Interviews and small focus groups were the methodological tools used for distinguishing leadership and entrepreneurial leadership in an engineering and science context for this preliminary investigation. Emphasis was placed on the gender elements in leadership by using conceptual frameworks from the research on organizational decision-making, socio-psychological fundamentals, and workplace performance. Forces that influence leadership and team behavior were considered through five framing questions: 1) do males and females equally emerge as leaders in engineering and science? 2) what are the key concepts in team leadership that vary in same sex and mixed sex composition of groups? 3) how do senior level managers distinguish leadership and entrepreneurship? 4) what influence do family and background characteristics have on the conception and practice of leadership? 5) how do leaders refer to the role of emotion in their work? Existing studies suggest that women and men perceive and construct the relationship between self and others in very different ways. Phase I of this study draws parallels from psychological theory to entrepreneurial leadership practice in academia, industry and professional sports. The goals of the work outlined was to both search for a preliminary understanding of the various categories of the influence of and of leadership and potential use for that understanding to prepare entrepreneurial leaders for the challenging global marketplace. Results are interpreted as preliminary findings and evaluated for organizing the methodology for the next phases of research.
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