Title: The Glass Crown: How Female Leadership Advantage Perpetuates Harsher Punishment Following Leader Misconduct

Speaker: Yixin Tian, PhD Candidate, Singapore Management University

Host: Wei Wang, Assistant Professor, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Time: 10:00–11:30, Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Venue: Room A403, Pao Sui Loong Library, Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Brief introduction of the content: 

Prior research suggests that women are often stereotyped to be more moral than men, yet it remains unclear whether women leaders face more severe or less severe punishment than men leaders following misconduct. At the same time, recent work finds that top women leaders are often evaluated more favorably than comparable men. Taken together, this raises an important question: Do these female leadership advantages shield women leaders from or instead expose them to harsher punishment for misconduct? Drawing on gender and leadership literature and the attribution of blame theory, we theorize that top women (versus men) leaders are likely to be perceived as more competent (i.e., competence premium) and, in turn, the competence premium heightens the intentionality attribution following misconduct, thereby increasing punishment severity. Across three studies, we found support for this “glass crown” phenomenon, which suggests that the higher-level leader hierarchical position is as prestigious as it is precarious for women. Studies 1 and 2, a critical incident survey and a behavioral experiment, respectively, showed that at higher (but not lower) leader hierarchical positions, women (versus men) were punished more severely for misconduct. Study 3, a vignette experiment, replicated these effects and provided evidence for the proposed mechanisms. Overall, our work shifts the focus from the barriers women face in pursuing leadership positions to the vulnerability created by greater intentionality attributed to women’s misconduct once they attain top leadership positions, ultimately undermining women leaders’ longevity.

Speaker's profile:

Yixin Tian is a Ph.D. candidate in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources in the Lee Kong Chian School of Business at Singapore Management University. Her research examines when and why gendered advantages become liabilities, and disadvantages become assets, revealing how workplace judgments go awry. Her research shows how gendered expectations create, constrain, and reverse patterns of advantage and disadvantage at work: leadership advantages for women at the top can curdle into liabilities, stereotypical disadvantages for women can become financial and career assets, and men’s presumed advantages in fit and behavioral latitude are produced by organizational priorities but constrained by culture. She also examines how AI distorts gendered evaluations. Importantly, her work translates these insights into actionable, evidence-based interventions for evaluators to reduce bias and make fairer, more accurate high-stakes hiring and promotion decisions. Her work has been published in premier outlets such as Journal of Applied Psychology and Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. In her research, she utilizes experimental designs, longitudinal surveys, archival data, text analysis, AI-based simulations, and meta-analytic procedures.

Welcome all!