Connective Leadership: Female Leadership Styles in the 21st-Century Workplace

Abstract

This paper describes an integrative leadership model, “connective leadership,” which combines the traditional masculine American ego-ideal with additional female role behaviors more appropriate for an interdependent world. Based on the L-BL Achieving Styles Model, connective leadership emphasizes connecting individuals to their own, as well as others‘, tasks and ego drives. Achieving styles are defined as the characteristic behaviors individuals use to achieve their goals. The Achieving Styles Model includes three sets of achieving styles (direct, instrumental, and relational), each subsuming three individual styles, resulting in a full complement of nine distinct achieving styles. Gender differences in achieving styles are reported and related to the connective leadership paradigm.