رقابت گفتمان رهبری: رهبری تحول به عنوان مات ساز برای مردسالاری در دانمارک

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.

Introduction Over the past decades, leadership researchers have turned their attention to charismatic, participative, and transformational leadership. While the concept of charismatic leadership emphasizes the leader's personality and tends to regard the leader as a self-centered, and often opportunistic person (e.g. Harvey, 2001; Sosik, 2002), participative approaches are more concerned with employee involvement (EI) or, in other words, with leadership that is shared between leader and employees with a view to achieving common goals. Transformational leadership can be seen as emphasizing both charisma and participation. Although the leader is still presented as a charismatic role model, transformational leadership focuses to a greater extent on the leader as an inspiring, facilitating, and stimulating character, which in turn implies a closer relationship to employees. Methodologically, leadership studies have traditionally been dominated by prescriptive approaches, based partly on theories and models regarding causal relations between various background variables and leadership styles, and partly on qualitative interviews with successful (male) charismatic leaders and their “excellent” styles (see e.g. House & Aditya, 1997; Yukl, 1989 for reviews). More recently, however, interpretive studies based on narrative and discourse analysis, have become more common in organization and leadership studies (Garrety, Badham, Morrigan, Rifkin, & Zanko, 2003; Grant, Hardy, Oswick, & Putnam, 2004; Lincoln, Travers, Ackers, & Wilkinson, 2002; Mumby & Clair, 1997; Sveningsson & Alvesson, 2003). Within this interpretive approach researchers have investigated among other topics, gender in relation to organizations (e.g. Billing & Alvesson, 2000; Collinson & Hearn, 1994; Fondas, 1997; Hearn & Collinson, 2006; Tienari, Søderberg, Holgersson, & Vaara 2005). This has meant investigating a social domain such as leadership, and in particular, how this is used to establish gendered identities, and to legitimize certain positions. By incorporating insights from the literature on men, masculinities (e.g. Collinson & Hearn, 1994) and femininities (e.g. Fondas, 1997) this paper contributes to the leadership debate by arguing that while leadership is often presented as becoming softer and more towards the feminine, masculine values are still inherent and dominant. An empirical study is presented below, and it is argued that certain Danish leaders in an interview context proved to be positioned between masculinities and femininities in their struggle to re-construct their leader identity. The paper comprises three open-ended interviews with male leaders in Danish companies. It is shown how the leaders opened by emphasizing the importance of participative leadership, elaborating upon this “alternative” approach by describing their own experience of engaging in dialogue, listening to their employees and empowering them to assume responsibility and to lead themselves. However, their way of describing their non-belief in charismatic leadership, and their way of legitimizing the use of dominance and authority revealed that they still see charisma as fundamental to the traditional leadership approach. Thus, while democratic leadership approaches have been acknowledged (e.g. Manz & Sims, 1987; Pearce & Manz, 2005), the status of charisma as a dominant element in leadership is likely to be difficult to change. Although elements of participative leadership do emerge as central in the empirical study, the study nonetheless includes charismatic aspects. More specifically, its findings inspired the incorporation of some insights from the literature on men and masculinities that is missing in studies on leadership. Starting from the gender perspective and the empirical study, this paper will argue that transformational leadership can be interpreted as a hybrid between charisma and participation, and that it should be regarded as a blurring mechanism for masculinities. And, therefore, should be questioned as a concept, which brings feminine values to leadership. The paper is structured as follows. The theoretical background to charismatic, transformational, and participative leadership is briefly described. This is followed by a section on masculinities and femininities. The empirical study yields examples of the three leaders’ gendered re-construction of identity, and their implicit ambivalence in relation to masculinities and femininities. In the subsequent discussion, it is suggested that a discourse of transformational leadership is emerging, which functions as a blurring mechanism for masculinities, and thus hinders feminine values in leadership. Some suggestions are offered for future research and possible implications.

Conclusion The leaders interviewed in this paper adopted different ways of legitimizing and explaining their leadership practices. However, they all seemed to be struggling with leadership discourses that were based on a mixture of femininities and masculinities. Superficially they appeared to be talking about the importance of such things as participation, dialogue, empathy, communication, values, and creativity, and they all seemed aware of fashionable leadership trends and the presence of a (female) researcher in leadership. At the same time, they may have felt compelled to project the “right” male image of leadership potential by acknowledging a dominant corporate leadership discourse reflecting leaders who are charismatic, rational, result-oriented, and convincing or, in other words, masculine. Based on inspiration from literature on men and masculinities (e.g. Collinson & Hearn, 1994; Hearn & Collinson, 2006; Tienari et al., 2005) and our empirical analysis, we suggest that charismatic leadership is connected to masculinities and participative leadership to femininities. Transformational leadership appears to mix elements of charisma and participation. While, functionalist leadership approaches in the 1980s appear to regard mostly a leader-focus (e.g. Conger, 1989; Peters & Waterman, 1982; Smircich & Morgan, 1982), the 1990s further concerned employee involvement (e.g. Senge, 1990; Wilkinson, 1998). Perhaps, in fact discourses on transformational leadership that can be regarded as a charisma-participation hybrid embracing masculine and feminine social categories, help leaders to re-construct their identities in the 2000s. The negative side is that the concept of transformational leadership (Bass, 1985; Bass & Avolio, 1994) may in this way contribute to blurring of masculine leadership.