Higher education literature, has several contributions that pertain to mentoring styles in academia, female faculty, gender and leadership, and recruitment and retention of women and minorities in academia. However, specific references that lend voice to the experiences of female counselor educators in the context of their career paths and patterns are scant(Hill, Leinbaugh, Bradley,& Hazler, 2005). This qualitative investigation explored the socialization process of 8 female leaders in counselor education from throughout the United States utilizing grounded theory methods. The primary theme of socialization was organized into three main categories, (a) childhood socialization, (b) anticipatory socialization (Van Mannen, 1976), and (c) organizational socialization (Van Mannen, 1976). Leaders' socialization experiences highlighted sub-themes of balancing work and family, satisfaction level of professional obligations and inequalities. The inequalities highlighted participants' experiences of exclusion in departments with counselor education and counseling psychology programs, as well as gender and race discrimination around issues such as salary, tenure and promotion. The results from this investigation provided a theoretical framework of the interrelated influences of their socialization process from childhood across the span of their careers to full professor and department chairs. Implications and recommendations for female doctoral students, counselor educators, professional development in higher education, mentoring relationships, supervision and leadership development are included.