WOMEN LEADERSHIP: CHARACTERISTICS AND PERCEPTIONS.

Over the years women have won many fights during their road to emancipation. One of the main victories took place in the last decade when politics have become a won battle to the feminist representants. After more and more women began to occupy key positions in politics, administration, or the private environment, researchers were interested in the ways women lead. Scholars like Judy Rosener, Alice Eagly and colleagues, Catalyst or Carli have tried to find differences in leadership between women and men, but also the dominant characteristics of women leaders. Common views were that women are more concerned with the welfare of other people (helpful, sympathetic, nurturant etc), women lead in a more democratic and participative style than men and use relational skills to influence others, encourage participation, share power and information. The present research presents chronological references of women emancipation during the history, brings into discussion, according to the reviewed literature, gender differences in leadership, looks over women in leading position worldwide and makes some consideration about public leadership. This paper also highlights, through the focus-group qualitative research method, the main characteristics of women leaders in Romania, also trying to briefly describe how women politicians are perceived by the public. This paper is part of a wider research work that approaches the online communication of women political leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]