We investigated why women may have lower desires and intentions to apply to become a member of a leadership group (i.e., committee) than men when the majority of its members are men. In four studies, we examined the interaction between gender and gender composition of the leadership group on leader candidates’ sense of power, desire to lead, and intentions to apply to become a member of a leadership group. Informed by research on gender, perceived power, and the model of goal-directed behavior, we found that women, compared to men, expected lower sense of power when considering applying to a majority-male (vs. gender-balanced) online leadership committee (Study 1A, N = 294; Study 1B, N = 278). This pattern observed for women in majority-male leadership committees was not, however, evident for men in majority female leadership committees (Study 2, N = 560). Furthermore, women’s lower sense of power explained why they expressed lower desires to lead and intentions to apply for a majority-male leadership committee compared to men. Finally, we found that increasing women’s sense of power increased their desires and intentions to lead in a majority-male committee (Study 3, N = 460). We contribute to understanding why there still exists a discrepancy in the number of men versus women in leadership groups despite ongoing efforts to reduce it. We hope readers will apply these findings by identifying ways to increase women leader candidates’ sense of power in order to increase women’s representation on leadership committees and groups (e.g., boards). Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ's website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/0361684320939065

中文翻译：

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性别、权力感和领导欲望：为什么女性不“倾向于”申请以男性为主的领导团队

我们调查了为什么当领导小组（即委员会）的大多数成员是男性时，女性申请成为领导小组（即委员会）成员的愿望和意图低于男性。在四项研究中，我们研究了领导团队的性别和性别构成之间的相互作用，对领导候选人的权力感、领导欲望和申请成为领导团队成员的意愿进行了研究。通过对性别、感知权力和目标导向行为模型的研究，我们发现，与男性相比，女性在考虑申请男性占多数（与性别平衡）在线领导委员会时期望的权力感较低（研究 1A，N = 294；研究 1B，N = 278）。然而，这种在女性占多数的领导委员会中观察到的模式在女性占多数的领导委员会中的男性中并不明显（研究 2，N = 560）。此外，与男性相比，女性较低的权力感解释了为什么她们表现出较低的领导意愿和申请多数男性领导委员会的意图。最后，我们发现女性权力感的增强会增加她们领导男性占多数的委员会的愿望和意图（研究 3，N = 460）。我们有助于理解为什么尽管一直在努力减少这种差异，但领导团队中的男性与女性人数仍然存在差异。我们希望读者通过确定增加女性领导候选人的权力感的方法来应用这些发现，以增加女性在领导委员会和团体（例如董事会）中的代表性。PWQ 的网站 http://journals.sagepub 上提供了供希望使用本文进行教学的教师的在线幻灯片。