Compare Women and Leadership in the European Union by Henriette Mueller, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters

This volume is the first comprehensive analysis of women's ascendance to leadership positions in the European Union as well as their performance in such positions. It provides a new theoretical and analytical framework capturing both positional and behavioural leadership and the specifichurdles that women encounter on their path to and when exercising leadership. The volume encompasses a detailed set of single and comparative case studies, analyzing women's representation and performance in the core EU institutions and their individual pathways to and exercise of power in top-levelfunctions, as well as comparative analyses regarding the position and behaviour of women in relation to men. Based on these individual studies, the volume draws overarching conclusions about women's leadership in the EU. Regarding positional leadership, women continue to be underrepresented inleadership positions, they more often hold less prestigious portfolios in such positions, and manifold structural hurdles hamper their access to power. Furthermore, huge variations exist across EU institutions, with the intergovernmental bodies being the hardest to access. Regarding behaviouralleadership, women acting in powerful EU positions generally perform excellently. They successfully exercise a combined leadership style that integrates attributes of leadership considered to be 'masculine' and 'feminine'. This is not to argue that women per se are the better leaders. Yet more oftenthan men they are exposed to stronger selection processes and their prevalent practice of a combined leadership style tends to best meet the requirements of modern democratic systems and particularly those of the highly fragmented EU. | Women and Leadership in the European Union by Henriette Mueller, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters