Abstract
Prior research has largely relied on a lumping approach to link leaders’ gender identity to leadership effectiveness and has documented a potential androgyny advantage, yet little is known from a splitting approach that disentangles femininity and masculinity. Drawing on identity theory and role congruity theory, we adopt a splitting approach and employ a 16-week longitudinal quasi-experiment to examine whether and how leaders’ femininity and masculinity shape subordinates’ personal identification with them (SPI). The study (N = 116 + 513) shows that leaders’ femininity, regardless of the leader's sex, positively predicts SPI through enhanced team communication, whereas leaders’ masculinity is not significantly related to SPI. The findings suggest a femininity advantage in cultivating SPI, offering implications for theorizing gender in leadership effectiveness, as well as for leader selection and leadership development.