The belief that men should be leaders and women should be followers (patriarchy) has been practiced by societies for millennia. The aim of this study was to find out how much progress women have made in the domain of leadership in the public and private sector in the place of interest in the Bojanala region in the Northwest province of South Africa.

Literature study has shown that women leaders have made great progress in the public sector than in the private sector. However top management levels in the public and private sectors are still dominated by male leaders.

According to literature review, research that is done by men is published more than research that is done by women. The reason for this being that it is assumed that women do not have enough time to do research because they have household chores that keep them busy.

In the private sector women leaders have made slow progress because society still believes that leadership in this domain is still the priority of men. This research has shown that there are plans in place to fast-track the leadership of women in both the public and the private sector but this will take a long time.

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