Interaction of Gender and Situation in Relation to Leadership behaviors of Female Managers: Case-studies in Construction and Nursing Sectors

Leadership has been one of the most interesting research areas for academicians and practitioners for many years. (Hughes et al, 2006, p. 22) defined leadership as an interaction process of leader, follower and situation that showed its complex character. Within this complexity, a leader behavior was studied in the past with different dimensions of behaviors. The behavior of leaders can have an impact on the performance and effectiveness of organizations. Leadership behaviors have been studied considering gender and different situations. The interaction between gender and situation is emphasized as a focal point in this study. The main objective of this study is to look up for the gender and situation interaction for the determination of leadership behaviors of female managers. It means the impact of the two interactions on the leader behavior of female managers is investigated. In order to achieve the determined objective, two different sectors, which are construction and nursing, are selected. The gender differences between the workers of these fields and the tasks performed in the area constitute reasons for us to work on these two different working situations in order to achieve our objective. To find out the differences as well as similarities between the leader’s behaviors in these work situations, task and relation oriented behaviors are used as it is the dominant one when the leader behavior is studied in relation to gender and situation. The authors of this paper believed that studying female leaders in specific working situations can create new knowledge about female leaders in those identified cases. A qualitative study with semi-structured interview is employed by having eight samples of female leaders from construction and nursing organizations found in Northern Sweden. Previously determined behaviors in task and relation category are used to identify the leaders’ behavior in these organizations. Based on the qualitative results, the findings revealed that leaders in nursing have more of relation behaviors than the task behaviors. Female leaders in construction also show behaviors that mainly characters relation than task oriented behaviors. Therefore, the finding shows that female leaders have both task and relation behaviors with more of relation oriented behaviors in both cases. Finally, the study concludes that the interaction between gender and situation does not determine the leadership behaviors of female managers, where more of relation oriented behavior is identified in both cases