Despite a growing understanding of the reasons underlying women's promotion to high-ranking political positions, women are still relatively underrepresented in the top leadership roles, and we still know little about why this is. Moreover, less attention has been paid to the relationship between leaders and the effect they have on allocating women to top positions. The paper evaluates, therefore, whether party leaders select women as a less risky strategy to reduce the probability of losing their party leadership in the future. This is because party leaders perceive women as less ambitious and more collaborative. To test these arguments, I conducted a vignette experiment in an original survey of around 1,000 Spanish mayors. Because mayors have the power to appoint governments, they are asked to select a team member between two randomly-varied profiles of would-be politicians. The research also explores whether age, level of education, and having children influence team selection; as well as if male or female stereotypes (i.e., being described as competitive and self-confident, or kind and conciliatory) influence political advancement. In all, the experimental data confirms that gender, having children, and stereotypes influence teams’ selection. The contribution of the paper is focused on exploring if there are some patterns that define female leaders’ pathways to power. Specifically, the paper contributes to the understanding of the effects of intraparty leadership selection mechanisms, with special attention to party leaders’ motivations and incentives of appointing women on their teams.