Exploring the management style of Brazilians project managers

•Identifies management style adopted by project managers.•Offers assumptions considering gender and organizational sector.

This research aims to identify the management style adopted by project managers. We conducted factor analysis to refine the data and to identify the management style most commonly used by project managers. Lastly, we ran Levene's test, one-way ANOVA analysis, and Kruskal–Wallis test to make assumptions considering gender and organizational sector in a sample of 129 project management practitioners. We notice that most project managers state a reactive and determined management style and give importance to interaction between parties. Brazilians project managers may desire to minimize their loss in the time of financial instability. The results present that there is no significant change for gender and organizational sector. This finding proves that regardless of gender or organizational sector, they have similar judgment about how they manage people and projects. The relevance of studies regarding management style remains, particularly for the Brazilian scenario where the literature on this subject is embryonic, and where the current economic situation is passing through. The results of this study produce insights for project managers interested in developing management abilities.