Scientific studies over the last few decades have consistently shown that women are better leaders compared to men and women possess more effective leadership traits such as humility, self-awareness, self-control, moral sensitivity, social skills, emotional intelligence, and kindness. (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2021) However, it is also well known that women today don't get the same gender equality and opportunities that men do, in leadership roles specifically. In a recent book titled "Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (and how to fix it)", Thomas Chamorro-Premuzic discusses these stereotypes and asserts that people are broadly aware of the female advantage in leadership. This assertion is backed up by data from Gallup which suggests that 66% of Americans preferred a male boss in 1953, while that percentage has dropped significantly to 23% today. (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2019) As an aspiring female leader in the healthcare industry, I was drawn to the article about defining the alpha female.

1. What is the quantitative problem statement?

The study aims to define the qualities of an alpha female and develop a measure assessing the alpha personality in women.

1. What is the quantitative purpose statement?

The study uses past literature and "extends the leadership literature by examining the female relationship between self-identification as a leader with the personality characteristics of emotional intelligence, masculine gender-role traits, and self-esteem." (Ward, Popson & Dipaolo, 2010)

1. What are the quantitative research questions and hypotheses?

• The present research intends to create a short theoretically sound measure that will represent the behaviors of an alpha female.
• It hypothesizes that "the alpha female measure will be positively associated to activities related to leadership (as measured by the Leadership Practices Inventory)." (Ward, Popson & Dipaolo, 2010)
• In addition, it also hypothesizes that women who support these alpha behaviors will also "report higher levels of emotional intelligence, masculine gender-role characteristics (as measured by Bem's Sex-Role Inventory), and self-esteem." (Ward, Popson & Dipaolo, 2010)

1. How was the data collected?

• Participation: 12 small to medium sized colleges and universities from the Midwest and Northeast U.S., with a total of 637 women participants
• Two step collection method:
  • 1) 500 email addresses randomly retrieved from each school's respective online directory
  • 2) online survey program testing the email addresses for validity
• Additional participants signed up for the study via online recruitment or were recruited by school administrators via emails
• Survey:
  • 58 items, randomized for each survey to increase validity
  • Items were with a 5-point scale: strongly disagree, disagree somewhat, neutral, agree somewhat, and strongly agree

1. How was the data analyzed?

Complete data was randomly split for exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation models.

Analysis was done in three phases:

• 1) descriptive statistics was used to remove outliers if their means and standard deviations did not vary
• 2) factor extraction was done using maximum likelihood, principal axis factoring, and principal components analysis
• 3) confirmatory factor analysis

Finally, the model developed from data from the exploratory half was fitted with the final model from the confirmatory half.

Individual results were also analyzed using a t-model analysis.

1. What was the benefit of using the selected statistical test?

Conducting the analysis in three phases allowed different levels of data to be analyzed and ensured that all the survey inputs were used to create an unbiased interpretation of data collected.

1. What was the outcome of the study?

The exploratory factor analysis resulted in in a three-factor structure, Alpha Female Inventory (AFI) factors - leadership, strength, and low introversion.

The study found that "alpha females had significantly higher levels of leadership characteristics and more masculine gender-role characteristics that the non-alphas but did not differ from the non-alphas with respect to self-esteem and emotional intelligence." (Ward, Popson & Dipaolo, 2010) It also concluded that the newly developed scale is an appropriate measure of an alpha female and that the AFI measure can be used to identify alpha females

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