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Female Leadership: 12 Strategies & Why It’s Important

Science of People Team 16 min read
In This Article

The business landscape is experiencing a profound transformation as more women step into leadership roles. Bringing fresh perspectives and innovative...

The business landscape is experiencing a profound transformation as more women step into leadership roles.

Bringing fresh perspectives and innovative approaches to management, increasing representation in female leadership is a phenomenon that has the potential to transform organizations and drive greater success in today’s business world.

Are you a female leader? Read on to learn about 12 strategies to help you leverage your natural strengths and make an impact!

Female Leadership Statistics

Before we get into our strategies, let’s take a moment to consider the state of female leadership today.

According to a 2024 report https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace by McKinsey and Company, women hold 29 percent of C-suite positions, a noticeable increase from just 17 percent in 2015.

The number is even higher for Fortune 500 companies, where women make up 40 percent of C-suite positions. However, a significant leadership gap remains at the very top—while women occupy 40% of C-suite roles, only 10% serve as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

It’s even starker for women of color, who represent less than 1% of Fortune 500 CEOs!

Despite significant improvements, it’s clear that we still have a lot of ground to cover to reach parity. Let’s explore why closing the gap can be so beneficial.

Female Leadership Qualities

Researchers https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/09649420110395728/full/html have found that women tend to have a distinct leadership style that shapes how they run their teams. Specifically, these studies show that women tend to use what’s called the transformational leadership style. What does that mean?

Transformational leaders focus on developing their team members’ full potential. They lead by example, build strong connections with their team, and inspire people to exceed their own expectations. Unlike traditional leaders who simply manage tasks, transformational leaders create lasting positive change in both their people and their organizations.

Here’s how transformational leadership might look like in action:

  • Turning routine meetings into collaborative strategy sessions where every voice matters
  • Converting performance reviews into growth-focused development plans
  • Leading through challenges by facilitating team problem-solving rather than just delegating tasks

Being a good leader requires impeccable non-verbal communication. Learn how to master your social cues with:

Leadership Styles in Modern Organizations

Research https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2003-06077-007?doi=1 has identified two primary leadership approaches that shape how different leaders guide their teams: transformational and transactional leadership.

Transactional leadership operates on a clear system of objectives and rewards. These leaders establish specific goals, define the path to achieve them, and provide concrete rewards for success. Think of it as a well-structured exchange: clear expectations in return for measurable results.

Key characteristics of transactional leadership include:

  • Setting precise performance metrics and deadlines
  • Creating structured reward systems for achievement
  • Maintaining consistent standards across teams
  • Focusing on immediate results and efficiency

Both transformational and transactional approaches bring unique strengths to organizations.

Transformational leadership excels at driving innovation and developing talent for the future, while transactional leadership provides the structure and clarity needed for efficient day-to-day operations.

The most successful organizations often blend both styles, with leaders adapting their approach based on specific situations and goals.

We should also note that individual variation exists—both men and women can display both transactional and transformational styles!

Gender-Diverse Leadership

While traditional research has often focused on comparing “male” and “female” leadership styles, modern understanding of gender and leadership is evolving beyond this binary framework. Non-binary, genderqueer, and gender-diverse leaders bring unique perspectives and approaches that can enhance organizational effectiveness.

In fact, research https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w32222/w32222.pdf shows that non-binary leaders differ in these ways:

  • Self-Perception: Non-binary individuals tend to underestimate their capabilities more significantly than both men and women. While women also typically undervalue their talents, and men tend to overestimate, non-binary leaders show the highest rates of underestimating their performance.
  • Work Preferences: They often demonstrate a stronger preference for independent work compared to their male and female peers, suggesting a leadership style that may emphasize autonomy and self-directed teams.
  • Community Focus: Non-binary leaders show a notably stronger drive toward community impact over financial rewards. They’re more likely to prioritize making a difference in their community and less motivated by traditional incentives like monetary bonuses.
  • Collaborative Style: They typically express lower levels of assertiveness compared to both male and female leaders, often showing more willingness to take on supportive organizational tasks that may go unrewarded but benefit the team as a whole.
  • Risk and Patience: When it comes to risk tolerance, non-binary leaders tend to fall somewhere between their male and female counterparts, though they often demonstrate higher levels of impatience in decision-making processes.

The Importance of Female Leadership

A meta-analysis found that transformational leadership consistently predicts higher work unit effectiveness across various industries and contexts.

This finding may help explain why organizations with strong female leadership tend to outperform their peers. Women’s inclination toward transformational leadership appears to drive measurable business results:

  • Companies with women executives are 30% more likely to outperform their competitors, according to a 2020 McKinsey and Company report
  • Fortune 500 companies with the highest percentage of women directors also ranked among the most profitable, according to a 2007 Catalyst study

So how can women leaders harness these natural strengths and develop them further? Let’s explore twelve proven strategies that enhance transformational leadership abilities!

12 Essential Female Leadership Strategies

These strategies are helpful for both male and female leaders, with a particular focus on combatting some of the issues in the research that female leaders face more often.

Development Over Goals

Setting and achieving goals is incredibly important for business success. However, transformational leaders see employee development as a side door to achieving goals.

Female managers should aim to accomplish goals by transforming their teams into better people. Here are some key tactics of transformational leaders:

  • They seek to be a role model who inspires their subordinates.
  • They invest a lot of time in coaching their team members and care about their personal development.
  • They emphasize teamwork and authentic communication as a key to success.

Action Steps:

  • Spend more time engaging with your team members on a personal level.
  • Look for ways to inspire your team members to be more motivated in accomplishing your goals.

Don’t Be Transactional

The opposite of transformational leadership is transactional leadership. Picture the boss who sits in his or her office giving orders and receiving progress updates from his or her employees, but rarely engages with them on a personal level. They’re all about the results—sometimes forsaking personal development.

Key tactics of transactional leaders include:

  • They often remain uninvolved to let their teams focus on their work.
  • They wait until problems become severe before they step in take charge of the situation.
  • They usually only engage with subordinates to give orders and hold them accountable for making mistakes and/or failing to meet expectations.

Researchers https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749597808000046 have found that women need to show strength and sensitivity. The transactional style can be detrimental to female bosses. This is why women need to focus more heavily on the transformational leadership style because it allows them to set high expectations, while personally helping the members of their teams.

Banning Bossy

From a young age, girls are taught that when they speak up and take charge, they are bossy, but boys are called leaders for behaving in the exact same ways. This phenomenon plays a huge role in why women are significantly less likely to pursue leadership opportunities than men. Luckily, there is a movement to change this.

Leaders such as Sheryl Sandberg and Beyoncé are calling out society for persuading girls that there is something wrong with them for speaking up. They are making an effort to ensure ambitious girls are labeled as the leaders they are and not written off as bossy:

Play

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Action Steps:

  • Banish “bossy” from your vocabulary.
  • Highlight the difference in expectations with your team.
  • Spread the knowledge—share this post and video with your team.

Strength-Based Tasks

One of the best things women can do as bosses and transformational leaders is assigning people tasks according to their strengths. Rather than delegating work based on time or workload, learn what each member of your team is naturally good at and enjoys and give them as much work as possible that fits that.

The best way to do this is to spend time engaging with your team on a personal level. Find out their inside-of and outside-of-work strengths. They might surprise you! You also might consider giving them a personality quiz. Our Personality Quiz is the only personality science backed by academic research. Take the quiz yourself and send it to your colleagues.

Take the Free Personality Quiz

Over-Communicate

As we learned, female bosses already are naturally inclined to verbally communicate. This is the key to success. When your team feels comfortable being transparent with you, you’re less likely to have to deal with major problems because they feel safe coming to you for help the moment issues start to arise.

Action Step:

  • Remind your team why their work matters. Find something that makes each and every one of your team member’s work meaningful. Your goal should be to make them feel as though they are doing something greater than working for a paycheck.

As women, we have a tremendous opportunity to be incredible bosses and managers. All we have to do is leverage our natural female strengths and put them into action.

Purpose-Driven Leadership

Research https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33071907/ shows that employees are more engaged when they understand how their work contributes to a larger purpose. Purpose-driven leaders excel at connecting daily tasks to meaningful outcomes, helping team members see beyond immediate goals to understand their broader impact.

Here’s what sets purpose-driven leaders apart:

  • They regularly share the organization’s vision and values
  • They help team members understand their role in the bigger picture
  • They celebrate meaningful achievements, not just numerical targets

Action Step: Create regular touchpoints where team members can share how their work aligns with their personal values and the organization’s mission.

Collaborative Decision-Making

Traditional leadership often centralizes decision-making at the top. However, transformational leaders recognize that the best solutions often emerge from diverse perspectives and collective wisdom. They create environments where team members feel empowered to contribute ideas and participate in key decisions.

This approach builds trust, increases buy-in, and leads to better outcomes. When team members participate in decisions that affect their work, they become more invested in the success of those initiatives.

Emotional Intelligence Integration

The ability to understand and manage emotions—both your own and others’—marks the difference between good and exceptional leaders. Women often excel in emotional intelligence, bringing nuanced understanding to complex workplace dynamics.

Think of emotional intelligence as your leadership superpower. Use it to:

  • Read the room during challenging conversations
  • Navigate conflicts before they escalate
  • Build stronger connections across teams

For tips on how to improve your emotional intelligence, check out our guide here: How to Improve Emotional Intelligence in 5 Steps

Adaptive Communication Styles

Master communicators know that one size doesn’t fit all. Different team members respond to different communication approaches, and various situations call for distinct styles. The key lies in flexibility—knowing when to be direct, when to nurture, and when to inspire.

Action Steps:

  • Observe how each team member prefers to receive feedback
  • Practice switching between communication styles based on context
  • Ask for feedback on your communication effectiveness

Innovation Through Inclusion

When leaders create truly inclusive environments, innovation naturally follows. This goes beyond basic diversity initiatives to create spaces where different perspectives are actively sought and valued.

A study https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1046496496271004 found that diverse teams make better decisions 87% of the time. But beyond just being diverse, these teams need your active leadership to nurture an environment where every voice counts.

Action Step:

  • Start each project by explicitly inviting different perspectives: “Before we move forward, I’d like to hear at least three different approaches to this challenge.”

Strategic Relationship Building

The most effective leaders understand that success depends on building and maintaining strong relationships—both within and outside their teams. Create meaningful connections that benefit everyone involved.

Consider developing relationships across these key areas:

  • Peer leaders for collaboration and support
  • Industry contacts for broader perspective
  • Team members for deeper understanding
  • Mentors and mentees for continuous learning

The key to authentic relationship building? Genuine curiosity about others and a willingness to support their success.

Lead with Empathy During Crisis

Research https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-Blessing-and-a-Curse%3A-How-CEOs%E2%80%99-Trait-Empathy-of-Koenig-Graf%E2%80%90Vlachy/593f17a81c07ff3d6188fba635d9544c7323a49f?utm_source=consensus shows that highly empathetic CEOs possess distinct advantages during crises: they can spot warning signs earlier, earn greater stakeholder trust, and prioritize healing organizational relationships. Female leaders often excel at this balance, demonstrating how empathy can be a powerful tool for navigating challenging times.

Action Step:

  • Create a “crisis toolkit” with your team—document past challenges, successful solutions, and lessons learned. This proactive approach transforms potential disasters into valuable learning experiences.

Sustainable Growth Focus

Beyond quarterly targets and annual goals, transformational leaders champion sustainable, long-term growth. This means developing strategies that balance immediate needs with future opportunities.

What does sustainable growth look like in action?

  • Investing in team development even during busy periods
  • Making decisions that consider long-term environmental and social impact
  • Building systems that scale without burning out team members

Leadership in Action: Case Studies of Famous Female Leaders

Sara Blakely: Redefining Business Success

(image via Wikipedia; CC-BY-SA 4.0)

Sara Blakely built Spanx from a $5,000 investment into a global enterprise valued at over $1 billion. Through her journey from fax machine saleswoman to founder, she demonstrated innovative leadership:

Indra Nooyi: Strategic Transformation

(image via Wikipedia; CC-BY-SA 2.0)

During Indra Nooyi’s 12-year tenure as PepsiCo’s CEO (2006-2018), she led significant organizational transformation:

Ursula Burns: Breaking Barriers

(image via Wikipedia; public domain)

Ursula Burns made history in 2009 as the first Black female CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Her 35-year journey from Xerox intern to CEO marked several key achievements:

Essential Books on Female Leadership

Looking for more insight on being a great female leader? Here’s a list of some of the best books about female leadership.

A pivotal examination of women in the workplace, addressing systemic barriers and offering practical strategies for advancement.

Identifies unconscious mistakes women make that sabotage their careers.

Explores specific habits that hold women back as they seek to advance their careers.

Research-based insights into the science and art of self-assurance.

Challenges traditional leadership paradigms through research on courage and vulnerability.

Examines systemic barriers women face and provides actionable solutions for organizations.

Unique insights on leadership from non-traditional pathways.

Powerful Quotes From Female Leaders

Leadership comes in many forms, but sometimes a single powerful insight can transform our approach. Here are some of the most impactful words from groundbreaking women leaders:

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Female Leadership

What are the most important qualities of female leaders?

Effective female leaders often demonstrate transformational leadership qualities including emotional intelligence, collaborative decision-making, purpose-driven vision, and adaptive communication styles. They excel at developing team members’ potential, building strategic relationships, and fostering inclusive environments that drive innovation.

How does female leadership impact organizational success?

Research shows organizations with female leadership are 30% more likely to outperform their peers. Companies with women in executive positions also demonstrate higher profitability. Female leaders often bring transformational leadership styles that enhance team performance and drive sustainable growth.

What challenges do women in leadership face?

Women in leadership positions often encounter gender bias, unequal pay, limited access to senior roles, and work-life balance pressures. They may face higher performance expectations while receiving less support and fewer advancement opportunities. The “glass ceiling” remains a significant barrier, particularly for women of color who face additional systemic challenges.

Why do we need more female leaders?

Organizations need more female leaders to drive innovation, improve financial performance, and create inclusive workplaces. Research demonstrates that diverse leadership teams make better decisions and adapt more effectively to market changes. Female leaders bring unique perspectives and leadership styles that complement traditional approaches and help organizations thrive in modern business environments.

Are female leaders increasing?

Female leadership representation continues to grow, with women now holding 29% of C-suite positions, up from 17% in 2015. Fortune 500 companies have seen significant increases in female executive roles, though women still comprise only 10% of CEO positions. Progress varies by industry and region, with some sectors showing faster advancement than others.

Empowering the Next Generation of Female Leaders

The landscape of leadership continues to evolve, with women bringing valuable perspectives and approaches that enhance organizational success.

By understanding and implementing these 12 strategies, aspiring female leaders can develop their own authentic leadership style.Ready to take your leadership skills to the next level? Explore our comprehensive guide on 20 Essential Strategies for Leadership Development Success.

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