Young female leaders of the modern times face a significant challenge and a myriad of opportunities. Changes for women in the labor market are imminent because employees and leaders in the older generation retire from professional practice. Moreover, with the growth of the global feminist movement, women are more in power than even to seek equality in different sectors and have more opportunities in the business world. The idea of a young female leader is a modern idea in the UK, which mainly emerged with the young, progressive, and abrasive millennial females (Eddy et al., 2022). However, the topic of leadership goes beyond mere gender balance in the workplace. Young female leaders have a huge role in shaping the perception of the female professional in the future as the changes towards how employers see young women have already been made in the mindset of modern business societies. However, young leaders should cope with other challenges, such as family and self-actualization, which is possible by building a trusted network at work and outside of work. This paper incorporates an interview with Lidia Thomas, a young female leader in the Human Relationship department and a mother of a 3-year-old son about the balance between professional duties and domestic responsibilities, the challenges that emerge, the benefits, and the recommendations for aspiring young female leaders. Lidia Thomas is a young executive in her early 30s working in London for a large company specializing in digital assets. An aspiring young professional with a sharp look in her brown eyes and a radiant smile sheds light on how she manages an extensive workload and successfully keeps up with family responsibilities. “Does work-life balance a possibility for a young woman in a leadership position, considering the job responsibilities and the pressure of a young family?”(Smith 2022). After a little pause Lidia replies – “The balance of the professional workload and the domestic and personal needs helps individuals reduce anxiety and stress caused by worrying about household duties and professional responsibilities. It is indeed possible, but every young woman should understand that it will require some adjustments in terms of planning and communication both with professional and personal worlds.” Work stress and depression can overwhelm young leaders who have no experience with the amount of commitment demanded by the job (Lovelace et al. 2007). Effective planning is an important approach that young female leaders can use to balance their professional lives and personal lives. To help ensure that the important professional activities are planned into the working hours so that the individual can focus the remaining time on handling other personal or domestic issues, young leaders should pay attention to the correct prioritizing of tasks both at work and at home. Furthermore Lidia (2022) mentions that young women need to work together with other employees at work and family members to track important activities and adopt the right schedule. “Sasha, no one can survive alone in such a chaotic world where you always need to be in a rush to not miss the opportunity – help and support are an important part of the modern world’s surviving manual. Young women in leadership positions should realize their weaknesses and strengths to balance professional workload and personal commitments perfectly. I am really bad at organizing appointments and business meetings. Therefore my husband does all the appointments at home and our office manager doest the business meetings timing for me. In return I deal with utility bills at home and manage office related agreements at work.”(Thomas, 2022). Distributing work among other people helps reduce the amount of workload that the leader handles in the organization (Rabindarang, 2017). Lidia (2022) states an important part of succeeding as a young female leader – there is absolutely nothing wrong in admitting that not every task is suitable for an individual. Young professionals should focus on something they are good at, instead of trying to tick every box no matter what in the long list of tasks. Another important way to succeed as a young female leader is to adopt reliable leadership styles that enable to work conveniently. “I feel that many young leaders do not pay enough attention to how they lead others. You have to understand that female leaders and male leaders are different in how they communicate with their team members. Women are naturally more emotionally involved, and female professionals must establish a correct leadership style to make sure that they communicate efficiently. In my opinion, the best option for young female executives is the democratic approach. It will help young professionals establish good relationships with team members and give some extra space for the family duties.”(Thomas, 2022). The nature of the leadership style applied determines the amount of work assigned to the leader and the leader’s involvement in the activities taking place at the organization. Democratic leadership is a reliable leadership style for many young female leaders because it involves other employees. Democratic leadership shifts the power to the employees, who gain the liberty to make decisions approved by the leader (Fong et al., 2017). A democratic leadership style delegates more time to the leader to rely on the effort of the staff to accomplish available assignments. “Having said that, young female leaders should keep in mind that it will take more emotional effort to become a strong democratic leader in the company.”(Thomas, 2022). Lidia explains that the democratic leadership styles work better if the leader has established a stronger bond with the employees. Employees understand the importance of the leadership decisions they participate in making. Therefore, the leader should gain the full trust of the individual employees involved in decision-making. “Of course, some young female individuals might have a stronger personality and even consider being more controlling and harder to approach. But remember, being young can give you extra energy resources, but it can also negatively affect how other employees will look at your professional experience and reliability due to young age. I always suggest to my younger female team members to start from democratic leadership and avoid using a dictatorship approach – young leaders might devalue their professional expertise and be seen as arrogant and unprofessional”(Thomas, 2022). Leadership styles like autocratic, in contrast to democratic, might be ineffective for young female leaders and create more tension with the employees, pressuring leaders to do oversight. Autocratic styles are naturally more suitable for the older generation of leaders due to their years of expertise and thus a feeling of having more power over younger or less experienced employees. “Amid current challenges of workload stress, what is the assurance that young female leaders can look forward to?”(Smith, 2022). “Since I am a young leader myself, I know how difficult it might be at times to keep up with stress, especially when something goes wrong either at work or at home. I have been using online counseling services for a few years now and can definitely say that the quality of my life became much better. Sometimes you really need to talk to someone professional to help you manage all the stress and not give up on yourself. I wanted to be successful but not depressed, so I chose to look for help. So should you as a young leader” (Thomas, 2022). Lidia (2022) highlights an alternative solution for young leaders to cope with work stress – counseling. The availability of psychological services for individuals with mental health issues such as stress and anxiety is also an important reason why young female leaders will overcome the challenges facing them. Work pressure is not just a phenomenon that affects female leaders but anyone. Leading the rest of the team towards success means that the organizational performance and the employees lean on the leader (Cavaness et al., 2020). Modern-day leaders can discuss the challenges facing work settings and seek solutions. “Do not forget that if you ignore your stress and anxiety it will eventually win over your life and you will start failing. It’s like a snowball at the end.”(Thomas, 2022) . Lidia (2022) explains that most challenges that leaders encounter at work become chronic if the individual fails to realize and respond to them in time. Therefore, young leaders need to develop effective emotional intelligence and monitor emotions and those of the people around them. “What are some of the advantages and challenges of being a young female leader with a family in the modern world?”(Smith, 2022). “Nowadays we have a great opportunity as young female leaders to be successful as never before. Alongside terrific changes and losses, Covid-19 pandemic brought something good as well – flexibility to work from home. I moved most of my work to my home office and now I don’t need to spend 2 hours a day to travel to the office and back. Instead, I spend extra two hours of quality time every day with my family. As much as young female leaders, and I am one of them, try to sustain a healthy balance between work and family, the heartbreaking truth is that in most cases we do feel guilty about not being there for the family and kids. Now things are different and young female executives have much more possibilities to be successful and happy in their lives.”(Thomas, 2022). Working from home is a professional model picking up pace during and after the COVID-9 pandemic (Stoker et al., 2022). Most of the companies around the world moved their employees to remote office work or reduced presence at the office to a minimum. “As much as I want to work from home, sometimes I still go to the office and those few days a week are very important for my team. As a young and democratic leader I need to make sure that I stay connected with my team and other employees. Otherwise the motivation and the feeling of unity might start decreasing and thus, work performance will worsen as well.I have no issues managing everything remotely, but my team members sometimes need my guidance and support face to face.” (Thomas, 2022). Lidia amentions that working from home might be more suitable for leaders than employees due to the nature of the responsibilities assigned. Employees participate in the actual processing of the company activities that usually require a hands-on approach to accomplish goals. The main responsibility of a leader is oversight of those activities and the team’s overall performance towards the common goal, allowing leaders to be remote. The advancement of communication technology, such as Zoom video conferencing technology, is a major contributor to the new development. Working from outside the office premises gives leaders the freedom to attend to other matters while dealing with issues at work. “It is important for young female leaders to understand that maintaining a family and running a business or leading a team is, in fact, an advantage. Young women get the chance to have more financial security and plan comprehensively for the future at a relatively young age.”(Thomas, 2022). Many people face challenges in adulthood and make plans for the future without planning for all the children and eventually run out of energy due to their age. Maintaining a family at a young age and leading make it easier for the young female leaders to synchronize the leadership values at work and the values they intend to use to raise the children in line with the modern world. Young people are naturally more open to changes and adapt to those changes very quickly, unlike the older generations, who would rather have more certainty in their life. “What suggestions do you believe young female leaders should follow to attain this balance?”(Smith, 2022). “The main suggestion to young female leaders is to build a healthy and trustful environment around themselves by maintaining effective communication and collaboration within the professional circles and domestic environment. The right communication, the democratic leadership style and constant collaboration with my husband and other family members gave me an opportunity to grow professionally and still be a loving mother and a wife. But I had to go beyond the traditional perception of a business leader, as someone who is withdrawn from the rest of the employees. Instead I created a new structure where I can collaborate with my team members and make sure that we meet each other’s expectations by communicating.”(Thomas, 2022). Lidia shares her views about how traditional perception of leadership reflects a leader as someone who is withdrawn from the rest of the employees. The communication styles used in most organizations are structured to ensure strict formal relationships between leaders and the employees (Ganapathi, 2012). However, Lidia suggests that young leaders need to break the barrier and establish a new tradition where the leader works synonymously with other employees and creates relationships beyond professional engagements. “Leadership is about leading others alongside yourself, not being above everyone. Your work and family in the modern world are no longer two separate entities – they are one big responsibility interconnected between each other. If you want to be successful you should be effectively communicating with people around you, leveraging the use of technology, using counseling services, and choose effective leadership styles – these factors will help you harmonize your work-family life.”(Thomas, 2022). The leaders can handle the challenge of work-life balance through effective planning for professional duties and domestic chores. The key to success for young female leaders and have work-family balance is building an infrastructure combined from different factors. References Cavaness K., Picchioni A., Fleshman J., (2020). Linking Emotional Intelligence to Successful Health Care Leadership: The Big Five Model of Personality. Clinics in colon and rectal surgery. National Library of Medicine. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32624714/ Eddy K., , Selva M., , Rasmus N.K., (March 8, 2022).Women and leadership in the news media 2022: evidence from 12 markets. 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