Study: Americans Expect Business Leaders to Be White

DURHAM, NC — Despite decades of progress for minorities in corporate settings, Americans still expect business leaders to be white, and they judge white leaders as more effective than their minority counterparts. This is according to research published in the July issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology by professors from Duke University, the University of Toronto and Northwestern University.

The research team, led by assistant professor Ashleigh Shelby Rosette of Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, conducted a series of experiments to determine whether race still affects people’s judgments of leader effectiveness and leader potential.

“Over time, people develop implicit beliefs about the traits and behaviors of leaders and this combination of characteristics evolves into a standard called a ‘leader prototype,’” Rosette said. Previous research has shown leaders who are viewed as compatible or consistent with the prototype are evaluated more favorably than leaders who are less compatible with these sets of beliefs, even when the leaders’ performance is identical.

Traditionally, research in this area has focused on leadership traits, such as intelligence, goal-orientation and charisma, or behaviors such as acting in a decisive manner. However, Rosette and co-authors Geoffrey Leonardelli of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and Katherine Phillips of Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management sought to explore whether race, specifically “being white,” was an attribute of people’s leadership prototype.

Source:
Study: Americans Expect Business Leaders to Be White
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