the case, so it was good this was done in order to prevent jumping to conclusions about the results. Another hypothesis was that cadets would be more sexism (according to the sexism scales) than they admitted to being and also that they would score higher on modern sexism than old-fashioned sexism. Just to clarify, old-fashioned sexism is what people usually think of when they think of sexism - blatant attitudes and actions signifying that one gender is superior to the other. Modern sexism, however, is more subtle and more of a lack of concern for women's issues, etc.</p>
<p>One interesting finding with the traits was that the top 4 traits chosen by both males and females were the same (although they were in a different order). A possible explanation for this is that we all go through the same expereinces and training at the Academy. We thought it would be interesting to survey cadets when they first get there and then again later to see if their traits converged over time and changed to reflect Academy teachings. </p>
<p>I asked the question here as I was curious how you all compared, despite the very unofficial method and small sample size. Your top traits were: unselfish, inspiring, competent, assertive, and collaborative.</p>
<p>The top traits for the 171 participants at the Academy were: inspiring, rational, understanding, and organized.</p>
<p>The paper ended up being about 30 pages, but was very interesting to do. It may eventualy get published, but that's uncertain right now. It was done as part of a 499 (independent study) project, which is a lot of work but an awesome opportunity to study what you're interested in. You also get credits for doing it (meaning you don't have to take as many majors classes in the long run). ;)</p>