Female Leadership Development

Developing one's own leadership identity is a challenging task in general (Schweiger et al., 2020). It can be even more challenging for women as they are often confronted with invisible barriers and subtle power constraints in the context of taking on leadership roles, which also affect the development of their own leadership identity (Ely, Ibarra & Kolb, 2011; Nicholson & Carroll, 2013). The aim of this research project is to empirically investigate the identity work of female leaders in the context of dominant, socially and organisationally shaped leadership meanings. The focus is on the analysis and development of leadership development programmes. Overall, we want to derive what can be done to support both the strengthening of female leaders' identity development and the simultaneous diversification of the underlying leadership meanings.