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Scholars have contributed much to identifying general factors that may hinder women from emerging as leaders. However, we still lack knowledge about the concrete behaviors that occur between assessing the independent variable (gender) and measuring the outcome (emergent leadership). That is, whereas many studies have linked post-hoc perceptions of behaviors to emergent leadership, it remains unclear whether the effect of gender on emergent leadership is due to objective behavioral differences. We develop a framework that differentiates between agentic and communal task-oriented verbal behaviors as predictors of emergent leadership. We then draw from backlash theory to argue that objective agentic task-oriented behaviors are positively associated with emergent leadership, particularly when men exhibit these behaviors. Communal task-oriented behaviors are positively associated with emergent …