Female Leadership in Software Projects: A Preliminary Result on Leadership Style and Project Context Factors
This research addresses the underrepresentation of women in engineering by providing insights into female leadership effectiveness in software projects, though it is incremental as it builds on existing gender and leadership studies.
The study investigated the leadership styles of female leaders in software development projects and the influence of project context factors, finding a strong correlation between perceived team leadership and task management and observing potential associations between leadership approaches and customer involvement levels.
Women have been shown to be effective leaders in many team-based situations. However, it is also well-recognized that women are underrepresented in engineering and technology areas, which leads to wasted efforts and a lack of diversity in professional organizations. Although studies about gender and leadership are rich, research focusing on engineering-specific activities, are scarce. To react on this gap, we explored the experience of female leaders of software development projects and possible context factors that influence leadership effectiveness. The study was conducted as a longitudinal multiple case study. Data was collected from survey, interviews, observation and project reports. In this work, we reported some preliminary findings related to leadership style, team perception on leadership and team-task context factors. We found a strong correlation between perceived team leadership and task management. We also observed a potential association between human-oriented leading approach in low customer involvement scenarios and task-oriented leading approach in high customer involvement situations.