Leadership Skills: Investigating female leaders in public organisations using self and subordinate assessments

The purpose of the current study was to investigate prominent skills associated with leadership that posed by female leaders in public organisations. It also aimed to compare the perceptions on the skills between the female superiors themselves and their direct-report subordinates. Forty-one female leaders and fifty-one direct-report subordinates of four public organisations, namely Bank of Thailand, The Ministry of Commerce, The Ministry of Education and Department of Customs, in Thailand were surveyed. Nine research factors were adopted into the research framework, including communication skill, motivation skill, decision-making skill, empowerment skill, negotiation skill, team-building skill, planning skill, human skill and innovation skill. Major results revealed that the female leaders perceived themselves significantly different to their subordinates on six leadership skills, namely communication skill, motivation skill, negotiation skill, planning skill, human skill and innovation skill. However, there was no significant difference of their perceptions on the three factors, including decision-making skill, empowerment skill and team-building skill. The study also provided suggestions for female leaders on how to improve their leadership behavior to match the subordinates¿ expectations.