Is the ideal political leader still a man? Gendered conceptions of political leadership in the contemporary political elite in Western European democracies

Political leadership has long been associated with masculine traits such as assertiveness, toughness, and task-orientation. Contemporary politics challenges and reproduces this model. The growing presence of women in leadership and crises that highlight the value of cooperation and care foster more gender-balanced understandings of leadership. Yet, the rise of radical right parties and anti-gender movements reinforces masculinized leadership ideals. Against this backdrop, this article examines how political elites currently define the relationship between gender and good leadership. We conducted interviews with 31 Members of Parliament in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, and Spain in 2023/2024, asking: “What do you think are the most important attributes of a good minister?”. Qualitative content analysis shows that many MPs in our sample favor integrative leadership styles—cooperative, inclusive, attentive, interpersonally sensitive, and oriented toward the common good. By contrast, aggregative notions of leadership appear largely limited to assertiveness, while traits such as being forceful, controlling, or individualistic are viewed as detrimental to good leadership by many respondents. These findings suggest that many Western European elites embrace leadership ideals consistent with traits ascribed to women, even in societies far from gender parity and raise questions about the reasons behind persistent inequalities in political leadership.