Abstract
There is ample evidence that a number of women leaders tend to adopt an authoritarian model of leadership. If I have found it necessary to question what drives women principals to adopt authoritarianism, it is not to denounce them, but to try to understand the issues that confront them as they endeavour to lead their schools, and some of these issues not doubt produced by the patriarchal hegemony in Kenya. Following this logic, I will show that female principals are products of and players in a patriarchal social world that reminds us that survival is at stake for women in the leadership game.