Competing discourses of leadership: Transformational Leadership as blurring mechanism for masculinities in Denmark

Mona Toft Madsen and Charlotte Albrechtsen

Scandinavian Journal of Management, 2008, vol. 24, issue 4, 343-353

Abstract: Summary This paper contributes to research on leadership, by incorporating insights from the literature on men and masculinities. Empirically, the paper is based on the narratives of three Danish (male) leaders struggling with tensions in discourses of leadership in an interview context. Re-reading of the transcripts in a gender perspective revealed that an understanding of nascent intertwined discourses of charisma (masculinities) and participation (femininities) was implicitly constructed in the interviews. This gave rise to what could be labeled as a transformational leadership discourse, whereby masculinities in leadership while remaining, are blurred. In a broader perspective, a research implication is that while transformational leadership is most often introduced as being based on feminine and participative values, it should not be forgotten that male elements of leadership are still inherent in the concept, and generally in leadership of the 2000s. A certain fashion and shared meanings characterizes leadership in Denmark, relating to participation, dialogue, equity, democracy, and ethics (femininities). At the same time, corporate discourses related to charisma, result-orientation, and authority (masculinities) are present although blurred.

Keywords: Leadership; Discourses; Masculinities; Femininities; Open-ended; interviews; Charisma; Participation; Transformation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956522108000754
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:scaman:v:24:y:2008:i:4:p:343-353

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/872/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/872/bibliographic

Access Statistics for this article

Scandinavian Journal of Management is currently edited by Janne Tienari

More articles in Scandinavian Journal of Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().