___________________________________________________________This qualitative research makes a contribution to studies in gender, agency, and ethical leadership formation. It seeks to evaluate if the suggestions made by Montesde-Oca-O'Reilly & Yurén (2010) with respect to ethical leadership formation (as a result of a study carried out with female scholars in the state of Morelos, Mexico) also apply to ethical leadership formation of six women of non-governmental associations who work with gender issues in the same region. Our results indicate that the factors suggested by the above mentioned authors do apply to the participants in our study; namely, agency, social and moral formation, having support people and mentors, pursuing autonomy, being exposed to problematic situations that present challenges, establishing far-reaching goals, generating dispositions for resistance to instrumental logic, being exposed to leadership figures, as well as an increase in cultural and social capital. Like the authors mentioned above, we emphasize the importance of the ethical and existential dimensions in leadership formation.
____________________________________________________________