Women in Leadership Roles

So after a discussion with Paula I had completely forgotten about my idea to look into women in leadership roles. This past year I have had constant questioning about how I run my rehearsals and this mainly comes from the boys that I work with. I find they always need to be right and potentially feel uncomfortable having a woman tell them whether they are incorrect or in fact being criticized by myself, the difference I see when the casting manager comes to watch is distinctly different. The boys are very motivated around him and never ever give back chat. Is this because he is a man and they have more respect for men or is it because he is in a higher position than myself within the company, he potentially holds their future with the company in his hands. On that note I began researching women in leadership roles and came across a huge amount of literature that provoked my thinking. I have listed the links below.

www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2014/08/05/companies-do-better-with-women-leaders-but-women-need-more-confidence-to-lead-study-says 

In this article there is a huge amount of statistics that reveal how low the percentage of women working in leadership roles within large companies is. It makes me wander whether this is to do with lack of confidence that women have or due to the males employing the leadership staff. 

uk.buisnessinsider.com (Unfortunately I couldnt get the whole link to work so I have put the home page up instead)

This article is a study led by Ekaterina Netchaeve, Ph.D., at Bocconi University in Italy. A group of researchers performed a study finding that mean act more aggresively towards hypothetical female bosses, it is a really interesting read and gets you thinking about the male bravado. It also provokes thought on if men do feel threatened by a female boss what are their reasons for it? 

Please comment below I would really appreciate it.