Fostering women's entrepreneurial leadership in family firms: ten lessons

Women's potential to lead a firm - whether one started by a family member or a new venture of their own - is still not often enough acknowledged. With family firms acknowledged as the seeding grounds for the next generation of entrepreneurs, and with increasing attention in research and public policy to women's entrepreneurship, it is important to understand the factors in family firms which help and hinder their women members' leadership and entrepreneurship potential. This article, based on the authors' book Women in Family Business Leadership Roles: Daughters on the Stage (Edward Elgar, 2009), presents ten lessons for family firms which arise from the experience of women in family firms.