Findings outline the differences between women who always intended to start their own businesses and those who had originally hoped to move up in a corporate environment. The survey data suggested that women hoping to move up in the corporate environment placed a higher value on developing managerial skills than did those who had always intended to start their own businesses at some point in their lives. This latter group placed a higher value on marketing and technical skills, and each group tended to underestimate the value of the skills they did not pursue. Findings from the research suggest that rather than a top-down management style, women entrepreneurs' management style could be thought of as a wheel with the owner at the hub connected to each subordinate by a spoke and the employees linked around the rim. Female leaders often used a style which encouraged participation, shared power and information, enhanced others' self-worth, and excited others about their work.
Women tend to pay less attention to formal power and rely more on personal power.
It's interesting that the model for both women's management style and communication style is described as a wheel with the woman business owner at the center reaching out to others individually along the spokes of the wheel. It might be interesting to speculate whether or not this style, both in communication and in management, may be closely related to the size of the enterprise. It is difficult to see how a relatively large organization could be run in this fashion. It would seem that a large organization would have to depend on more hierarchical management and communication styles while smaller organizations could function in this way. Separate theories of career development may be needed for women and men because women are often excluded from formal network structure and even informal networks, the grapevine.