Aligning Character Strengths with Allyship Behaviors: Character Profiles that Position Men to Improve Gender Equity

Men’s engagement in allyship carries the potential to improve gender equity and workplace inclusion. A common prototype of allyship is bravely calling out the bias of perpetrators. Yet, conceptualized so narrowly, men’s allyship toward women could be ill-fitting for men with heart-based character strengths such as kindness and social intelligence. Using pre-registered person- and variable-centered analyses, we examined how well 10 allyship strategies were perceived as personally good-fitting in an international sample (N = 3,863; from 103 countries) of employed men with high gender equity values. ‘Giving credit/deference to women’ and ‘cheerleading for women’s career advancement’ (relationship-building strategies) were rated best-fitting, whereas ‘calling out’ (a committed allyship strategy) was by far the worst-fitting. Person-centered analyses revealed that men in our “high potential” profile (high in bravery, fairness, kindness, perspective, and social intelligence) rated both relationship-building and committed strategies as better-fitting than did other men. Exploratory variable-centered analyses indicated that kindness and social intelligence, strengths of the heart, were associated with more allyship strategies than any of the other 22 strengths we tested. This study challenges prevailing myths of what character strengths position men to address gender bias in the workplace.