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<a href="http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette">www.mca-marines.org/gazette</a> 43 M a r i n e C o r p s G a z e t t e • M a y 2 0 0 9 deed have the upper hand when it comes to human relations and more in- sight into dealing with emotional oc- currences in the workplace. Due to the scarcity of women in the military, as a female military officer EI then becomes a unique gift for reading people and their emotions in order to develop more effective leader-follower relation- ships. Teamwork The leader-follower relationship is based on trust and focuses on the so- cial exchange created between the leader and member. Behavior in the workplace may then be positively or negatively affected by implications of this relationship. The Center for Cre- ative Leadership found that the num- ber one variable for success in the top three jobs in large organizations was re- lationships with subordinates.11 The key here is the acknowledgement of how “one” affects the whole. An individual’s impact on an organ- ization is further endorsed by the trans- formational leadership concept. The transformational leader expresses a col- lective vision and inspires followers to look past self-interests for the good of the organization. Historically, the trans- formational leader has been attributed with more communal characteristics as opposed to the agentic characteristics of traditional leadership principles. Ander- son, Lievens, Dam, and Born’s12 find- ings supported this concept among female British Army officer candidates who were rated higher on constructs re- flecting an interpersonally oriented lead- ership style, specifically oral com- munication and interaction. Female candidates were also evaluated to have higher levels of drive and determination. Berdahl and Anderson13 further ex- amined women’s transformational and decentralized approach to leadership. Their study addressed gender differ- ences in centralized (one or a few group members) and decentralized (shared among members) structures of group leadership. A centralized structure gen- erally leads to lower levels of cohesion, satisfaction, and performance and to higher levels of tardiness, absenteeism, and turnover. The decentralized struc- The transformational leader expresses a collective vi- sion and inspires followers to look past self-interests for the good of the organization. Women Marines in the Lioness Program in Iraq, 2006. (Photo by Sgt Jennifer Jones.)
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