The study of educational leadership is confronted to the challenge of the quality of the methodological designs used to explain differences between women and men. This paper highlights the importance of selecting various methodological designs and using gender-mixed sizeable samples. Textual statistics is proposed as a promising avenue as exemplified in a study where the software Alceste was used to analyse interviews with 21 female principals and 26 male principals. Results underline the importance of contextual and demographic factors other than gender in explaining the differences between the leadership of women and men.