Gender and The Decline of Leader-Directed Help Seeking Over Time

Authors:

Abstract: When employees encounter problems at work, seeking help from their leaders can provide them the solutions, facilitate learning and development, and improve subsequent performance. However, help-seeking may be professionally costly because it may signal a lack of competence. The current research examines how help-seeking towards one’s leader varies as a function of the seeker’s gender and work tenure. We find that among new or early-tenure employees, women and men exhibit similar tendencies in seeking help from leaders. Over time, however, men reduce their help-seeking, while women’s help-seeking behavior remains constant, even as they become experienced employees. Across 3 studies, our findings add nuance to the common perception that women always ask for help more than men. We propose these patterns emerge because women and men differ in the extent to which they use a hierometer lens, which emphasizes status and hierarchical positioning, when they think about seeking help from leaders.

Track: COMM

Keywords: gender, help seeking, tenure