True heroines: unveiling the female management of startups’ entrepreneurs

The objective of the article is to identify traits or characteristics of the female management of startups’ entrepreneurs. Thus, the study is characterized as qualitative, descriptive and multiple cases, in which data collection took place through semi-structured interviews with two entrepreneurs from Itajuba (MG) startups. The criteria of representativeness, availability and minimum working time were established for choosing the participants. The content analysis was carried out through the categories: female trajectory, leadership and barriers. The main results about female management are associated with the female trajectory, especially by childhood, family support and professional career; leadership characteristics of respect, equality, democracy and participation leading to transformational leadership; and challenges for the entrepreneurship practice such as discrimination, harassment and reconciliation between professional, personal and intimate life. The main contributions of the article are the leadership characteristics adopted by the respondents, which, even facing to past and current challenges, they manage based on respect, trust and mutual growth. The main originality of this paper is the analysis of female management based on the relations of the trajectories and leadership of women, as well as research in the field of entrepreneurial startups, an aspect not yet portrayed in the literature.