Women Managers in Croatia: Leadership Style Analysis

The literature argues that women tend to employ a more democratic, participative style and have a tendency to focus on negotiating, mediating, facilitating (Powell, 2010), so that this "feminine" style reduces hierarchy, satisfies subordinates and achieves results. For women, a leadership style is, in fact, an individual and practical method in everyday work. In addition, we can often read how personal qualities and traits make someone a great leader and, according to some authors (Appelbaum et al., 2003; Powell, 2010, etc.), women could be considered natural leaders since they always tend to be more relationship-oriented; hence women can become great leaders. However, as women progressively enter leadership roles and management positions in big companies and organisations that traditionally used to be held by men, many pose questions about leadership styles and gender. Differences between the genders and their attitude toward leadership remain a key focus for many researchers and the present paper attempts making a contribution toward answering the leadership-gender diversity question. This is a longitudinal research supported by literature and some empirical findings in Croatia. The 2013 research builds on the research done in 2003, and it includes key comparisons. The field research was carried out in March 2013 through a web-based questionnaire. The purpose of the research was to test whether the women leadership style in Croatia has changed over the past ten years. The goal of the research was to identify traits (characteristics) of the leadership style of women managers in the Republic of Croatia. This ongoing research study is an attempt to follow the changing attitudes and understanding of women leadership styles in Croatia. Our findings are focused on the characteristics of women managers, attitudes and traits that influence leadership styles. The authors also seek answers to the question: What are the limits for successful women managers? How do they compete in a traditionally male-dominated world? Clearly, there is a long way to go to equalise men and women managers in Croatia.