Female leadership and motherhood. Navigating career at the top.

Female Leadership and Motherhood: Navigating Careers at the Top explores the complex intersection between female leadership and motherhood, examining how women in senior leadership positions navigate professional ambitions, caregiving responsibilities, and persistent gendered expectations. Combining theoretical perspectives on female leadership, gender stereotypes, role congruity, and leadership styles with qualitative evidence from interviews with women in top executive positions, the book provides a multidimensional understanding of the relationship between motherhood and leadership. The analysis highlights the persistent structural and cultural barriers faced by leader-mothers, including the motherhood penalty, gender bias, work–family tensions, and unequal caregiving responsibilities. At the same time, the findings challenge the conventional view of motherhood exclusively as a career constraint. The experiences of women leaders reveal how motherhood can foster self-awareness, resilience, empathy, adaptability, and more relational and inclusive approaches to leadership. Particular attention is also devoted to the role of organizational flexibility, family and professional support networks, mentoring, and cultural change in enabling women to combine leadership and motherhood. Overall, the book calls for a broader understanding of leadership that recognizes caregiving not as incompatible with professional success, but as a potentially transformative dimension of women’s leadership trajectories.