Book Review - Women in leadership: contextual dynamics and boundaries

Leadership scenarios and paradoxes – past, present and future – form the basis of Karin

Klenke’s analysis of women in leadership. The book sets out to explore the paradoxical nature of women’s leadership in male-dominated contexts, paradoxes women leaders are

confronted with, as well as the paradox of change versus the persistence of the status quo.

Contexts with a ‘paradoxical nature’– temporally and spatially – are at the forefront.

These ‘contexts’ for women’s leadership range from remarkable female leaders, today and

historically, in politics, organisational structures, information technology (IT), the media,

sports, the military, religion and spirituality, science, higher education and the arts. The

chapters are initiated with a vignette of one or more female leaders (e.g. Condoleezza

Rice, Lindsey Vonn, Ada E. Yonath, Marin Alsop and Angela Merkel) to form a frame of

reference for each chapter’s particular context.