Despite evidence that men are typically perceived as more appropriate and effective than women in
leadership positions, a recent debate has emerged in the popular press and academic literature over the
potential existence of a female leadership advantage. This meta-analysis addresses this debate by
quantitatively summarizing gender differences in perceptions of leadership effectiveness across 99
independent samples from 95 studies. Results show that when all leadership contexts are considered, men
and women do not differ in perceived leadership effectiveness. Yet, when other-ratings only are
examined, women are rated as significantly more effective than men. In contrast, when self-ratings only
are examined, men rate themselves as significantly more effective than women rate themselves.
Additionally, this synthesis examines the influence of contextual moderators developed from role
congruity theory (Eagly & Karau, 2002). Our findings help to extend role congruity theory by demonstrating
how it can be supplemented based on other theories in the literature, as well as how the theory
can be applied to both female and male leaders.