Another aim in this study was to understand how the contextual
moderators derived from RCT could negatively impact perceptions
of men’s as well as women’s leadership effectiveness. We found
that there are certain contexts in which there may be a greater
perceived congruity between the female gender role and leadership
roles (i.e., middle management, business and education organizations,
settings with a high percent of female raters, and in organizational
settings rather than laboratory settings), and, in these
contexts, women are seen as more effective leaders than men. The
findings regarding middle management and educational organizations
fit with propositions based on RCT. However, the findings
regarding the percent of female raters (tokenism for men) and
organizational settings (settings with higher cognitive loads for
participants) were unexpected.