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Invitation/Online Talk: The State of Women and Leadership in the European Union

Institute of Political Science, University of Tübingen

Women’s leadership matters. This sentence may seem trivial and blatantly self-evident. Yet, despite a recent increase in female politicians, managers, and experts in positions of authority across different countries and levels of governance, scholarship on women’s leadership remains limited.

Drawing on my research on the European Union (EU), this talk critically engages with leadership as a concept and practice as it manifests itself across different institutional contexts and levels of governance in the European Union. First, it conceptualizes and embeds women’s leadership within EU studies. Second, it examines the main opportunities and challenges to women’s access to positions of power (positional leadership) in the European Union. Finally, it analyzes leadership performances (behavioral leadership), illustrating how women in high-level EU positions tend to perform a combination of assertive and conciliatory leadership styles that respond to highly fragmented and contested governance structures.

As women continue to face various structural hurdles in their access to power, this talk will highlight the complex dynamic between governance structures and societal developments through the prism of women and leadership.