Professor Payal Kumar embodies a rare combination of expertise as both a real-time leader in the corporate sector, and as a scholar in the realm of leadership. She has worked as Registrar and Professor at a university in north India, and has also published widely on topics including mentoring, gender and diversity and leadership. She is involved as an Editorial Board member for some leading journals and is an Advisory Board member for multinational companies and consultancy firms based in India, England and USA.

"This book is one of its kind. By unravelling the meaning of self-identity for the Indian woman leader, it adds a refreshingly new dimension to scholarship on leadership, by drawing on a context-sensitive, indigenous perspective." - Krishnan Sharma, Senior Economic Affairs Officer, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs

• THEME ONE: SELF IDENTITY, NATURE AND NATURE 1. Women and Leadership: A Neuro-Social Point of View SOCIAL CONDITIONING (NOT THE BRAIN!) LIMITS PROGRESS Dr Bruce Hiebert 2. Political Participation and Women's Leadership SUBORDINATION AS AN IMPETUS FOR CHANGE? Sriparna Ganguly Chaudhuri 3. Confronting Paradox: Exploring Mentoring Relationships as a Catalyst for Understanding the Strength and Resilience of Professional Indian Women JUGGLING MODERNITY WITH THE TRADITIONAL Stacy Blake-Beard, Ph.D. 4. Women in Joint Liability Groups: Do They Take Risks or Innovate? NO RISK, NO GAIN Ajeesh Sebastian THEME TWO: THE COST OF LEADERSHIP ON THE SELF 5. I picked up a fight, and became a leader! Fighting for change takes its toll Rina Mukherji 6. Is Sexual Harassment at the Workplace Curtailing Women's Growth? LAW HAS NO TEETH, UNLESS IT IS IMPLEMENTED Poornima Hatti and Shruti Vidyasagar 7. Gender Discrimination in the Boardroom ONE STEP AHEAD, TWO STEPS BEHIND Neha Verma THEME THREE: INTERPLAY BETWEEN STRUCTURE AND AGENCY 8. Women Heralding Change The Feminine Way of Journalism Ela R Bhatt 9. Attaining Leadership through Transformational Interventions REDEFINING LEADERSHIP Seema Baquer and Monica Ramesh 10. Searching for the elusive glass ceiling in higher education LEADERSHIP ROLES IN INDIA'S LAW SCHOOLS Dr V S Elizabeth 11. Mobile Applications: A Game Changer for Rural Women Entrepreneurs? MOBILES, NOT IT, ARE THE KEY TO CHANGE Nalini Srinivasan 12. Looking ahead: the feminisation of leadership COLLECTIVE SOCIETY: BOON OR BANE? Dr Neha Chatwani 13. A Study of women as Panchayat leaders in Bihar INTERPLAY BETWEEN STRUCTURE AND AGENCY Smita Agarwal 14. How difficult is it to treat woman lawyers equally in an Indian law firm? The power of perception can be contained Harish Narasappa 15. A struggle for equality in the private realm of Family Law THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL Dr Sarasu Esther Thomas