The women leaders discarded their femininity to deal with
their anxieties of engaging with traditionally masculine
leadership roles (Cheng, 1999). Projecting masculinity into
leadership roles seemed to pressure the women leaders into
trading typically feminine attributes like caring, tenderness
and emotional sensitivity (Syed & Murray, 2008) for aloofness
and aggression. In doing so, they attracted aggression
(Stapley, 2006) and envious reactions (Klein, 1997) from
the men. This appeared as resistance to female leadership,
projecting inadequacy onto the women leaders and using
aggression to dominate and de-authorise them. The women
leaders unconsciously colluded in their de-authorisation by
identifying with projections of ‘good enough’ mothering
(Stapley, 2006). When this projective identification (Klein,
1997) occurred, the women leaders discarded their destructive
impulses and took up the nurturing role. This fostered
dependency in their subordinates (Sievers, 2009). This made
it difficult for the women leaders to confront conflict.