Studies about gender in organizations are overcoming initial approaches from the last two decades, focused on differencing styles and characteristics attributed to men and women. New studies utilize the contributions of a variety of disciplines, and take into consideration not only social, cultural and political conditions influencing leadership (Blackmore, 2005; White, K. and Özkanlib, O., 2011), but also institutional history, organizational structure and culture (Mills, 2002). This research is focusing on how men and women and their context contribute to create this new leadership. We will discuss the results obtained about the leadership styles and the power basis deployed by women and men ruling higher education organizations. Specifically it focuses on the first, descriptive stage of the research process, based on an ad hoc questionnaire, designed to collect data about the professional profile of the participants in the study and their leadership styles. Results show -contrary to our hypothesis- that there are no significant differences between both, leadership styles and the power basis used by the two groups. These results invite us to carry out further inquiry into the way leadership in higher education fit specific problems and situations, instead keep seeking differences between women and men leadership styles.