Abstract
This paper conceptualizes the past research in the emerging field leadership and gender and career with a focus on women’s careers, specifically the gender influences on women’s career paths, advancement, and success to the top of the organizational echelons. Departing from the tenacious gender imbalance in leadership positions, this paper teases out the intricacies of conflicts, tensions, dilemmas, and barriers/biases in the contemporary organizations that still hinders career advancement for many women. Reviewing the past scholarship through a gender lens, the literature is critiqued through a deeper analysis that center’s women’s lived experiences, realities, and stories in doing their careers in contemporary times and unmasks the gendered contradictions.