Higher Education Students
OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to compare the leadership practices of male and female MBA students in Mexico, and to identify possible differences between males and females on transformational leadership self-efficacy. METHODOLOGY MBA students from three universities in Tijuana, Baja California were asked to participate (N=513) and 153 completed the Spanish-language version of the Leadership Practices Inventory. In this sample the internal reliability coefficients were .724 (Model), .845 (Inspire), .782 (Challenge), .667 (Enable), and .871 (Encourage). There were 73 men and 80 women in the sample.
KEY FINDINGS No statistically significant differences on any of the five leadership practices were found between the male and female respondents. The author concludes: “If LPI Self scores for women in the sample would have been lower than those of men to a statistically significant degree, an argument could have been made suggesting that women are underrepresented in leadership roles because of differences in leadership self-efficacy. The results, however, indicate that this is not the case” (p. 77). “This finding is meaningful because it supports the notion that gender does not account for differences in leadership self-efficacy among the individuals in the sample” (p. 81).