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LEAQUA-01058; No of Pages 13 The Leadership Quarterly xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

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How displaying empathic concern may differentially predict career derailment potential for women and men leaders in Australia William A. Gentry a,⁎, Malissa A. Clark b, Stephen F. Young c, Kristin L. Cullen a, Lauren Zimmerman b a b c

Research, Innovation, and Product Development, Center for Creative Leadership, USA Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, USA Emerging Markets and Technology, Design Interactive, Inc., USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 29 April 2014 Received in revised form 28 April 2015 Accepted 28 May 2015 Available online xxxx Editor: Janaki Gooty Keywords: Derailment potential Empathic concern Empathy Gender

a b s t r a c t Past research notes the importance of emotions in the workplace. Much less is known about the role that empathic concern, an affect-laden construct, plays in predicting a leader's career advancement using measures of one's upward mobility, such as career derailment potential. Data provided by practicing managers in Australia show that leaders who displayed behaviors that convey empathic concern receive lower ratings of career derailment potential. We also found that gender was a statistically significant moderator of these relationships. With boss rating of derailment potential as the outcome, the negative relationship between empathic concern and derailment potential was statistically significant for women only. With peer ratings of derailment potential as the outcome, the negative relationship between empathic concern and derailment potential was stronger for women than men. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction Scholars and practitioners alike note the importance of emotions in organizational life. Many have observed and studied the emotional capacity of empathy, the ability of a person to comprehend and convey understanding of the emotions and feelings another person is experiencing (Salovey & Mayer, 1990; Vignemont & Singer, 2006). Indeed, leaders “must be sensitive to followers' emotional needs; they also need to display empathy towards their followers, and to understand how their followers feel” (Ashkanasy, Hartel, & Daus, 2002, p. 326). According to Davis (1983, 1996), one important aspect of empathy is empathic concern: how leaders experience feelings of warmth, compassion, and concern for others. More recently and consistent with Davis (1983, 1996), Batson (2011, p. 11) defined empathic concern as “the other-oriented emotion elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone else in need.” Despite recent research identifying empathy as an important construct to study in leadership and emotion management (Gooty, Connelly, Griffith, & Gupta, 2010; Humphrey, 2002; Rajah, Song, & Arvey, 2011), and its connection to transformational leadership (e.g., Avolio & Bass, 1995), leadership emergence and perceived leadership (Kellett, Humphrey, & Sleeth, 2002, 2006), little research has examined the relationship between displays of empathic concern and a leader's potential for continued career advancement, progression, upward mobility, or alternatively, his or her “career derailment potential.” While many leaders have the ability, capacity, and capability to successfully advance in their organization, other leaders who similarly were expected to progress and advance to higher levels in organizations, do not. These leaders experience derailment, ⁎ Corresponding author at: Center for Creative Leadership, One Leadership Place, Greensboro, North Carolina 27410, USA. Tel.: +1 336 286 4598; fax: +1 336 286 4434. E-mail address: [email protected] (W.A. Gentry).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.05.003 1048-9843/© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Gentry, W.A., et al., How displaying empathic concern may differentially predict career derailment potential for women and men leaders in Australia, The Leadership Quarterly (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.05.003

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defined as when a leader “who was expected to go higher in the organization and who was judged to have the ability to do so is fired, demoted, or plateaued below expected levels of achievement” (Lombardo & McCauley, 1988, p. 1). Historically, a person's current job performance and effectiveness have been used as a proxy for the ability to progress and advance in one's career. Such measures however are not synonymous with derailment potential (Conger & Fulmer, 2003; Hall, 2002). Different than those who are able to progress, advance, and succeed in higher organizational levels, derailed individuals display certain behaviors that are indicative of an individual's career derailment potential (see Braddy, Gooty, Fleenor, & Yammarino, 2014; Gentry, 2010; Gentry & Chappelow, 2009; Gentry & Shanock, 2008; Hogan, Hogan, & Kaiser, 2010). Decades of research shows that certain behaviors, such as problems with interpersonal relationships or difficulty changing and adapting, are not simply a lack of certain skills or competencies. Rather, these behaviors indicate an inability to work with others to accomplish goals at higher positions in organizations that eventually limit one's own career advancement, resulting in a person plateauing in his or her career, being demoted, or fired (Einarsen, Aasland, & Skogstad, 2007; Furnham, 2010; Hogan et al., 2010; Lombardo, Ruderman, & McCauley, 1988). Accordingly, we define career derailment potential based on whether or not a leader displays behaviors indicative of career derailment which ultimately limit or stall a person's career (Braddy et al., 2014; Carson et al., 2012; Lombardo & McCauley, 1988). The purpose of our work is to advance the understanding of how, why, and under what conditions behavioral displays of empathic concern relate to ratings of career derailment potential. We thus aim to make two contributions to the literature. First, examining how behavioral displays of empathic concern (as rated by a leader's direct reports) are related to career derailment potential (as rated from a leader's boss and peers) can extend research by examining the predictive power of empathy, a construct that is growing in interest in leadership scholarship (Holt & Marques, 2012). Drawing on signaling theory, we contend that displaying behaviors that connote empathic concern is one key signal of other- (as opposed to self) focus. Such other-focus is important for working with others to attain goals at higher organizational levels, a critical requirement of those able to continue advancing to higher levels in the organization (Charan, Drotter, & Noel, 2011), and a hallmark of low derailment potential (Gentry, 2010; Gentry & Chappelow, 2009; Hogan et al., 2010). Furthermore, our work can help bring attention to the importance of emotion management and regulation at work. A leader's public displays of empathic concern may be considered one form of emotional labor, which involves “management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display” (Hochschild, 1983, p. 7). In order to develop effective interpersonal relationships, leaders may engage in emotional labor to signal to followers emotional displays of empathic concern, in an effort to show compassion and understanding (Humphrey, Pollack, & Hawver, 2008). Thus, displaying empathic concern may be an important aspect of emotional labor that signals an other-oriented compassionate focus on the well-being of followers, which ultimately may help the leader in the realm of career management and progression. Hence, we advance the field by examining how and why empathic concern may be related to career advancement, progression, and upward mobility outcomes specifically, career derailment potential. Second, we contribute to the literature by considering rival hypotheses pertaining to gender as a possible moderator of the relationship between empathic concern and career derailment potential. This contribution adds to the growing literature that has begun to move past the simplistic arguments of whether women are more or less effective leaders than men and instead, examines when and why there may be gender differences (Eagly & Carli, 2003; Paustian-Underdahl, Walker, & Woehr, 2014; Vecchio, 2002, 2003). Empathic concern and career derailment potential Signaling theory (Fiske & Taylor, 1984; Spence, 1974; see also Connelly, Certo, Ureland, & Reutzel, 2011) offers a description of how and why leaders may use behaviors that convey empathic concern as a signal specifically meant to shape ratings of their career derailment potential. According to signaling theory, people in organizations such as a leader's boss and peers, usually have incomplete information when evaluating said leader. Incomplete information stems from the high level of information processing demands placed on people to complete their own work as well as monitor others' work. Thus, a leader must signal, that is transmit purposeful information about his or her intentions or abilities, to meet the information needs and demands of that leader's own boss or peers, or in signaling theory terms, the receiver (Connelly et al., 2011). As part of their responsibility for their own career management and progression (Ng, Eby, Sorensen, & Feldman, 2005; Wayne, Liden, Graf, & Ferris, 1999; Wayne, Liden, Kraimer, & Graf, 1997), leaders must be intentional in the signals they send concerning their ability to advance and succeed in higher organizational levels. Ratings of career derailment potential are highly subjective because of the difficulty to accurately predict whether a leader who despite being competent in his or her current level, will succeed or fail at higher levels of the organization in the future. Others making judgments about a leader's future career potential (i.e., receivers) therefore rely heavily on the signals sent by leaders (Connelly et al., 2011). If signals leaders send do not meet the information needs, demands, and expectations of the receiver, those leaders are likely to be fired, transferred, or not promoted (Tsui & Ashford, 1994). Signals must match what bosses and peers expect leaders to do and the characteristics they expect leaders to have to be successful in higher-level organizational positions. If not, they will see the leader as having a high potential to derail. Using signaling theory, our work aims to examine the relationship between empathic concern and career derailment potential. It should be mentioned that there are three other dimensions of empathy aside from empathic concern: perspective taking, fantasy, and personal distress, (Davis, 1983, 1996). Perspective taking involves adopting another's point of view. Fantasy deals with imagining oneself as a character in fictitious settings (e.g., books, movies). Personal distress refers to feelings of discomfort in intense interpersonal relationships. We believe empathic concern is the most useful of the four dimensions in the study of leaders and their career derailment potential. Though perspective taking and imagining one's self in another's situation (akin to fantasy) may undoubtedly play a role in promoting positive interpersonal outcomes, Batson (2011) explains that both states precede feelings of empathic concern. As a result, we focus on empathic concern in this study because it should have the most proximal effect on career derailment potential. Please cite this article as: Gentry, W.A., et al., How displaying empathic concern may differentially predict career derailment potential for women and men leaders in Australia, The Leadership Quarterly (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.05.003

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Further, though personal distress may be experienced in parallel with empathic concern after perceiving another in need (Batson, 2011), this component involves feelings of distress in intense interpersonal situations and closely resembles general emotional reactivity (Eisenberg et al., 1994). Thus, personal distress may not be as useful in studies of leader–follower relationships as would empathic concern (Sadri, Weber, & Gentry, 2011). Due to the theoretical foundation of signaling theory and specific need to examine other-focused signals that come from a leader, we believe empathic concern is the most relevant and useful dimension of empathy to examine in the present study. A leader's display of behavior that connotes empathic concern is important in the signaling process shaping whether or not bosses and peers think the leader has a potential to derail. More specifically, behaviors that connote empathic concern inform others of one's abilities and intentions related to how much the leader values others' welfare and wants others' needs relieved (Batson, Turk, Shaw, & Klein, 1995). Thus, when a person has empathic concern, he or she behaves and acts in observable ways that show emotional responsiveness, affective perspective taking, and other- (as opposed to self) orientation (Kalshoven, Den Hartog, & De Hoogh, 2013; Stephan & Finlay, 1999). The leader's ability to signal an other-focus should cause receivers to realize that said leader has the necessary skill set to work with others to accomplish goals at higher levels in the organization, which is related to low career derailment potential (Braddy et al., 2014; Carson et al., 2012). Research indicates that people with empathic concern do tend to behave in observable ways that show concern for others and are focused on others. In a social psychology context, Davis (1996) theorized that individuals who feel more empathic concern for others indeed tend to demonstrate higher levels of empathic behavior as rated by observers. Silvester, Patterson, Koczwara, and Ferguson (2007) extended this line of research by showing that different types of empathic behavior convey varying levels of empathic concern as rated by others. Indeed, effective leaders are more considerate and sensitive to the needs of their followers than ineffective leaders (House & Podsakoff, 1994). This allows leaders to accurately recognize the emotions others have and in turn, convey the appropriate expression and response needed in the situation (Humphrey, Kellett, Sleeth, & Hartman, 2008). Thus, leaders treat their direct reports in ways that they prefer (Blader & Rothman, 2014). Specifically, their direct reports are less likely to feel that they will be harshly judged or criticized (Cooper & Sawaf, 1997), compelling subordinates to feel more connected with their leader, to feel as if their leader recognizes their needs, are focused on them rather than the leader himself or herself (Gooty et al., 2010), and to feel more satisfied with their leader (Byron, 2007). This stream of research supports our contention that individuals possessing greater empathic concern do in fact engage in behaviors readily observed by others that convey empathic concern. Signaling theory would suggest that these readily observed behaviors could be used as a signal specifically meant to shape others' impressions. The demonstration of behaviors conveying higher levels of empathic concern signal that leaders are focused more on others than themselves and have a concern for others. These behaviors are essential in a leader's ability to progress and advance in his or her career, succeed in higher organizational levels (Charan et al., 2011), and crucial in shaping others' impressions as having low derailment potential (Carson et al., 2012; Gentry, 2010; Gentry & Chappelow, 2009; Hogan et al., 2010). If however, leaders have low empathic concern, they would be focused on themselves rather than others. They would be unable to signal to others that they have the other-focus necessary to understand and work with others to achieve goals in higher-level positions within the organization in the future. They would be less concerned about others, less considerate and sensitive to their needs, and feel less of a connection with them. In sum, because less empathic leaders do not send signals that meet the needs, demands, and expectations of the receiver, these leaders would likely derail (Tsui & Ashford, 1994). Hypothesis 1. Displays of behaviors that convey empathic concern will be negatively related to ratings of career derailment potential. Specifically, higher ratings of a leader's empathic concern from direct reports will be related to lower ratings of career derailment potential by bosses and peers.

Gender as a moderator Because of the continued underrepresentation of women in leadership roles, coupled with the prescriptive nature of stereotypes about men and women (Carli, 2001), women's displays of empathic concern may be particularly salient to observers. Indeed, Fitzsimmons, Callan, and Paulsen (2014, p. 246) have acknowledged that “virtually all social interactions around leadership are influenced by gendered expectations and associations.” Given that women's displays of empathic concern may be particularly salient to observers, it is important to understand the implications of this key signal. Unfortunately, the existing research does not paint a clear picture of whether these empathic behaviors help or hinder perceptions of women as leaders and in particular perceptions of their career derailment potential. On the one hand, women's displays of empathic concern may highlight the incongruency between their perceived feminine communal qualities and the masculine (i.e., agentic) qualities typically ascribed to leaders1 (i.e., “think manager-think male” stereotype, see Schein, Mueller, Lituchy, & Liu, 1996). Alternatively, it has been suggested that for women more so than men, demonstrations of empathic concern may be expected and rewarded because empathic concern aligns with women's prescriptive gender norms (i.e., the “female leadership advantage”; see Eagly & Carli, 2003). Finally, there is also strong evidence that perceptions of leadership are changing, and traditionally feminine qualities such as warmth and empathy are increasingly valued characteristics for both men and women leaders (Koenig, Eagly, Mitchell, & Ristikari, 2011). Given there is support for each of these perspectives, we propose three rival hypotheses on the role of gender in the relationship between displays of empathic concern and career derailment potential. 1

We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion of rival hypotheses.

Please cite this article as: Gentry, W.A., et al., How displaying empathic concern may differentially predict career derailment potential for women and men leaders in Australia, The Leadership Quarterly (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.05.003

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Drawing from signaling theory as well as social role theory (Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001), we suggest that compared to men, women's displays of empathic concern could be particularly important and salient for the receiver in the signaling processes. Gender stereotypes shape our perception of the attributes possessed by men and women as well as the norms about the appropriate behaviors for each gender. Specifically, women are viewed as possessing communal attributes, such as being kind, nurturing, gentle, and empathic, while men are viewed as possessing agentic attributes, such as being assertive, ambitious, self-confident, and independent (Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). Given this, incongruence may exist between stereotypic attributes of women, such as nurturance or empathy, and stereotypic masculine attributes, such as assertiveness, believed to be necessary for success in the upper echelons of organizations (Heilman, 1983, 2001). Similarly, Eagly and Karau's (2002) role congruity theory posits that a bias against women in leadership roles may exist due to the stereotypic perceptions of women that are inconsistent with attributes of men believed to be required for success as a leader in higher-level leadership roles. This may be why women managers are often evaluated more negatively than men managers (Heilman, Block, & Martell, 1995). Taken together, our first rival hypothesis predicts that a woman's display of empathic concern may be a particularly salient signal to others that she possesses communal qualities, thus highlighting the incongruity between the characteristics she possesses and the agentic qualities typically ascribed to leaders who are successful in higher-level organizational positions. This in turn would lead to higher ratings of her career derailment potential. Hypothesis 2. Gender will moderate the relationship between displays of behaviors that convey empathic concern and ratings of career derailment potential. Specifically, women's displays of behaviors that convey empathic concern will have a positive relationship to ratings of career derailment potential, while men's displays of behaviors that convey empathic concern will have a negative relationship to ratings of career derailment potential. On the other hand, research has shown that negative evaluations of women leaders can be tempered or even reversed if the woman displays stereotypically feminine qualities consistent with prescriptive gender norms (Byron, 2007; Eagly & Carli, 2003). In support of this idea, several studies have found that when women display communal qualities such as empathy, they are rated by others as more influential and likeable, whereas men's ratings of influence are less likely to depend on displays of communality (Byron, 2007; Carli, 2001; Carli, LaFleur, & Loeber, 1995). The ability to correctly identify emotions in others (which is closely aligned with empathic concern) has been shown to be valued more in women than men leaders (e.g., Eagly & Karau, 2002). Taken together, these findings support the idea of a female leadership advantage, which states that due to the changing nature of managerial work (i.e., shifting more towards the role of coach or teacher as opposed to an authoritative figure), women are even better suited for leadership roles in higher-level organizational levels than men because of their communal nature (Eagly & Carli, 2003). Given this, our second rival hypothesis predicts that women's displays of empathic concern may be an even stronger signal others receive compared to men. Sending such a signal would suggest a stronger negative relationship with career derailment potential for women than these same relationships would be for men. Hypothesis 3. Gender will moderate the relationship between displays of behaviors that convey empathic concern and ratings of career derailment potential. Specifically, women's displays of behaviors that convey empathic concern will have a stronger negative relationship to ratings of career derailment potential compared to men. It is also possible that with the increasing prevalence of women in leadership roles around the world, including Australia where leaders in our study live (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2013; Australian Government, 2013), stereotypes about leaders may have changed. In fact, meta-analytic evidence suggests that the “think manager-think male” construal of leadership has decreased over time (Koenig et al., 2011). Specifically, using year of publication as a moderator and examining publications across several decades, Koenig et al. found that there is increasing similarity in terms of the characteristics prescribed to women and the characteristics prescribed to leaders (there was no change in the similarity between characteristics of leaders and characteristics of men over time). In other words, leadership perceptions are increasingly incorporating qualities such as warmth, sensitivity, and empathy, in addition to the traditional agentic qualities associated with leadership. Therefore, displays of empathic concern may be equally important signals from both women and men and hence, may be a highly-valued signal for both genders equally. Therefore, our third and final rival hypothesis states: Hypothesis 4. Gender will not moderate the negative relationship between displays of behaviors that convey empathic concern and ratings of career derailment potential.

Method Participants and procedures Data on 289 practicing leaders from Australia were collected from an archival multi-source database. A majority of participants (75.8%) worked in the private sector. These leaders were in various managerial levels (78.6% were in front-line, middle or uppermiddle management, 21.4% were at executive levels) and averaged 3.67 (SD = 4.07) years in their jobs and 8.67 (SD = 7.60) years in their current organizations. Their mean age was 41.79 years (SD = 7.29) and a majority (76.5%) were men. All the participants in our study were practicing managers who took a multi-source instrument as part of a leadership development process. On average 3.50 direct reports rated each participant on empathic concern (SD = 1.25, range = 2–10). Career derailment potential ratings came from the leader's own boss and peers. All 289 participants had only 1 boss, and 247 had at least 2 peers rate them Please cite this article as: Gentry, W.A., et al., How displaying empathic concern may differentially predict career derailment potential for women and men leaders in Australia, The Leadership Quarterly (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.05.003

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on career derailment potential (M = 3.23 peers per participant, SD = 1.08. range = 2–7). Hence, the sample size for the analyses using boss ratings of career derailment potential was 289 and that for peer ratings of career derailment potential was 247. Measures Empathic concern The instrument used to gather direct report ratings of empathic concern was BENCHMARKS®2 (Lombardo & McCauley, 1994; McCauley & Lombardo, 1990), a well-validated, reliable assessment (Carty, 2003; Spangler, 2003; Zedeck, 1995). The instrument contains four items used in prior research (Sadri et al., 2011) that measures empathic concern (Cronbach's alpha = .81 for this study). The work of Sadri et al. (2011) shows the background behind the creation and use of this 4-item measure of empathic concern. Initially, 12 of the 115 items from the multi-source instrument were believed by those authors to tap into the general construct of empathy. A content analysis by subject matter experts who rated the relevance of each item on a 7-point scale where 1 = very inconsistent and 7 = very consistent to the conceptual definition of “sensing what others are feeling” found that four items in particular had high ratings (M = 5.45) and rwg(j) (James, Demaree, & Wolf, 1984) values above .70. Subsequently, 198 students from two large universities rated themselves and someone they knew well on these four items and the 7-item measure of empathic concern from Davis (1983). The results stated in Sadri et al. (2011) showed high correlations between the two (self-rating r = .52, p b 0.01; other rating r = .71, p b 0.01), providing some validation evidence of the 4-item measure as a measure of empathic concern. In the current study, direct reports rated the extent to which their leader displayed behaviors of empathic concern using a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = not at all to 5 = to a very great extent). An example items is: “Is sensitive to signs of overwork in others.” We aggregated direct report ratings because more than one direct report rated each leader. To justify aggregation, we calculated intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) 1 and 2 (Bliese, 2000), and rwg(j) (James et al., 1984). ICC(1) was .27 (F = 2.30, p b .01) and ICC(2) was .56. These ICCs suggest appreciable between leader differences to aggregate direct reports ratings based on criteria used in past research (cf. Greguras & Robie, 1998; Van Velsor & Leslie, 1991). The ICCs were also comparable to those from published studies using similar multi-source data (e.g., Sadri et al., 2011). In addition, mean and median rwg(j) values were each above .85 for a normal null distribution and a small-null distribution that may more accurately reflect the distribution of our data. Usually a value of .70 generally indicates sufficient interrater agreement to combine individual ratings (James, 1988). Taken together, the ICC(1), ICC(2) and rwg(j) values indicated that direct report ratings of empathic concern could be aggregated. Career derailment potential The instrument also provided data on career derailment potential of each leader from the perspective of the leader's boss and peers. Consistent with studies in the past decade (for instance, Cullen, Gentry, & Yammarino, 2015; Gentry & Shanock, 2008; Graves, Ohlott, & Ruderman, 2007) scores from the 40 items from the BENCHMARKS assessment used to measure the five behaviors that limit or stall a person's career (i.e., problems with interpersonal relationships, difficultly building and leading teams, difficulty changing and adapting, failure in meeting business goals and objectives, and too narrow functional orientation) were averaged together to assess career derailment potential operationalized as behaviors limiting or stalling a person's career. These items in total have been shown to “differentiate promotable managers from nonpromotable managers” (Lyness & Judiesch, 2008, p. 793). Further, individuals who display these behaviors are likely to be fired, demoted, or plateau below their expected level of achievement, and these items have been used as a measure of derailment potential in previously published studies (cf. Braddy et al., 2014; Gentry, Hannum, Ekelund, & de Jong, 2007). Bosses and peers rated the leader on each of the 40 items on a 5-point scale with 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree. Sample items included “Is overwhelmed by complex tasks,” “Is not adaptable to many different types of people,” and “Is dictatorial in his/her approach.” Higher scores (those closer to 5) indicate that the leader has a high career derailment potential and lower scores (those closer to 1) indicate a low career derailment potential (α = .97 for bosses, α = .97 for peers). Gender For the moderation hypothesis, we included gender (coded 0 = Man, 1 = Woman). Control variables We examined several potential control variables to provide a stronger test of the hypotheses. Age and the human capital variables of job and organization tenure (continuous variables) were included as past research has shown that these variables may account for variance in how leaders are evaluated and are related to career progression (Judge, Cable, Boudreau, & Bretz, 1995; Lawrence, 1988; Ng & Feldman, 2010; Ng et al., 2005). Moreover, because we had a wide variety of leaders working across organizations, we also controlled for managerial level and organizational sector. Analytic approach Before conducting the necessary analyses to test the proposed hypotheses, we used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to establish the distinctiveness of the empathic concern and the career derailment potential measures. We conducted two separate CFAs using 2

BENCHMARKS® is a registered trademark of the Center for Creative Leadership.

Please cite this article as: Gentry, W.A., et al., How displaying empathic concern may differentially predict career derailment potential for women and men leaders in Australia, The Leadership Quarterly (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.05.003

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Mplus (Muthen & Muthen, 1998–2010): (1) empathic concern rated by direct reports with career derailment potential rated by the boss and (2) empathic concern rated by direct reports with career derailment potential rated by peers. To create indicators for the latent constructs of empathic concern (rated by direct reports) and career derailment potential (when rated by peers) we used the average rating across raters for each item (Scott & Judge, 2009). In order to improve the participant to parameter ratio for each CFA, we used domain-representative parceling to create five parcels as indicators of the career derailment potential construct. Williams and O'Boyle (2008) advise that this approach is appropriate when researchers are interested in relationships at the level of the overall construct (e.g., examining the relationship between empathic concern and overall career derailment potential). Items from each dimension of the five behaviors of career derailment potential were distributed between the parcels so that each parcel reflected the overall construct. To scale the latent variables we arbitrarily fixed one of the factor loadings for each latent variable to 1.0. We freely estimated all other factor loadings and error variances of the indicators and the covariance among the latent variables. The CFA results for the model including boss ratings of career derailment potential indicated that all factor loadings were significant (M = .83, SD = .08) and that the overall model fit was satisfactory: χ2(26) = 43.19, p b .01, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .05 (90% confidence interval [CI] [.02, .07]), comparative fit index (CFI) = .99, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = .99, and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) = .03. The latent correlation between empathic concern and career derailment potential was −.21. We tested an alternative model in which empathic concern and career derailment potential loaded onto a single latent construct to provide further support for the distinctiveness of these constructs. The overall fit for the one-factor model was not satisfactory: χ2(27) = 502.99, p b .01, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .25 (90% confidence interval [CI] [.23, .27]), comparative fit index (CFI) = .73, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = .64, and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) = .19 Further, a chi-square difference test revealed that the model fit was significantly worse for the one-factor model, Δχ2(1) = 459.80, p b .01 providing evidence supporting discriminant validity. Similar to that of boss ratings, the CFA results for the model including peer ratings of career derailment potential indicated that all factor loadings were significant (M = .87, SD = .11) and that the overall model fit was sufficient: χ2(26) = 85.98, p b .01, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .09 (90% confidence interval [CI] [.07, .11]), comparative fit index (CFI) = .98, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = .97, and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) = .04. The latent correlation between empathic concern and career derailment potential was − .30. We tested an alternative model in which empathic concern and career derailment potential loaded onto a single latent construct to provide further support for the distinctiveness of these constructs. The overall fit for the one-factor model was not satisfactory: χ2(27) = 501.13, p b .01, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .25 (90% confidence interval [CI] [.23, .27]), comparative fit index (CFI) = .82, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = .76, and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) = .18. Further, a chi-square difference test revealed that the model fit was significantly worse for the onefactor model, Δχ2(1) = 415.15, p b .01 providing evidence supporting discriminant validity. To test our hypotheses, we used the general procedure recommended by Baron and Kenny (1986), first using boss ratings of career derailment potential, and then using peer ratings of career derailment potential. In progressive steps in the model we entered all necessary control variables, followed by direct report ratings of empathic concern (to test our first hypothesis), the gender variable, and finally the interaction of empathic concern and leader gender (to examine the remaining hypotheses). All continuous control variables were mean-centered to reduce multicollinearity.

Results The means, standard deviations, and correlations of the variables are shown in Table 1. All results were based on two-tailed tests, using a p b .05 significance level. Although important to examine the potential influence of the control variables, none were significantly related to career derailment potential. Therefore, following best practices (Carlson & Wu, 2012) we present the results testing our hypotheses based on more parsimonious models that did not include the control variables.

Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations among study's variables. Variable

M

SD

1

1. Age 2. Gendera 3. Managerial levelb 4. Organizational sectorc 5. Job tenure 6. Organization tenure 7. Empathic concern 8. Boss derailment potential 9. Peer derailment potential

41.79 0.24 2.06 0.76 3.67 8.67 3.96 1.75 1.87

7.29 0.42 0.81 0.43 4.07 7.60 0.52 0.56 0.47

– −.10 .29⁎⁎ −.08 .25⁎⁎ .39⁎⁎ .05 .01 .08

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

– −.13⁎ −.18⁎⁎ −.03 −.09 .14⁎ .03 .05

– .02 .03 .09 −.07 −.08 .09

– .04 .02 −.02 .00 .06

– .32⁎⁎ .03 .00 .00

– .02 −.02 .02

– −.19⁎⁎ −.27⁎⁎

– .43⁎⁎



Note. a 0 = Man, 1 = Woman. b0 = First-level, 1 = Middle-level, 2 = Upper-Middle level, 3 = Executive, 4 = Top. c0 = Public, 1 = Private. Job and organization tenure measured in years. **p b .01; *p b .05.

Please cite this article as: Gentry, W.A., et al., How displaying empathic concern may differentially predict career derailment potential for women and men leaders in Australia, The Leadership Quarterly (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.05.003

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Empathic concern, gender, and boss ratings of career derailment potential When examining step 1 of the regression results found in Table 2, direct report ratings of empathic concern were negatively related to boss ratings of career derailment potential (unstandardized coefficient = −.21, β = −.19, ΔR2 = .04, p b .01). Leaders who displayed empathic concern had a lower boss rating of career derailment potential. Thus, Hypothesis 1 was fully supported for boss ratings of career derailment. The test of the moderating effect of leader gender on the relationship between empathic concern and boss rating of career derailment potential can be found in step 3 of Table 2. The interaction term (unstandardized coefficient = −.30, β = −.15, p b .05) was statistically significant. Tests of the ΔR2 (via the ΔF statistical test) showed that entering the interaction term led to a statistically significant 2% increase in variance explained. Such a percent increase in variance is small, yet typical of interaction terms in field settings (cf. Champoux & Peters, 1987; Evans, 1985). Fig. 1 depicts the moderating effect. The simple effect of empathic concern was negative, but not significantly related to boss ratings of career derailment potential for men leaders (unstandardized coefficient = −.14, β = −.13 t = −1.88, ns). For women leaders, the negative relationship between empathic concern and boss ratings of career derailment potential was significant and much stronger in magnitude (unstandardized coefficient = − .44, β = − .27 t = − 3.62, p b .01). In sum, higher empathic concern is significantly related to lower boss ratings of career derailment potential for women, but not men. These findings for boss ratings of career derailment potential are consistent with support of Hypothesis 3 and not Hypotheses 2 or 4. Empathic concern, gender, and peer ratings of career derailment potential Because multiple peers provided ratings of derailment potential, we ran a multilevel analysis to examine our hypotheses with regard to peer ratings. An unconditional means model was fit where leader was allowed to have a random intercept. This model indicated that .1058/(.1058 + .3152) = 25.13% of the variance was between leaders. The random intercept was found to be significant with a Wald test p-value = b.0001. As explained previously, the predictors of interest were entered in a sequential manner after we established that the multilevel model was necessary. When examining step 1 of the multilevel analysis results found in Table 3, empathic concern was a significant level-2 predictor (γ01 = −.27, t = −4.78, p b .01, ΔR2 = .16). Specifically, direct report ratings of empathic concern were negatively related to peer ratings of career derailment potential. Thus, Hypothesis 1 was fully supported for peer ratings of career derailment potential. The test of the moderating effect of leader gender and empathic concern on peer ratings of career derailment potential can be found in step 3 of Table 3. The interaction term was significant (γ03 = −.38, t = −3.26, p b .01, ΔR2 = .06) and explained 6% more of the between leader variance. Fig. 2 depicts the moderating effect. The simple slope analyses revealed that the effect of empathic concern was negative for male leaders (γ01 = − .15, t = − 2.16, p b .05) and the negative relationship was even stronger for female leaders (γ03 = −.38, t = −5.56, p b .01). In sum, higher empathic concern is related to lower peer ratings of career derailment for both men and women, but the relationship is stronger for women leaders. These findings for peer ratings of career derailment potential are consistent with support of Hypothesis 3 and not Hypotheses 2 or 4. Discussion Recently, scholars have acknowledged the importance of emotions at work. Two recent reviews have drawn attention to the importance of emotions for leaders and followers (Gooty et al., 2010; Rajah et al., 2011). Furthermore, past contributions to the literature have shown how an affect-laden construct, namely empathy, relates to leadership and performance outcomes (Kellett et al., 2002, 2006; Sadri et al., 2011). However, research falls short in two areas, which our study attempts to address. We first examine whether empathic concern is related to future-oriented career advancement, mobility, or progression outcomes, specifically the potential for a leader to derail in the future. We found that displays of behaviors that convey empathic concern (as rated by direct reports) are negatively related to ratings of career derailment potential by a leader's boss and peers, supporting Hypothesis 1. This is important as it demonstrates how empathic concern and its behavioral expression may be beneficial to a leader's potential to progress in his or her career. Second, we examine whether displays of empathic concern are more, less, or equally important for women and men leaders with regards to career derailment potential. Focused on exploring the importance of gender, we found that the negative relationship between displays of empathic concern and ratings of career derailment potential is stronger for women than men, supporting Hypothesis 3. This finding lends support to the literature suggesting that demonstrations of empathic concern may be expected

Table 2 Results for boss ratings of career derailment potential. Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Predictor variables

β

β

β

Empathic concern Gender Empathic concern × Gender Model R (R2) Model ΔR2

−.19⁎⁎

−.20⁎⁎ .06

−.13 .08 −.15⁎

.194 (.04)

.203 (.04) .00

.237 (.06) .02⁎

Note: ⁎p b .05; ⁎⁎p b .01; β = standardized regression weight.

Please cite this article as: Gentry, W.A., et al., How displaying empathic concern may differentially predict career derailment potential for women and men leaders in Australia, The Leadership Quarterly (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.05.003

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Fig. 1. The moderating effect of gender on the relationship between empathic concern and boss evaluations of career derailment potential at low and high empathic concern levels.

and rewarded more for women than men (e.g., Eagly & Carli, 2003). This helps extend the literature on when and why there are gender differences among leaders. Contributions to theory and research Our findings make a number of contributions to theory and research. Our first contribution lies in providing evidence of displays of empathic concern affecting perceptions of a future-oriented variable focused on career advancement, progression and upward mobility — career derailment potential. Though past research has examined how empathy and empathic concern relate to job and leader performance (Kellett et al., 2002, 2006; Sadri et al., 2011), organizations are not just concerned about present performance. Organizations are also concerned about the potential of individuals to be successful in positions at higher organizational levels. Thus, our research examining career derailment potential extends and makes a contribution to the literature. The field stands to advance more quickly if researchers also consider the unique factors that contribute to explaining more future-oriented, career-related outcomes pertaining to career advancement, progression, or upward mobility. Our work also makes a theoretical contribution by drawing on signaling theory as a possible way to explain why displays of empathic concern may negatively relate to ratings of career derailment potential. Such ratings are subjective in nature and are therefore open to influence. In turn, leaders may be able to shape others' impressions of their ability to successfully progress in their careers. Based on our results, it appears that displays of behavior conveying empathic concern may be used as a signal that leaders send in the signaling process to shape others' impressions. The leaders in our study who displayed empathic concern were most likely focused on and had concern for others. This concern was manifested in their sensitivity to signs of overwork in others, demonstration of interest in others, conveyance of compassion, and a willingness to help others. Such expressions afforded them an ability to have increased tolerance for others, actively support others, and gain cooperation through warmth and compassion (Davis, 1996). Displays of behaviors that convey empathic concern also signal an ability to take another's perspective, understand others, and build relationships (Humphrey, 2002; Kellett et al., 2002, 2006; Rajah et al., 2011). This likely made more salient their ability to work with others to attain goals at higher organizational levels in the future (Treadway et al., 2013), indicating that they have the emotional capacity and capability to succeed at higher organizational levels in the future. The use of behaviors that convey empathic concern in the signaling process could have theoretical and research implications for the broader emotion regulation and management literature. For instance, in social settings, empathy is a strategic imperative for Table 3 Results for peer ratings of career derailment potential. Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Predictor variables

γ

γ

γ

Empathic concern (γ01) Gender (γ02) Empathic concern × Gender (γ03) Model R 2 Model ΔR 2

−.27⁎⁎

−.28⁎⁎ .09

.164

.172 .01

−.15* .11 −.38⁎⁎ .231 .06⁎⁎

Note: ⁎p b .05; ⁎⁎p b .01; γ = unstandardized regression weight. The Model R2 values refer to the between ‘target leader’ (i.e., level 2) variance explained by predictors of a model at each step.

Please cite this article as: Gentry, W.A., et al., How displaying empathic concern may differentially predict career derailment potential for women and men leaders in Australia, The Leadership Quarterly (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.05.003

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Fig. 2. The moderating effect of gender on the relationship between empathic concern and peer evaluations of career derailment potential at low and high empathic concern levels.

people to regulate information and manage impressions about their friends (Schlenker & Britt, 2001). In an organizational setting, leaders may signal emotional displays of empathic concern as one aspect of emotional labor in an effort to control information about themselves to create a desired impression about their performance, leadership, and career mobility, or to develop effective interpersonal relationships (Humphrey, Kellett, et al., 2008; Humphrey, Pollack, et al., 2008). We implore a more comprehensive examination to gain a more informed understanding about the use of empathic concern by leaders to satisfy impression management motives and in studies of emotional labor. Our work also extends theory by incorporating gender into the study of emotions and career-related outcomes for leaders. The literature has begun to move past the simplistic arguments of whether women are more or less effective leaders than men and has recently attempted to examine when and why there may be gender differences (Eagly & Carli, 2003; Paustian-Underdahl et al., 2014). We extend this important research agenda into studies examining future-oriented, career-related outcomes pertaining to career advancement, progression, or upward mobility. To do this, we drew from rival streams of research that have highlighted the importance of gender within the context of leaders in organizations and integrated them into signaling theory. Our finding that empathic concern was more strongly related to career derailment potential for women supports the idea that gender stereotypes play a role in signals that shape our perception of the expected attributes and appropriate behaviors for women leaders. According to the signaling theory, receivers may “calibrate” signals by giving them different strengths or meanings (Connelly et al., 2011). In our study, it is possible that ratings of career derailment potential were influenced by signals associated with gender stereotypes. As a result, signals of a woman's empathic behavior were given stronger weight because they were in line with traditional gender stereotypes. This idea is supported by research that finds women are more highly valued for communal attributes such as being perceptive of others' emotions (Byron, 2008). These findings are also in line with the idea that women suffer negative consequences when they violate prescriptive gender norms that she should be communal, while men may not be held to the same expectations (Eagly & Karau, 2002; Heilman, 2001). Prior research and case studies have suggested that these penalties for women who do not show sufficient communal behavior (such as empathy) come in the form of negative attributions about her personality (i.e., that she is cold, selfish, and bitter; Heilman, 2001) and interpersonal skills (Hopkins, 2007). Given this, future research is needed to more fully understand what specific attributions are being made when women send signals that do not conform to prescriptive gender norms, in order to begin to offer recommendations for aspiring women leaders. At the very least, these findings suggest that women leaders may be most successful at improving their influence and likeability by providing signals that combine highly competent behavior with warmth and empathy. Another important contribution our findings make to the literature involves the various constituencies (e.g., boss, peers) with which leaders must send signals when shaping impressions of their career derailment potential. Leaders must satisfy multiple stakeholders (Tsui & Ashford, 1994; Tsui, Ashford, St. Clair, & Xin, 1995; see also the ecological perspective of multisource ratings: Hoffman, Lance, Bynum, & Gentry, 2010; Lance, Baxter, & Mahan, 2006; Lance, Hoffman, Gentry, & Baranik, 2008), and they must understand what signals their boss and their peers3 in particular attend to when evaluating them. Relying solely on top-down (i.e., boss) ratings of career derailment potential is somewhat inconsistent with the practical realities of today's socially complex workplace (Gentry & Sosik, 2010) with different stakeholders evaluating leaders based on their own specific expectations of what leaders should do and how they should behave (Tsui & Ashford, 1994; Tsui et al., 1995). These different constituencies are likely to rely heavily on signals leaders send when rating their career derailment potential. As Heidemeier and Moser (2009) suggest, different constituencies vary

3

We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion of examining peer ratings of derailment potential in addition to boss ratings.

Please cite this article as: Gentry, W.A., et al., How displaying empathic concern may differentially predict career derailment potential for women and men leaders in Australia, The Leadership Quarterly (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.05.003

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in how they observe and use signals to make judgments on people. If leaders are unable to send appropriate signals meant to shape the expectations and evaluations of their boss or their peers, they are likely to be fired, transferred, or not promoted (Tsui & Ashford, 1994) and hence have a high career derailment potential. Clearly, examining boss ratings is important; the most common and reliable way to measure an outcome is through the perspective of one's boss (Murphy & Cleveland, 1995; Viswesvaran, Ones, & Schmidt, 1996). Practically speaking as well, most administrative decisions such as promotions are made from one's boss. Hence, examining boss ratings is relevant. When making evaluations of a leader's career derailment potential, bosses rely heavily on information pertaining to the ability to work with others to accomplish goals (Hogan, Curphy, & Hogan, 1994). Bosses in particular have a keen understanding of the qualifications necessary to reach and be successful in higher-level positions. They grasp the difficulties and hardships of succeeding in these positions because they already occupy those positions. Perhaps the leaders in our study who displayed empathic concern were most able to signal the emotional capacity and ability to work with others to accomplish goals in higher level positions in the organization which shaped the boss's rating of career derailment potential. Further, a woman leader's ability to do this may matter to bosses especially, as the relationship was significant for women, not men. According to signaling theory, peers would also pick up on the signals sent by leaders, and our results support this as well. Peers are at the same hierarchical level as the leaders in our study, with similar levels of power (Dierdorff & Surface, 2007). As a result, peers may pick up on signals that include both task- and relationship-oriented behaviors directed towards multiple constituencies as peers may interact more with leaders on a day-to-day basis than other constituencies (Conway & Huffcutt, 1997). In particular, peers may attend to signals connoting a leader's ability to maintain and enhance networks and social capital to facilitate goal achievement in an inclusive way (Gentry et al., 2013), suggesting the importance peers place on the ability of a leader to display behaviors that convey empathic concern. Different from bosses, the negative relationship between empathic concern and career derailment potential using peer ratings was negative for both men and women, though stronger for women. This finding offers a possible extension to signaling theory such that depending on one's position in the organization, certain constituencies may be more susceptible to the reception of certain signals that are gender-related. Due to their place in the organizational hierarchy, bosses may pay more attention to displays of empathic concern and then in turn, understand what they mean for career derailment potential especially for women. Hence, displays of empathic concern may be a signal that women leaders can send to bosses because it is particularly salient for bosses. For peers, it is relevant for both men and women. Additional theorizing and empirical research with a signaling theory foundation would help the field better understand how and why behaviors of empathic concern are differentially associated with outcomes related to one's career advancement, progression, or upward mobility from different constituencies for women and men. Implications for practice Our research has practical implications for leaders and organizations as well. Within the context of modern organizations, leaders are more involved and purposeful in their own career management (Ng et al., 2005; Wayne et al., 1997, 1999). Hence, it would benefit leaders to send signals associated with low career derailment potential. If displays of empathic concern are part of the signaling process that leaders use to signal low career derailment potential, they should be aware of how they display empathy and should attempt to improve their ability to show empathic concern. Fortunately, empathy is not a fixed trait and therefore, can be learned (Shapiro, 2002). Leaders should attempt to become better at perspective taking, active listening, and cultivating compassion, not just to help their followers improve, but also as part of their signaling process for ensuring upward mobility in the organization. From the standpoint of selection and promotion systems, our findings provide a glimpse into the importance of having empathic concern as well. Recent research shows that individual differences in emotion are associated with concrete organizational outcomes such as shorter call-center times (Miner & Glomb, 2010). Hence, assessing empathic concern in both selection and promotion contexts becomes critical. Empathic concern could be assessed in a number of ways, including traditional self-assessments, structured interview questions, or through multi-source feedback. Although assessing empathic concern in selection and promotion contexts is encouraged, organizations should use caution when developing their job descriptions of managerial positions (Glick & Fiske, 2007), particularly when signals could be tied to gender. Prior research has found that when job descriptions include both agentic and communal traits, highly agentic women candidates face a much harsher backlash than when job descriptions include mainly agentic traits (Rudman & Glick, 1999). We therefore encourage organizations to take steps to improve the validity of performance appraisal instruments in order to reduce the likelihood of differential evaluation based on gender. For example, organizations can inform evaluators of the presence of gender stereotypes and how such stereotypes may be part of signals that influence or even bias the performance appraisal process (Byron, 2007). This is particularly important in light of evidence that even small biases against women in performance evaluations, when repeated over time and across occasions, can yield substantial consequences in terms of the upward mobility of women into senior management positions (Eagly & Carli, 2003; Martell, Lane, & Emrich, 1996). Limitations and future research Our data were taken from different rater perspectives. This reduces the chances of common method bias and adds to the legitimacy of our findings. However, there are limitations of our research. Some limitations stem from the fact that our study is based on data from a multi-source instrument taken at one point in time. Such a cross-sectional design makes it impossible to establish that displays Please cite this article as: Gentry, W.A., et al., How displaying empathic concern may differentially predict career derailment potential for women and men leaders in Australia, The Leadership Quarterly (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.05.003

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of empathic concern caused ratings of career derailment potential. Second, participants in our study were managers who used a multisource instrument as part of their own leadership development process. Thus, the sample used in our study may be less generalizable than one would hope because these managers were already engaged in a leadership development process. Future research should attempt to attain information and data from managers randomly selected from the general managerial population. Future research may also consider the assessment of emotional abilities using physiological measures. Researchers could incorporate biological measures (e.g., cortisol, galvanic skin response) into study designs assessing empathic processes, echoing recent calls to expand our self-report and other-rated approaches to work behavior (Becker & Menges, 2013). Given that much of our behavior is driven by implicit processes (George, 2009), we may significantly expand our theoretical understanding of how empathy operates in the workplace that cannot come if we solely rely on explicit measures (Becker & Menges, 2013). Our outcome variable, career derailment potential, may also be a limitation. The measure was not empirically linked to actual derailment outcomes (i.e., actual terminations, firing, demotions, career plateauing). However, past research does in fact find that career derailment potential can lead to actual derailment (i.e., Carson et al., 2012; Lombardo et al., 1988). Nonetheless, future studies of the importance of empathic concern to career-related outcomes should consider actual terminations, career plateaus, or demotions, as well as promotability and career growth. Further, future research could look at different dimensions of derailment related to dysfunctional behaviors, personality, or skillsets of leaders in different managerial positions. Finally, our work examined managers who came from Australia. Examining empathic concern from managers in one country neglects the fact that contemporary managers work in a global context. Recent research suggests that the relationship between empathy and current performance may be contingent on country culture (Sadri et al., 2011). Extending the research of how empathic concern relates to career outcomes not only within a cultural context, but also in combination with a consideration of gender differences, could extend current research and make valuable contributions for theory and practice. Conclusion Overall, our findings build upon past research indicating that effective emotional display is critical in determining a leader's current performance. We extend that research by examining a future-oriented, career-related outcome that focuses on one's career advancement, mobility, or progression: career derailment potential. The more a leader displays behaviors that convey empathic concern from the perspective of his or her direct reports, the lower the leader's career derailment potential from the perspective of his or her boss and peers. Further, building off rival streams of research that examine gender, our work contributes to the literature by showing the negative relationship between empathic concern and career derailment potential is stronger for women leaders compared to men leaders. Consequently, we propose that empathic concern may have implications for a leader's future career progression, particularly for women. Although our work enhances the understanding of emotions, particularly displays of behaviors that convey empathic concern as a signal in modern organizations, we also believe it could lead to additional research that enhances the literature on emotions and empathic concern in the workplace, emotion regulation and management, career derailment potential, and gender differences. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Houston Lester for his help and advice. References Ashkanasy, N.M., Hartel, C.E.J., & Daus, C.S. (2002). Diversity and emotion: The new frontiers in organizational behavior research. Journal of Management, 28, 307–338. Australian Bureau of Statistics (2013). Labour force Australia. ABS cat. no. 6202.0. Canberra: ABS. Australian Government (2013). Gender balance on Australian government boards report 2012–2013. Retrieved from http://www.dpmc.gov.au/women/files/ documents/08_2013/ attachment_b.pdf Avolio, B.J., & Bass, B.M. (1995). 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Please cite this article as: Gentry, W.A., et al., How displaying empathic concern may differentially predict career derailment potential for women and men leaders in Australia, The Leadership Quarterly (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.05.003