THE INFLUENCE OF THE QUEEN BEE SYNDROME ON THE ATTITUDES, BEHAVIORS, AND EMERGING LEADERSHIP STYLES OF THE MILLENNIALS 

Sammanfattning: Over the past couple of decades, women have conquered most obstacles in their effort to scale the mountains of leadership and management, seemingly only to fall at the last hurdle by purposefully derailing and mistreating each other. As a large percentage of the workforce in the Western hemisphere is composed of women, the likelihood of experiencing a female superior throughout their career is very high for both men and women, giving rise to the threat of dealing with the Queen Bee Syndrome. The antecedent aim of this master thesis paper is to explore the reasons that give rise to and legitimize the so-called Queen Bee phenomenon, which describes a usually senior female holding a higher leadership-position, who actively opposes the rise of other females in male-dominated organizations, in connection to the Millennial Generation. For this purpose, the methodology approach of Grounded Theory was chosen, first and foremost establishing a theoretical framework comprising literature gathered from academic journals, professional and specific print and sources, as well as relevant writings from contemporary and topical media channels, such as the New York Times newspaper, or the Harvard Business Review. Second, a qualitative empirical study was conducted, for which several women from both the Millennial and its predecessor generation were interviewed, in order to explore opinions on perceived biases against female leaders and managers which, among other things may lead to typical Queen Bee behavior, its provenances, and their implications for business women and organizations. The gained insights are culminating in the emergence of a new theory, according to which female Millennials’ inherent narcissistic tendencies may not hinder them to pursue much-needed mentoring relationships with other females and even suggest the possibility of a diminishment of the dreaded female bully-boss paradigm.