1. You are here:
  2. Homepage
  3. Grants
  4. Project Repository
  5. Funded BAM-IAM projects
  6. 2025-Linghe Lei

2025-Linghe Lei

Becoming a leader: Identity development and its psychological costs for women in the workplace

Dr Linghe Lei (PI), Henley Business School, University of Reading (UK), and Dr Xuchang Zheng, Dubin City University Business School (IE) - Becoming a leader: Identity development and its psychological costs for women in the workplace

Grant ref: 2025-573-BAM-IAM

Award amount: £3,861.81

Project summary: This project examines how women develop their leader identity as they transition from employee to leadership roles, facing the paradox of conflicting social role expectations. While women are expected to demonstrate communal qualities (e.g., warmth, care, selflessness), leadership roles require agentic behaviors (e.g., assertiveness, competitiveness), creating identity tensions in women's leadership development.

The project consists of two interrelated studies, each designed to produce an academic paper with unique contributions. The first paper, based on a qualitative study, investigates the strategies women use to navigate identity tensions and develop a stable leader identity. Through in-depth interviews with women from diverse countries, it aims to generate new theoretical insights into how women actively construct leadership identities.

The second paper draws on the qualitative findings to test hypotheses in a quantitative study. It focuses on the psychological costs of identity management strategies, including impression management, self-monitoring, and emotional labor, and their impact on women’s authenticity, trust from others, and well-being. This paper will offer empirical evidence of the strain associated with women's leader identity development.

Together, these two papers form a cohesive research program that advances knowledge on women’s leadership development to inform leadership training and support for women leaders.