Purpose -The study of women business founders provides an opportunity to determine their unique leadership characteristics. Starting a business may be a way for women business owners to be authentic and create more people-centered businesses. Servant leadership's gender integrative attributes where both agentic and communal behaviors are valued may be more congruent and reflective of the leadership behaviors of women entrepreneurs. Recently, the motivation of compassionate love was theorized to be an antecedent to servant leadership and, it is argued, exists in conjunction with authenticity. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate compassionate love, authenticity and servant leadership and determine whether they exist in the behaviors of founding female business owners.Design/methodology/approach -This qualitative research study used summative content analysis of telephone interviews conducted with 12 women business owners of professional service firms in four US states to determine whether these women's motivations, traits and behaviors were consistent with the compassionate love servant leadership model and whether authenticity was the cornerstone of servant leadership.Findings -The analyses found that these women revealed a strong authenticity orientation as they enacted a compassionate love servant leadership style within their businesses. Themes that emerged from the study were agency, calling, humility, trust and respect, self-development, stewardship, authenticity and providing direction. The study revealed support for some of the characteristics associated with compassionate love servant leadership and two characteristics which were unique to this study.Research limitations/implications -As a qualitative study of 12 individuals, these findings may not be generalizable beyond the four US states of professional service enterprises of women business founders. Future research should test the full servant leadership model of women business owners on a larger group of business founders and the sub-themes where little support exists.Practical implications -The more gender integrative style of compassionate love servant leadership may be beneficial for women owners to employ as business leaders.Originality/value -This research revealed support for a variation of compassionate love servant leadership model. The resulting servant leadership model herein was a mixture of agentic and communal leadership motivations, traits and behaviors useful to women business founders. Behaviors of authenticity were found to complement compassionate love. These women were able to extend the boundaries of what it means to be a leader and incorporate behaviors associated with both their gender and leadership roles, thus expanding their ability to successfully empower and equip themselves to navigate barriers unique to women leaders.

Leadership is complex and multifaceted. The expectation of leaders to exhibit characteristics of both ethical and innovative behaviors can be at odds. The current article explores the paradox of these behaviors and where on the leadership continuum they live in harmony.

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Through an exploration of research and practical literature, this chapter examines the impact of emerging technologies on leadership development. First the authors discuss how technology has changed organizational approaches to training and development. Next, the authors address the benefits of leveraging technology for organizational learning and leadership growth. Then simulation and gaming, social media, and blogs are discussed for their particular strengths as key options for leadership development.

This chapter explores the connections between behaviors in virtual work and virtual learning environments. Benefits and challenges of virtual communities are reviewed. Following a review of organizational and educational literature, the authors identified six core competencies that emerged with shared emphasis as keys to virtual environment success. The authors appeal to educational leaders to assess and develop student, faculty, and administrator skills in developing trust, building relationships, empowerment, coaching and mentoring, inclusion and communication management.