Women′s leadership styles: a heuristic analysis

Abstract

Poses the question: do women have different leadership styles from those of men? With the current and projected impact of women‐led business on the world′s economies, this question is an important one. Surprisingly, however, there is an insignificant amount of empirical research into this leadership‐gender debate – most of the contemporary literature is purely conceptual. Therefore, the goal of the present study is to initiate scientific inquiry of this topic. An exploratory investigation of a sample of women business owners and managers was conducted to examine their leadership styles. From this preliminary study, utilizing the qualitative research methodology of content analysis, a heuristic model of female leadership is developed.