Leadership and social media use in daily management work of Generation Y leaders - An explorative analysis using a mixed methods approach

The topic of this thesis is the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of leadership behaviour and therefore the leadership style of Generation Y (GenY) considering the use of social media in day-to-day management. It examines the question of how GenY leaders lead and how they use social media in this context. It explores the topic based on a sequential mixed methods approach of qualitative interviews and a quantitative online questionnaire. Using the qualitative content analysis, it examines 25 qualitative interviews concerning the following aspects: leadership behaviour of generation Y, generation-based differences in the leadership and different strength of leadership styles, influence of contextual factors like hierarchies, sector and company size on the leadership style and use of social media, use of social media on day-to-day management, and, finally, connections between applied leadership styles and social media usage of GenY leaders. The findings and tendencies were then verified in an online questionnaire. The results of the online questionnaire [self-evaluation of leaders (N=406), bottom-up evaluation by employees (N=622)] show a significant discrepancy between the leaders’ statements and those of the employees. However, there are clear results and tendencies that confirm the findings of the qualitative study. It was established that GenY leaders show characteristics of task-oriented, person-oriented, transactional and transformational leadership. GenY leadership is characterised by clear outcome orientation, flat hierarchies and feedback. The use of social media varies considerably, depending for example on the context in which the leader works, e. g. sector and level of management. In summary, it can be stated that there is a connection between the strength of the leadership style and the usage of social media in day-to-day management