Aspiration, advocacy, and selection

Gender disparities in leadership continue to persist, suggesting that organizational structures and gendered expectations remain salient in shaping career outcomes. This dissertation conceptualizes women’s workplace advancement and leadership trajectories as a multifaceted process involving social comparison, identity navigation, and charisma signaling. It addresses the research question: In what ways do organizational factors and gender stereotypes influence women’s career advancement, including leadership aspirations, self-advocacy, and the assessment of leader potential? Across three studies, the findings challenge prevailing myths that women’s leadership aspiration depends primarily on same-sex role models, that women self-advocate less than men, and that women are systematically disadvantaged in leader selection. The results show that counter-stereotypical communal supervisors enhance women’s leadership aspiration through social comparison, that women adapt and supplement self-advocacy behaviors in response to identity tensions in performance-oriented environments, and that charisma signaling increases leader selection outcomes equally for women and men. These studies challenge gendered expectations by showing that women are already doing more than enough to level the career playing field. Collectively, this dissertation contributes a comprehensive, multi-theoretical framework that situates women’s career outcomes within organizational systems, leadership norms, and evaluative processes.