Voices of Leader-Mothers: Interviews with Women Leaders

Barbara Sveva Magnanelli () and Elisa Raoli ()
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Barbara Sveva Magnanelli: John Cabot University, Business Administration Department
Elisa Raoli: Catholic University of Sacred Heart, SEGESTA

Chapter 5 in Female Leadership and Motherhood, 2026, pp 89-245 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Chapter 5 translates the book’s theoretical and qualitative discussion into lived experience through a series of in-depth interviews with women who simultaneously occupy senior leadership roles and intensive caregiving responsibilities in Italian companies. Using semi-structured life-history interviews with CEOs, CFOs, and presidents across sectors, the chapter explores how these top leaders narrate their professional trajectories, the transition to motherhood, and the ongoing negotiation of societal expectations around the “ideal worker” and the “good mother”. Particular attention is paid to how motherhood reshapes priorities, time horizons, and criteria of success; how it interacts with leadership identity and style; and how women mobilize support systems, partners, extended family, mentors, organizational flexibility, to sustain demanding careers. The narratives also illuminate persistent barriers, including implicit maternity bias, availability expectations, and subtle penalties in evaluation and promotion. Overall, the chapter offers a grounded, multi-voiced account of how leader-mothers experience constraint and agency, penalty and enrichment, providing the empirical basis for the subsequent cross-case analysis of leadership, motherhood, and organizational change.

Date: 2026
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-24990-6_5

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