Gender Leadership Research Articles

The Interaction of Leader Gender and Country Collectivism on COVID-19 Deaths

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for employees and leaders. The pandemic has resulted in millions of deaths world-wide and changed the way people live and work. Until this public health crisis is controlled, employers and human resource managers will not be able to return to anything resembling a normal pre-pandemic work situation. Based on a sample of 56 countries, the present study examines two factors – leader (i.e., head of state) gender and national collectivism – to explain how some leaders have been able to manage the pandemic with less death than others during the COVID-19 pandemic. Countries with female presidents respond differently to the pandemic than those led by male presidents, resulting in fewer deaths. The results shed light on the person-environment fit between president gender and country collectivistic culture by demonstrating that male presidents leading more individualistic countries suffer from the highest levels of COVID-19 death. Supplemental qualitative analyses on transcripts of speeches delivered by world leaders show that presidents of more collectivistic countries use more health-related words than presidents of more individualistic countries when addressing the public, which suggests that health is more front-of-mind for leaders in more collectivistic nations. Additional analyses of media attention related to presidents’ handling of COVID-19 also show that media sentiment was more favorable for women leaders compared to men leaders. Also, consistent with our prediction, men leading more individualistic countries had the least positive media attention.

Canadian Arts and Culture: Gender and Race in Leadership

Representation in leadership is important not only because it often shapes the ways in which priorities are set and decisions are made but it also signals who belongs and shapes the aspirations and assumptions about what is possible. Extensive research across sectors has exposed the under-representation of women, racialized people, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities and members of the LGBTQ2S+ community in leadership roles in Canada. A range of initiatives have been introduced including legislation, voluntary codes, educational programs and procurement and funding priorities to improve representation. In Canada, the arts and cultural sector is significant not just because it employs more than 851,456 people and receives hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding but because it plays a profound role in shaping values and culture with impacts far beyond its boundaries. While in recent years, organizations have been under growing pressure from communities and funders to address diversity and inclusion, there is often a gap between statements and actions. This paper examines dimensions of diversity and inclusion in the largest and most influential arts and cultural organizations in Canada (n=125). First, it examines the extent to which they have expressed commitments or aspirations to diversity and inclusion. Then it examines the representation of women and racialized people in leadership roles. Finally, it recommends the elements of a comprehensive strategy, grounded in the critical ecological model, to promote change at the sectoral, organizational and individual level.

Shall Leader Express Regret? Can Regret Expression Relate to Perception of Leadership Effectiveness

Leaders occupy the most critical roles in organizations. They have to make decisions almost on a daily basis, and some decisions are challenging or unpopular. Feelings of regret can stem from looking back on past decisions and believing that a better outcome may have occurred if a different choice was made. Therefore, leaders could have higher chances of experiencing regret emotions and expressing their regret. However, the question of how leader’s expression of regret influences their perceived effectiveness has been left untouched by researchers and practitioners for years. Drawing on implicit leadership theory, through an experimental study with 374 participants, we showed that leaders who express regret are perceived as less effective. This study also revealed that the negative impact of leader regret expression on perceived leader effectiveness was mediated by observers’ perceived leadership prototypic violation. Moreover, we tentatively explored the leader gender’s role in the relationships. We found promising information showing that male leaders who expressed regret received the highest ratings of prototypic leadership violation and lowest ratings of leader effectiveness. In addition, regarding the female leaders, who are generally perceived as being too emotional for effective leaders, when they don’t express regret, they received the lowest ratings of prototypic leadership violation and highest ratings of leader effectiveness.

Gender Stereotypes about Leadership and Entrepreneurship: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead

Countries around the world have shared understanding and unconscious biases of what abilities and personality characteristics men and women possess, and how each gender should or should not behave. Gender stereotypes tend to cast men as more competent, strong, and agentic, and women as more communal, warm, and other-oriented compared to members of the opposite sex. Partly because of such gender stereotypes, men and women are perceived and evaluated differently, and they perceive and evaluate themselves differently. Gender stereotypes are consequential: they impact women’s career choices and advancement to the management and top-level positions in the corporate sector, their likelihood of founding new ventures and receiving key financial, human capital, and network resources necessary for scaling up their businesses, their job performance, cognitive resources, and professional fulfillment. Our symposium makes a direct contribution to the 2022 AOM’s theme “Creating a Better World Together”, promoting cross-disciplinary dialogue among scholars from (social) psychology, sociology, entrepreneurship, economics, and organization theory to deepen our understand of ‘how, why, and when’ gender stereotypes are likely to influence male-female differentials in the corporate leadership and entrepreneurship. Our symposium has two goals. We bring together scholars to take stock of the literature, identify puzzles in extant work and future research directions, and build bridges for interdisciplinary research. Our symposium features pioneers from (social) psychology whose work on stereotypes has been path-breaking and is considered foundational in research on attitudes, gender, and diversity, along with strong emerging scholars working at the ‘biases and entrepreneurship’ research nexus. Our second goal is to discuss the effectiveness of existing behavioral interventions to combat gender stereotypes and increase gender leadership diversity in both labor market contexts. The symposium is designed to foster a dialogue between the panelists, discussants, and the audience centered around five discussion topics. It will close with the organizers’ summary synthesizing the scholarly exchange. The symposium is designed for researchers in ENT, OMT, and GDO but could be of interest to a much broader AoM audience interested in research on stereotypes, diversity in leadership and innovation, and organizational performance.

To lead or not to lead: exploring how young women’s early career experiences impact their leadership ambition

PurposeThis paper aims to explore and better understand the workplace experiences of young professional women, as they relate to their leadership ambition. Research has shown that women graduate from college with equal or greater leadership ambition than men. By mid-career, however, a significant gender ambition gap emerges, which may be a contributing factor to the gender leadership gaps that persist across all sectors of the economy.Design/methodology/approachIn-depth interviews were conducted with young American professional women who excelled and had leadership ambition in college. The theoretical framework is the expectancy–value–cost model of motivation.FindingsAnalysis reveals a consistent decline in the young women’s leadership ambition after entering their professional career, stemming from a general sense of dissatisfaction with their jobs, a lack of connection with their organizations’ leadership and culture and an expectation that moving up the ladder would result in a less satisfying personal life.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough this study is not statistically generalizable to a broader population, the findings are relevant for colleges and universities that prepare women for their careers, and organizations that seek to recruit and retain female talent.Originality/valueBy focusing on the experiences of young professional women, this paper contributes to the exploration of gender leadership gaps as well as to the discussion of policies and programs that may contribute to keeping more women in the leadership trajectory.

Led by curiosity and responding with voice: The influence of leader displays of curiosity and leader gender on follower reactions of psychological safety and voice

How curiosity affects other employees—the social side of curiosity at work—is understudied but meaningful given that social learning theory suggests that when leaders display curiosity, it signals to followers that the environment is safe for taking risks associated with being inquisitive at work. At the same time, because displays of curiosity are communal in nature, social role theory and the communality-bonus effect combine to indicate that curiosity’s effects should be stronger for followers of male leaders versus followers of female leaders. Here, we integrate these social theories to explain how and when leader displays of curiosity will increase follower perceptions of psychological safety and subsequent voice. We test and find support for these predictions across four samples of leader-follower dyads, thereby broadening our understanding of the social implications of curiosity at work, demonstrating how curiosity contributes to leader effectiveness, and highlighting how gender shapes the effects of curiosity.

Are the Sins of the Father the Sins of the Sons, but Not the Daughters? Exploring How Leadership Gender and Generation Impact the Corporate Social Responsibility of Franchise Firms

Emerging literature suggests that male leaders guide their companies more towards operations-related (OR) Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and female leaders lead their companies more towards non-operation-related (Non-OR) CSR activities. Nevertheless, very little research has considered intergenerational issues in CSR practices. This study explores this question in a context unexplored to date, the franchise industry. We apply multivariate analysis to explore differences between franchisor leaders. Our results reveal that successor leaders engage their companies more in normative CSR than founding leaders. Contrary to our expectations, they also encourage more instrumental CSR activities compared to the founders. We found that female leaders promote normative CSR practices to a greater extent than their male counterparts. However, gender differences in instrumental CSR were only present for the group of current leaders, where men outperformed women. When we delved into the analyses by looking at the influence of the gender of the previous founder, we found that female heirs engage their companies at the same levels of instrumental CSR as their male heir counterparts. Implications for CSR practices in franchise firms and directions for future research are discussed.

Gender Diversity in Leadership: A Bibliometric Analysis and Future Research Directions

Gender diversity in management has become of increased interest to academics and researchers in the last decades since women and men have different personal and psychological characteristics that affect their decision-making process in management actions and leadership. A female presence has been under-represented on companies’ boards of directors, which affects management decisions and leadership style. This article aims to contribute to the analysis of gender diversity and leadership state of knowledge, conducting a bibliometric review of the existing literature. In this context, we analyze the evolutional research studies published in the Scopus digital library, considering a period of five years, from 2017 to 2021. We focus our analysis on the top 24 cited articles after a wider review of articles published relating to the explored topic (402 articles). Considering the bibliometric analysis done, we then present scrutiny of the state of knowledge on this subject, a summary of the existing gaps, and suggestions for future research.

The impact of mentoring on early career faculty: Assessment of a virtual mentoring program.

11039 Background: Participation in mentorship programs for early career physicians may be crucial to developing key skills and professional networks to navigate racial, ethnic and gender leadership disparities in medicine. A 6-month virtual facilitated peer mentorship program was developed and piloted through the Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO) Women & Diversity Committee. The evaluation of the program’s feasibility to positively impact early career physicians, investigators and trainees is presented here. Methods: We designed and conducted a virtual mentoring program pilot open to SNO’s multidisciplinary members in residency, fellowship, or early career phase, leveraging peer-mentoring sessions with mid-to late-career physician mentors. A curriculum with online resources was provided recommending groups meet for 6 sessions: 3 involving the mentor and 3 dedicated to peer-mentoring. Group assignments were based on time-zones and interests. Pre- and post-participation surveys assessed mentee experience. Descriptive statistics were used to assess participant demographics and survey results. Results: Our call for participation was broad; all 20 mentee applicants participated in 5 groups. Mentees were 90% women and 60% were from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. Most were aged 31-40 (75%) and junior faculty (50%) in neuro-oncology (65%). The 5 senior mentors (3 men and 3 of diverse race and ethnic backgrounds) practiced either neuro-oncology (3), neurosurgery (1) or radiation oncology (1). The proportion who reporting having a signature lecture increased from 15% to 62% during the pilot. A large majority reported their participation was worthwhile (85%), that they would participate again (92%) and would recommend it to others (92%). Feedback themes included positive personal growth, peer support, networking and job opportunities, access to CV reviews, lack of and desire for late career female mentors, and virtual scheduling constraints. While the pilot was limited by several variables, it was timely to connect participants in Q3 of 2020 early in the COVID-19 global pandemic. The virtual meeting environment created a venue to share and discuss topics such as work-life balance, burnout, leading through change and social connection. Despite not achieving 100% professional concordance, participants found the experience worthwhile. The tools and curriculum of topics provided was implemented differently across groups, leading to varied experiences. Finally, we did not have 100% post pilot follow up despite multiple attempts limiting our complete understanding of the pilot. Conclusions: This virtual mentorship pilot program proved feasible and of value in development of early career women and diverse individuals. A resource toolkit has been designed to scale and diffuse.

Examination of speakership gender disparity at an international oncology conference.

11002 Background: Gender disparity is an important issue in medicine, as women occupy a minority of academic leadership positions despite increased representation in the physician workforce. One important aspect is the gender gap of speakers at academic meetings, which limits opportunities for career advancement and mentorship. This underrepresentation of women is largely anecdotal in oncology. We hypothesized that original research is less frequently presented by women at the annual ASCO meeting. We sought to examine presentation patterns from recently featured ASCO speakers, categorized by presentation type and gender. Methods: We conducted a retrospective, observational review of data from the 2018-2021 ASCO annual meetings. Mixed-gender coders extracted data from the ASCO Annual Meeting library and institutional public websites. Speaker-identified gender was unavailable; binary gender was determined by presenter name, pronouns, and video files. For original research, we collected data on last authors as well as these roles are also considered meritorious. Cochran–Mantel–Haenszel tests were used to investigate the association of gender and roles adjusted for each stratification variable individually. Common odds ratios (ORs) were estimated for each association. Breslow-Day Tests were used to test the homogeneity of these ORs among the different levels of each stratification variable. No adjustments for multiple testing were used. Results: We reviewed 4267 unique presentations, including those which highlighted original research (Poster Discussion, Oral Abstract, Clinical Science Symposium, Plenary) vs. education (Case-Based Panel, Education Sessions, Highlights of the Day). For original research, women were significantly more likely to have an ASCO-appointed role (discussant, speaker, or chair) than a first or last author role (48% vs. 32.7% of presentations, p < 0.0001), even after adjusting for conference year (OR 0.53, 95% CI: 0.45-0.61), session type (0.52, 0.45-0.61), degree (0.50, 0.43-0.58), academic rank (0.55, 0.47-0.64), and geographic region (0.58, 0.50-0.68). There was no difference between in-person and virtual conferences (p = 0.584). For education sessions, women comprised 46.1% (n = 626), nearly half, of these speaking roles (all ASCO-appointed) compared with men. 38% of the data was independently re-reviewed to confirm accuracy; 96.4% concordance was observed in presenter gender. Conclusions: Women are less likely to present highlighted original research and are more likely to have an appointed educational role at ASCO annual meetings. This likely reflects broader gender disparity within academia. Future analyses could be improved by examining speaker-identified gender. As high-profile original research can elevate careers, examining factors contributing to this observed disparity may reveal important approaches to address gender leadership gaps in oncology.

Don't Go Chasing Narcissists: A Relational-Based and Multiverse Perspective on Leader Narcissism and Follower Engagement Using a Machine Learning Approach.

Although research interest in leader narcissism has been on the rise over the past few years, prior literature has predominantly discussed leader narcissism from a leader-centric perspective. In this article, we provide a relational-based perspective of leader narcissism by examining the interaction between follower personality traits and leader narcissism on follower engagement in an online context. We combine a machine learning (ML) approach and multiverse analysis to predict the personality traits of a large sample of leaders and engaged followers across 18 created multiverses and analyze hypothesized interactions using multilevel regressions, also accounting for leader gender moderation effects. We find that the interaction between leader narcissism and follower agreeableness and follower neuroticism positively predicts follower engagement, whereas the interaction between leader narcissism and follower openness negatively predicts follower engagement. In addition, we find that leader gender plays an important moderating role. Limitations and implications are discussed.

Association of Women Leaders with Women Program Director and Trainee Representation Across US Academic Internal Medicine.

BackgroundWomen are underrepresented within internal medicine (IM). Whether women leaders attract women trainees is not well explored.ObjectiveTo characterize leader and trainee gender across US academic IM and to investigate the association of leader gender with trainee gender.DesignCross-sectional study.ParticipantsLeaders (chairs, chiefs, program directors (PDs)) in 2018 and trainees (residents, fellows) in 2012–2016 at medical school-affiliated IM and seven IM fellowship programs.ExposureLeadership (chair/chief and program director; and, for resident analyses, fellow) gender.Main MeasuresOur primary outcome was percent women trainees (IM residents and, separately, subspecialty fellows). We used standard statistics to describe leadership and trainee gender. We created separate multivariable linear regressions to evaluate associations of leader gender and percent women fellows with percent women IM residents. We then created separate multivariable multilevel models (site as a random effect) to evaluate associations of leader gender with percent women subspecialty fellows.Key ResultsOur cohort consisted of 940 programs. Women were 13.4% of IM chairs and <25% of chiefs in each fellowship subspecialty (cardiology: 2.6%; gastroenterology: 6.6%; pulmonary and critical care: 10.7%; nephrology: 14.4%; endocrinology: 20.6%; hematology-oncology: 23.2%; infectious diseases: 24.3%). IM PDs were 39.7% women; fellowship PDs ranged from nearly 25% (cardiology and gastroenterology) to nearly 50% (endocrinology and infectious disease) women. Having more women fellows (but not chairs or PDs) was associated with having more women residents (0.3% (95% CI: 0.2–0.5%) increase per 1% fellow increase, p<0.001); this association remained after adjustment (0.3% (0.1%, 0.4%), p=0.001). In unadjusted analyses, having a woman PD (increase of 7.7% (4.7%, 10.6%), p<0.001) or chief (increase of 8.9% (4.6%, 13.1%), p<0.001) was associated with an increase in women fellows; after adjustment, these associations were lost.ConclusionsWomen held a minority of leadership positions in academic IM. Having women leaders was not independently associated with having more women trainees.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11606-022-07635-w.

The Impact of Leadership Diversity on Firm Performance in Singapore

The intersection of sustainability and corporate governance is particularly evident in leadership diversity, which has gained increasing prominence in recent years. The central question of leadership diversity’s impact on firm performance remains open, including for Asia, which has been relatively less-studied. This paper seeks to contribute to this literature, adopting a multi-dimensional view of leadership diversity in Singapore’s public-listed companies. We examine diversity in boards and senior management combined, in order to better understand the impact of diversity among firm strategic leadership. Based on random effects regression analysis using data from 577 companies, our results generally provide support for a beneficial diversity impact. Gender, age, and education leadership diversity were found to have a positive influence on financial performance. We further found gender diversity and performance to have an inverted U-shaped relationship, with the inflexion point being gender parity. This suggests a potentially important role for gender parity in firm leadership governance.

Black Girl Magic or Queen Bee: An Exploration of Gendered Leadership in South African Business

Gendered research is plagued by an array of challenges within a South African business context and the unique political landscape. Even with well‐established equity legislation and corporate governance compliance, the number of women in leadership remains bleak. The King IV reporting requirement of women at the board level places significant pressure on the existing employment equity goals for organizations in South Africa. Black women who attain leadership positions are criticized for being token affirmative action placements, and the lack of support is driving them out of the C‐suite. The current paper explores the concept of the queen bee syndrome contrasting it to the American phenomenon of black girl magic. The literature explores concepts of the queen bee syndrome, black girl magic, and the power of social capital with the boys' network in response to gendered leadership in South Africa. The contradictions that each of these concepts represents provide the context for the structural inequalities experienced by black women. The study is underpinned primarily by the social construction theory of reality and intersectionality. Black women leaders' roles and imminent success are mangled by the negative aspects of the queen bee syndrome in an effort to keep women out of the C‐suite.

Virtual teams are here to stay: How personality traits, virtuality and leader gender impact trust in the leader and team commitment

Teleworking has, today, become a necessity for many organizations, so effective virtual team management is critical. This study analyzes the influence of the personality traits of virtual team workers on team efficiency. To do so we examine the effects of subordinates’ personalities on the trust they give the virtual team leader and the impact of this trust on commitment to the team. We also discuss how the team's degree of virtuality and the leader's gender influence the relationship between personality and trust. The findings showed that extroversion has a positive effect on trust felt in the leader, and that this trust has a positive effect on commitment felt toward the team. On the other hand, it was observed that neuroticism had a more negative effect on trust in more virtual environments. The leader's gender had no significant effect. The study offers advice for virtual team management and discusses its limitations and future research directions.

Examining the Effect of Gender Leadership and Workforce Equality on Thematic Mutual Funds Financial Performance

This study examines the relationship between gender equality scores for leadership and workforce dimension and financial performance of 554 US thematic mutual funds and 2,140 US conventional mutual funds investing globally or in the United States stock markets from January 2015 to May 2021. To this end, we implement the new Fama and French six-factor model and the Student’s t-parametric tests for the independent samples. Our results indicate that, in general, gender equality for leadership and workforce does not affect the financial performance of mutual funds focused on one sector related to sustainable development goals that invest in the United States market. However, we find that infrastructure mutual funds with higher levels of gender leadership and workforce equality that invest in the global market perform better than their counterparts with lower levels of gender equality. On the contrary, healthcare, water, information technology and gold and precious metals mutual funds with higher levels of gender equality for leadership and workforce dimension that invest in the global market underperform their counterparts with lower levels of gender leadership and workforce equality. Similarly, we find a negative relationship between gender equality level for leadership and workforce dimension and the financial performance of mutual funds diversified across sectors such as conventional and ethical mutual funds investing globally or in the United States market.&#x0D;

Gynecologic Oncology and Inclusion of Women Into the Surgical Workforce: The Canary in This Coal Mine.

ObjectiveWomen make up a majority of the gynecologic oncology workforce. Increasing the numbers of women in leadership has been proposed as a path towards professional gender equity. This study examined whether leadership gender and departmental infrastructure impact the work environment for women gynecologic oncologists.MethodsMembers of a 472-member private Facebook group “Women of Gynecologic Oncology” (WGO) who self-identified as women gynecologic oncologists provided demographics, practice infrastructure, personal experience with workplace bullying, gender discrimination, microaggressions using a REDcap survey platform.ResultsOf 250 (53%) respondents to this survey, most were younger than age 50 years (93.6%); White (82.2%) and non-Hispanic (94.3%); married (84.7%); and parenting (75.2%). Practice environments included academic (n=152, 61.0%), hospital employed (n=57, 22.9%), and private practice (n=31, 12.4%), and 89.9% supervised trainees. A significant percent of respondents had experienced bullying (52.8%), gender discrimination (57%) and microaggressions (83%). Age, race, ethnicity, practice setting, or mentorship were not statistically significantly associated with these experiences. Reported perpetrators were varied and included colleagues (84%), patients (44%), staff (41%), administrators (18%), and trainees (16%). Prevalence of bullying (55.0 vs 47.7%, p=0.33), gender discrimination (59.1 vs 52.3%, p=0.33) and microaggressions (83.3 vs 83.0%, p=1.00) were similar irrespective of departmental leadership gender.ConclusionsWomen gynecologic oncologists report a high prevalence of workplace bullying, gender discrimination and microaggressions regardless of the gender of their immediate leadership. Proactive and deliberate structural interventions to improve the work environment for surgeons who are women are urgently needed.

Influence of Factors Relating to Sex and Gender on Rank List Decisions and Perceptions of Residency Training: Survey Study.

BackgroundFemales make up more than half of medical school matriculants but only one-third of emergency medicine (EM) residents. Various factors may contribute to why fewer females choose the field of EM, such as the existing presence of females in the specialty.ObjectiveThis study is a follow-up to previous work, and a survey is used to assess current residents’ attitudes and perceptions on various factors, including those relating to sex and gender on creating rank lists as medical students and in perceived effects on residency education.MethodsA web-based survey consisting of Likert scale questions regarding a variety of factors influencing a student’s decision to create a rank list and in perceived effects on residency education was sent to current EM residents in 2020.ResultsResidents from 17 programs participated in the survey with an 18.2% (138/758) response rate. The most important factors in creating a rank list were the personality of residents in the program, location, and facility type. For factors specifically related to gender, respondents who answered affirmatively to whether the gender composition of residents affected the selection of a program in making a rank list were more likely to also answer affirmatively to subsequent questions related to the gender of program leadership (P<.001) and gender composition of attending physicians (P<.001). The personality of residents was also the most important factor perceived to affect residency education. For factors influencing rank list and residency education, female respondents placed higher importance on subcategories related to gender (ie, gender composition of the residents, of the program leadership, and of the attending physicians) to a significant degree compared with their male counterparts.ConclusionsAlthough factors such as location and resident personality show the most importance in influencing residency selection, when stratifying based on respondent sex, females tend to indicate that factors relating to gender have more influence on rank list and residency education compared with males.

Incongruent Bodies

ABSTRACT This article explores the political humor behind Saturday Night Live’s presidential impressions and how the stakes of such humor are higher when the candidate is a woman. Drawing on theories of comic incongruity, I argue that SNL’s American presidents have “incongruent bodies”; that is, they challenge long-held assumptions about how power and leadership are to be visualized and embodied but ultimately maintain the patriarchal status quo. In the case of former candidate Hillary Clinton, however, what makes her incongruent with the role of the presidency is the simple fact of her being a woman. I argue that SNL’s Hillary Clinton characters, played by Amy Poehler and Kate McKinnon, foreground the basic contradiction of the woman candidate, offering an embodied critique on the gendering of power and leadership in America.

Advancing a critical social psychological perspective on women's leadership: A case illustration from the Global South

AbstractWhen applied to the Global South, mainstream positivist approaches to work and organisational psychology impose alien theories of personality (the self) and leadership. In the case of women, they fail to capture the richness of their experiences of life and leadership, which are influenced by the nexus between history, power and marginalisation—for many, even oppression. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the value of a critical social psychological approach, despite its grounding in the Global North discourse, to analyse women's leadership from a cross‐cultural context. To illustrate, we provide an empirical example of a Vietnamese woman leader's life‐story drawing on the theoretical resources from critical social psychology to interpret her experiences. When viewed from this perspective, women's leadership is understood within a dialogical space, which is prior to and more fundamental than any instrumental reason and technical rationality. It is argued that this approach resists essentialising assumptions about gender and cultural practices of leadership, providing a more liberating means to understand the life and leadership of Vietnamese women. In the final analysis, we argue that this study contributes to the nascent field of critical work and organisational psychology.