Female and gender leadership : To which extents gender impacts on leadership and organizations in France?

Business life is historically a male activity. Consequently, expectations of organizations toward their employees in terms of assertiveness, availabilities and submission to the hierarchy have always reflected male standards of living. Thus, the appearance of the leadership concept has naturally been shaped by masculine values. The progressive implication of women in the business life appeared in the 70’s. Consequently, this small universe tailor made for men involved the emergence of gender issues. The role of the leader is to implement the right leadership style to the right situation. A popular vision promotes two traditional leadership styles: a masculine one opposed to a new feminine one. The concept is based on long-established stereotypes regarding genders. Researches tried to prove the natural tendency of men and women to apply a certain leadership style according to their gender. However, results only show very little influence of the gender on the leadership style applied, which allowed us to put gender leadership styles into perspective. Firstly, we collected scientific data from articles and books in order to have a fair vision of concepts on this subject. Then, we envisioned the useful theories to backup concepts we used to analyze. Our analysis is also based on concrete experiences of leaders who face gender issues in the everyday life. We collected their opinions by the mean of semi conducted interviews. We concentrated on theoretical, conceptual and empirical data to explain and analyze gender impacts on leadership and organizations. Concerning our conceptual framework, our empirical findings admit that controversies led to our contemporary understanding of gender leadership. Regarding leadership styles, the current gender stereotypic categorizations do not seem to be relevant anymore. The sexualoriented education and the gender social roles shape followers and leaders perceptions which involve the current male organizational model and a glass ceiling. In other words, women encounter difficulties to access to leading positions. Because of tacit stereotypic perceptions, the business life is a men’s world referring to masculine values and standard ways of living