Organizational Leadership in Junior Job Positions in Public Sector

Abstract

This study examines the workplace leadership behaviors of women in junior job positions in public organizations. It is informed by the understanding that leadership is everywhere and is not always hierarchical. Findings suggest that these behaviors chiefly occur at the team level and the subjective or individual level. This study proposes directions for future research that scholars may consider exploring. The method used to collect data is a qualitative interview with a sample size representing women from various occupations. The literature review is drawn from a combination of leadership, public management, and management literature. But the presentation of findings is done from a non-comparative perspective without drawing differences between those occupations or work settings.

Introduction

Women are increasingly assuming leadership roles in public organizations today, especially in junior positions. Research (e.g., International CityCounty Management Association [ICMA], 2020) on organizational design and power hierarchies shows that these are the occupational ranks where the cluster of women is the most concentrated. But while the leadership behaviors of women in senior positions are widely studied by scholars (Bishu et al., 2023; Robinson & Kerr, 2018), those of women in junior positions are moderately explored in public sector leadership (referred herein as PSL) scholarship. This situation exists in a scholarly context where leadership scholars continue to show little interest in the study of “the activities of those occupying subordinate positions” in organizational structures (Lord et al., 2020, p. 54). This issue is not of recent occurrence as feminist scholars such as Stivers (2002) have noted over the past years that public management theory has been insensitive to gender dimensions that affect administrative practices (p. 14). Of the existing literature on women in non-executive roles, scholars have chiefly provided historical accounts of gender roles in street-level bureaucracy (Shields, 2009), studied human resource management-related issues (pay equity, performance appraisal; e.g., Raaphorst, 2024), work conditions, female-dominated occupations, and recognition or devaluation in the workplace. However, in the views of contemporary feminist scholars (Mastracci & Bowman, 2015; Stivers, 2002), this is not sufficient. They continue to argue on the need to develop a rich literature on gender roles in the public sector because organizations are inherently gendered.

For that reason, this study seeks to explore the workplace behaviors of women in junior positions in public organizations from a less hierarchical leadership perspective. Arguably, this study will contribute to the body of PSL in relation to understanding leadership beyond senior positions. It is important to address this main question because as pointed out by Kellerman (2008) and Ospina (2017), low-level employees often influence organizational decisions or processes. While they may lack authority, they sometimes act as change agents or invisible leaders. In other words, leadership is everywhere and is an influence process that is not always bounded to hierarchy. This means that the current top down or leader centric model of conceptualizing leadership is problematic and does not offer a holistic cognizance of the different human agencies driving the operation of organizations. For clarity purpose, this study is divided into three parts with the first discussing the literature review on women in public organizations and less hierarchical structures. The literature review is informed by management, public management, and leadership scholarship for the simple reason that the body of research on PSL focused on women is not extensive. Using different streams of literature provides an extra layer in the construction of a strong rationale. The second part discusses data collection and analysis methods while the third part presents the findings. Finally, the fourth part discusses the directions for future public management research.

Literature Review and Theoretical Framework

Female Leadership in Public Sector

Among the key questions that this study seeks to address are what are the leadership competencies that women at a personal level associate with their work roles. This is an important question to consider when contemplating to theorize how they influence team members or co-workers and self. Simultaneously integrating an introspective dynamic is essential given that in most existing studies, leadership behavior is mainly discussed in relation to the perceptions that others have on a leader. Another question that is addressed herein consists of exploring what systemic challenges are perceived by women in junior positions? Exploring their leadership behaviors from this angle is important because women are foremost capable leaders just like men are. Studies (e.g., Eagly et al., 2020; Stempel et al., 2015) show that women demonstrate more transformational leadership styles and are now seen as equally or more competent as men. They are perceived by the public as being more honest than men, are seen as creative, intelligent, and represent an asset for teamwork collaboration. This paradigm shift in public opinion is of recent occurrence as a 1946 survey study revealed that most respondents believed men were more competent than women. Only 35% of those surveyed responded that women and men were equally competent. In contrast, findings of a 2018 survey on the same subject suggested that 86% of respondents felt that both sexes were equally intelligent (Eagly et al., 2020). Moreover, despite this progress in social consciousness and changes in cultural belief systems, academic interest in women’s work roles continues to be limited to the scope of comparing women to men. Pullen and Vachhani (2021) noted that this is problematic and that there was a need to study female leadership on its own terms rather than in comparison to male leadership.

Addressing the above questions is necessary as more scholars are calling for the need to conduct more research on women’s voices in leadership scholarship. Berg et al. (2012) argued that a female perspective of PSL is important in a context where the culture of public organizations has partly shifted from heroic norms that were androcentric to post-heroic norms that are gender inclusive. For that reason, this study is relevant to the extent that it will present an empirical analysis of women that goes beyond the narrative of presenting women as victims of unfair treatment (Pullen & Vachhani, 2021). However, women will also be asked questions on the intersection between their perception of self and negative work-related lived experiences. Furthermore, the fact that the public sector is one of the largest employers of women suggests that it represents an appropriate context for studying female leadership. Research on female leadership that continues to focus on the private sector (Murphy & Oesch, 2016) cannot be blindly applied to all work settings given that leaders in the public sector behave differently from their counterparts in the business world (Orazi et al., 2013). Some of these dissimilarities are highlighted in a study by Andersen (2010) that shows that public leaders are change-oriented while private leaders are power-motivated. A comparative study by Ferguson et al. (2014) drew the same conclusion by showing that public and business leaders see organizational operations and performance challenges somewhat differently. Arguably, public organizations offer a unique context that can lead to a particular understanding of female leadership.

De-Bureaucratization of Public Organizations

The significance of this study is further consolidated by the fact that public organizations have implemented de-bureaucratization policies in the past decades to make their workflow systems more agile. Many organizational experts (Hamel & Zanini, 2020; Osborne & Gaebler, 1993) have argued in support of these de-bureaucratization efforts. In financial terms, it is reported that bureaucratic sclerosis or the state of hardening rules and the inability to change represents a cost of $9 trillion in OECD countries. It makes organizations across the spectrum or all sectors, inertial, incremental, and uninspiring. De-bureaucratization refers to the decentralization of power or making authority less hierarchical. It is characterized by the redefinition of managerial function and the downward delegation of responsibility. In concrete terms, it involves delegating decision-making authority to subordinates and sub-organizational units to encourage greater micro-level responsibility (Kurian, 2013, p. 13). Although not commonly used in today’s public management scholarship, this concept has been part of academic discourse since the 20th century. This is epitomized by Eisenstadt’s (1959) work, “Bureaucracy, Bureaucratization, and De-bureaucratization,” published in Administrative Sciences Quarterly. Eisenstadt (1959) presented de-bureaucratization as an organizational system where the specificities of bureaucratic roles and rules are minimized. This implies that it can provide a certain degree of autonomy and discretionary power to employees to engage in role-switching or role-extension behaviors. However, public organizations as less hierarchical bureaucracies are not extensively studied in relation to the invisible leadership behaviors of subordinates.

Moreover, by highlighting the above research gap, this study does not imply scholars have not considered some of the questions that are adjacent to the reality of de-bureaucratization. In leadership literature, scholars have defined these questions in relation to shared or integrative leadership behaviors. But even in that configuration, Silvia and McGuire (2010) complained a decade ago that “the assumption in the research is that integrative leadership exists in collaborative structures, but seldom do researchers empirically document the actual competencies, skills, and behaviors that constitute such leadership” (p. 266). More recently, leadership in teams has gained more attention among scholars. However, a thorough understanding of the interpersonal behaviors that constitute leadership at this micro-level is lacking in research (Cook et al., 2020). In public management scholarship, the study of less hierarchical structures falls under the umbrella of collaborative and network governance (Ospina, 2017; van Den Oord et al., 2023). What these different studies denote is that scholars in both fields have not tried to label their work as research on flat organizations. This caution can be explained by the presupposition that their definition of de-bureaucratization is more geared toward cross-sectorial collaborations than human relations.

In management research, scholars have been successful in providing a clear definition of less hierarchical bureaucracies that is informed by empirical data. This definition is closer to the concept of de-bureaucratization as it refers to these flat organizations as work settings where much of the daily work is delegated interaction that does not involve the manager or boss (Billinger & Workiewicz, 2019, p. 5). Ketkar and Workiewicz (2022) noted that one of the key features of these workflow systems is self-selection and autonomy, where each employee is allowed to both initiate and join projects freely (p. 935). Research on employees taking on leadership roles is more investigated in relation to new institutions such as tech firms rather than old institutions like public organizations. All things considered; the above literature review provides a strong rationale on why it is significant to explore the leadership behaviors of women in junior positions in public sector work settings.

Transformational Leadership and Questions Design

The design of the questions focused on exploring the competencies, perceived organizational challenges, and perceptions of self among those women in relation to their transformational leadership behaviors or characteristics. The emphasis was put on these behaviors in consideration of the need to present women as active employees in leadership dynamics. As noted by Rubin et al. (2005), transformational leadership behaviors represent the most active form of leadership. It is the type of leadership that is the most attributed to female leadership as it is associated with behaviors that are more congruent to gender roles (Stempel et al., 2015, p. 216). Herein, transformational leadership was primarily applied in the design of questions from the perspective of Leithwood et al. (1999) and Grøn et al. (2020). According to Leithwood et al. (1999), transformational leadership refers to a personal commitment to organizational goals, and greater capacities for accomplishing those goals (p. 9). Simply put, it refers to characteristics that contribute to positive changes, self-expansion, and job performance motivation. Grøn et al. (2020) position transformational leadership at the intersection with occupational identity.

However, Bass’ four Items (idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration) for categorizing transformational leadership were not applied in this study. This taxonomy was not applied for the simple reason that this study is qualitative research and is not concerned with behavioral outcomes. The formats of open-ended questions and semi-directed interviews used herein do not fit the scope of that taxonomy. Most often, this model has been used in measuring behavioral effects (Jensen et al., 2019) and in the context of quantitative research. Hence, using this quantitative model could be restrictive and limit the researcher from probing participants. Those four items can prevent an in-depth analysis of leadership (Jensen et al., 2019). Researchers such as Henderson and Sowa (2023) and Grøn et al. (2020) have also diverged from Bass’ taxonomy by applying a generic dimension in their study method and design. In line with this understanding, the following main question was developed to guide and inform the sub-interview questions asked to participants herein.

• Question 1: What are the personal characteristics and work roles embodied by women in junior roles that indicate a sense of active leadership behaviors?

It is fundamental to note to that transformational leadership was not used in the interpretation of preliminary findings and was only limited to the design of the interview guide. Role theory was used instead in the interpretation of findings. This was the case because as argued by Naylor et al. (2013, p. 115), role theory offers a frame of references that is critical to understanding human behavior in organizations because it focuses on the collective behavioral patterns of individuals rather than on single work activities. Vandenberghe et al. (2017) suggest that role theory is suitable to explain the roles that individuals perform as part of a network of workflow systems designed to achieve organizational goals. Although, popular among social scientists, Biddle (2013) and Naylor et al. (2013) note that like any organizational theories, role theory presents some flaws. Naylor et al. (2013, p. 115) wrote that despite the frequent use of role theory to prescribe patterns in human behavior in organizations, the results of this theoretical lens are not that impressive. For Biddle (2013), role theory offers an analytical lens that is superficial. Despite recent developments, confusion persists in role theory as researchers continue to disagree over its definition and use in explaining human behavior in organizations. This means that this study may not be able to offer findings that define all the meanings that women attach to their leadership behaviors.

Study Methods

Participants and Data Collection

A multi-sectoral approach was used to collect data among women working in the public sector, namely for state-owned enterprises, municipalities, healthcare, education, military, and other government agencies (e.g., department of agriculture). The ages of the participants ranged between 25 and 60s, and they came from various occupational backgrounds (see Table A1). However, a multisectoral dimension was not applied in the analysis of data because the goal of this study was not to provide a comparative narrative of the behaviors of women across different public organizations. It was purely applied for feasibility purposes to ensure that enough participants could be recruited. Most of these participants work in technical and administrative occupations in junior positions. The data were collected from a sample of N = 18 participants (Table A1) with semi-structured interviews being conducted in most cases in-person and non-workplace environment. Initially, the goal was to interview more than 50 participants, but this target was not achieved because many potential participants who were contacted for interviews did not take part in this research. Of this sample, N = 3 participants responded to the questions by writing statements on their leadership behaviors and work roles. This small group of participants was contacted and provided questions through Qualtrics. The other N = 15 participants took part in in-person interviews and were recruited through work emails and randomly. After trying multiple times (around 400 research invitations) to recruit more participants in 1 year without success, the researcher had no other option but to carry on with the research. The participants who were interviewed were from the US (N = 7), Australia (N = 6), and Canada (N = 6) during infield work. The deadline for using the research grant allocated to this study was also among the reasons that led the researcher to limit the sample size to N = 18 participants. All these countries are advanced economies with progressive employment standards and legislation on gender equality. The public sector workforce in these democracies is majority women. They represent 56.8% of the public sector workforce in Canada, 53% in the US, and 60.4% in Australia (Australian Government, 2024). Moreover, generating findings from a small sample size is not unique to this study as there are published qualitative studies that have the same limitation. This is, for example, seen in the case of Schachter (2004), who examined the career path of women leaders in the public sector by relying on a sample size of 10 interview participants. Likewise, Larson (2020) used a purposeful sample of 12 interview participants to explore how transit practitioners navigate feelings of nervousness associated with racial and economic inequities in public organizations. That said, when conducting the interviews of this study, the wording of questions was open-ended to ensure that participants had the opportunity to tell their stories in their own words.

Data Analysis

Following the collection of data, the researcher proceeded with the analysis of the narrative of participants through manual coding. Bingham’ s (2023) coding phases were applied with the first step consisting of organizing interview data to develop attribute codes. The second step involved sorting data into relevant topical categories. This consisted of creating a priori topic codes aligned with the aim and questions of this study. At this stage, the researcher was able to filter out data that were not useful to the research questions. It also involved identifying similarities and uniqueness in participants’ stories and lived work realities or experiences. The third step consisted of completing an open coding process. This phase was completed with the intent of identifying emerging propositions and supporting evidence for those propositions. In total, the following three categorical propositions or themes were identified. The first category consisted of the actions and attitudes of participants as related to unit-level and relation-oriented leadership (Bingham, 2023). The second category consists of the organizational challenges that they experience at work. The third category underscores the reflection of their self-leadership. The fourth step involved completing pattern coding to coalesce those themes into preliminary findings. The fifth step involved applying role theory to interpret preliminary findings by identifying the meanings and values that participants ascribe to their work roles, leadership competencies, work environment, and knowledge of self. This analytical framework was used because it explains leadership behaviors by implying that the on-job behavior of employees is associated with their work roles (Biddle, 2013) and status in organizational structure. Moreover, the discussion of these findings is presented in a thematic style with the use of illustrative quotations backing the generated discourse. It was done with the intent of supporting each thematic category and enhancing the confirmability of findings (Eldh et al., 2020). Not only that, but it was also done to ensure readers that the interpretation of data is grounded in the real stories of informants and not in the researcher’s assumptions or opinions.

Study Findings

Leadership Characteristics

The embodiment of leadership is defined by participants in relation to social and interpersonal skills that contribute to their job performance. Some of these competencies are active listening, collaboration, empathy, and creativity. For example, on active listening, transformational leadership behaviors transpire in individual actions such as “listening to everyone” and being open to the views of others to build consensus around decision-making at the team level. This attitude is informed by the belief that they cannot “always be right” or should always have the final say. Plus, they believe that it is important to respect each team member in order to “work together” effectively. This means that these women adhere to the values of collaborative or participative leadership. This is further evidenced by a statement made by one participant who mentioned working in “multidisciplinary teams.” Active listening is envisioned in relation to a characteristic that participants believe is specific to feminine leadership. This belief consists of “women are better in understanding the feelings of others” or “more likely to understand intuitively” the struggles of others. Because of that, participants believe that women can be leaders in their own rights without the need to develop masculine leadership traits. However, this belief is held in relation to performing non-executive roles as some of them stated that to be promoted to senior leadership, women need to develop masculine traits.

But this awareness has not prevented these women from trying to work their way up “through the hierarchy of the organization.” Moreover, they always realize later on they will not be able “to break through” because of “glass ceiling,” namely the lack of opportunities for promotion to senior job positions. Based on this factor, it could be argued that these women do not lack the motivation to advance their careers. It is rather the organizational culture that is the issue, and this is further pointed out in participants’ statements such as “there was less an openness to female perspective and leadership.” For that reason, they argue for the need for a “deep cultural change” at the institutional level. But they are optimistic that things will change and improve in the foreseeable future. The discourse underscoring this hope is constructed from a societal perspective rather than an organizational perspective. It entails the belief that the fate of female leadership will improve in the future as society becomes more progressive and driven by social justice. This means that external forces will play a pressure influence in reforming the culture of promotion in public organizations.

Another set of leadership skills possessed by participants consists of directive-oriented competencies such as delegation. Some participants find it easier to delegate while others find it hard on the pretense they want to “see things done properly.” The perspective of the latest group denotes that some of these women are attached to the culture of efficiency. For the former group, this could mean that they value the culture of autonomy in the workplace. But this assumption was not further explored during the interviews. Moreover, some participants also discussed their occupational identity in relation to lacking certain leadership characteristics. Some of these limitations are not having strong negotiation skills and feeling “uncomfortable with the idea of having power.” The paucity of negotiation skills was discussed about engaging with stakeholders in large settings to have access to resources. In the words of one of the participants, this has “made it hard to stick up for” her team and bargain for what they needed. Pertaining to the question of power, the lack of comfort is associated with the fact that they did not figure out how to “harness it in a way that it was authentic,” affirming, and not hierarchical when leading. But they are able to develop a sense of comfort later on in their function. Another competency that they struggle to embody is “leading within the middle of an organization” because they feel not adequately prepared to lead in that context. Leading from the middle is defined in terms of acting as a bridge between their team and management and came with pressure. This competency flaw was only raised by one participant who felt being twisted between meeting the high expectations set by the management and remaining authentic to her team. All that being said, the above findings infer that these women behave like transformational leaders.

Unit-Level Leadership

Data show that the phenomenon of leadership occurs at the unit level or within the dynamics of in-group or intra-professional relations and informality. It consists of active agencies of a relation-oriented leadership nature rather than of task-oriented leadership nature. One of these agencies involved acting as supportive leaders by building trust, motivation, and helping co-workers to overcome the challenges encountered at work. At the out-group level, the embodiment of leadership is defined by participants in relation to task-oriented leadership. One of the agencies mentioned in relation to this component is mentoring out-group members during onboarding. As stated by one of the participants, “I provide coaching for staff outside of my branch who are new to their respective positions and would like administrative guidance.” Such a statement insinuates that they hold certain informational expertise in the domain of knowledge transfer in their organization.

It is important to point out that while most of these women associate unit-level leadership with a positive work experience, a few of them who have led majority male teams stated that it was a challenging task even though they perceived those colleagues as allies. One participant describes this problem in terms of encountering “extra layers of challenges to navigate that a male team leader would not have to navigate.” Along the same line, a second participant stated that “Leading a male team has unspoken power dynamics and social dynamics, in addition to having things get done as a team.” In addition to that, she pointed out that “each woman has a different experience based on their intersectional identities.” Such statements affirm and align with the theory espoused by feminist scholars (Berg et al., 2012; Mastracci & Bowman, 2015; Stivers, 2002) regarding the belief that organizations are inherently gendered. Those unspoken dynamics were described in terms of acting cautiously when having “strong opinions” to not come out “bossy. . .or too firm.” It also consists of carefully sustaining a conservative body image by being conscious of what they are “wearing to the office” to ensure that they are not perceived as sexual objects. But there was no statement in the interviews that suggests that these gender expectations are explicitly demanded by male co-workers. It looks more like these women adopt gender expectations informed by social structures as behavioral norms to be perceived as good leaders. Simply put, they are afraid to take on male leadership attributes or characteristics in the workplace.

The performance of leadership roles at the team or unit level has led these women to develop a sense of occupational identity that is tied to the demand for formal recognition. This belief is held by those who had previously worked in the private sector and those who feel that they are doing more than how their job is designed in the organizational chart. But at the same time, they also believe that their embodiment of leadership is somehow restricted by role boundaries. They described this organizational issue in words such as having their advice being ignored due to their low-positioning in-power hierarchies. This means that the existing organizational structure does not provide an empowering environment whereby they can fully express their leadership potential. However, it is important to stress that most participants did not mention the issue of gender bias or discrimination as being the main cause of the lack of recognition by management. This is mostly true for women working in female-dominated occupations. But the minority of those working in a male-dominated environment stated that they are not given full credentials for their team-level contributions because of their gender.

Yet, the lack of recognition by management has not deterred some participants in their resiliency to contribute to decision-making processes at the unit level. This acumen is built on the legitimacy provided by co-workers who back and support their ideas. This support is provided because team members have recognized that participants have certain unique leadership traits. This is evidenced by statements such as “My team members respect me and value my input.” Plus, their acumen is driven by the motivation to serve and provide outcomes that “could potentially benefit the team” and their organization. But statements such as “suggesting new ideas for the office is not within my job description” suggest that at the individual level, these participants are self-conscious that they don’t have the legitimacy to perform certain roles.

Moreover, the fact that participants want to be recognized by management implies that the informal and intrinsic recognition provided by team members is not perceived as being sufficient in enhancing their self-actualization. Additionally, their attachment to contribute to leadership processes is not driven by self-interest to gain power over others. It is purely driven by benevolence and authenticity to contribute to the creation of public values. Being instrumental in the production of such output is lived as a “rewarding” experience by these women. Based on these findings, it is fair to argue that actual work and the rewarding system differently influence the identity of these women.

Administrative people are overlooked. . .and most of the time very unappreciated. Many work quite hard, and very few get recognized. I have tried to step up to be a leader wherever I can in in my position here. I try to make my connections with others pleasant.

Sometimes my offers of help may be turned down; I need to not take this too seriously. In previous roles, my advice was often ignored, likely due to my administrative position. . .Occasionally there are systemic issues within the corporation-for example, being restricted. . .From time to time, I may have difficulty navigating the bureaucracy.

Furthermore, the data suggest leadership behaviors at the unit level are not only limited to the dynamics of workplace interactions with others but also involve leading self. Some of the behaviors underlining self-leadership involve making self-learning efforts when transitioning to new work roles. It also consists of being self-motivated and displaying a sense of self-professional accountability. One of the circumstances under which participants have taken on self-accountability responsibility is taking initiatives to mitigate the risk of poor job performance. Statements underscoring this sense of professional accountability among participants are as follows:

I hold my self-accountable by making. . . a list of things to get done, to complete them. I check them. . . .by being attention to details and if I feel that there is a mistake. . . I take responsibility. . .and to avoid mistakes I put different processes in place to make sure information and data add up, so the end result is correct.

I do tend to be more aware of process inefficiencies and gaps in my leadership role; some I can address, others not so much. . . .When I am dealing with people, I always try to understand. . .their perspective.

However, the possession of these self-leadership attributes has not immune participants from wanting their organizations to provide more leadership mentoring and training. As stated by one participant, a public administrator at a municipal government level, “More mentoring would help. I find that leadership classes provide theory but are limited in scope and depth due to time constraints.” This demand was echoed by another participant who stated, “Some sort of core leadership training for new personnel within this position . . . . is a must. You need to know more than just word processing, database, and tech functions to really do the job properly, move ahead, and support your peers.” Another participant working for a state-own enterprise as a data analyst intern stated that her organization should provide “more leadership training.” This self-awareness represents in itself a form of self-leadership in the sense that they are aware that it takes a lot of investment in horning their skills to adequately perform complex work roles.

Work Organization

A crucial organizational challenge experienced by these women is the problem of job demands. This problematic was described in terms of “being overworked” and the quality of work organization. One participant, for example, stated that it was difficult to refuse to perform extra work roles because of the kind of relationship that they have developed with clients and team members. She rationalized her role expansion decision on the belief that her organization is understaffed. This means that organizational or team loyalty rather than voluntary compliance is driving the decision of these women to take on extra work roles. Evidence substantiating this interpretation is provided in statements such as “You have built a relationship with these people; you can’t just leave when they need help.” This statement can be considered as an indicator suggesting that the type of bond developed between these actors is strong or deep. It bears evidence of the transformational leadership behaviors of participants as those who put the needs of others above theirs. But this organizational loyalty comes with a penalty in the form of participants developing job stress. They described this spill-over in language such as becoming “emotional” and feeling “tired.” To illustrate this emotional state, one participant stated “I am the Executive Assistant to the President. I have been in this role for over 6 years. There are often high-stress situations.” However, these involuntary benevolent behaviors have not driven the management to provide enough support to these women. This issue was raised in statements such as “You are not given support, no thanks.” Some participants were not clear on whether the type of management support needed the most in relation to job stress is of emphatic leadership nature (moral support) or resource nature. Nonetheless, based on the aforementioned statement, it can be deduced that the management structure under which these women work may be lacking in transformational leadership values.

Overworking has also an indirect consequence on their work-life balance or non-work obligations. This issue was raised by one of the participants who stated that she found it challenging to have “flexibility for life outside of work” as she is reaching middle age. But that was not an issue for her when she was young or in her early career years. Another participant working in business development for an arts and culture public organization questioned the practice of working “a 9 to 5 job.” In the same vein, job stress is associated with the challenge of leading in the context of telework. This concern was particularly discussed by one participant who stated that “Managing at a distance means that you have limited access to non-verbal communication strategies you might otherwise use to de-escalate a situation. In general, virtual and hybrid meetings are more tiring.” Arguably, hybrid work represents a systemic barrier in the efforts of building team cohesion. This organizational reality was echoed by the same participant who stated that “Building team unity is a challenge, especially when your staff members never see each other in person.” Such a statement indicates that the success of team leadership heavily depends on the type of workflow system created by their organization, and not only on participants’ personal leadership characteristics. Other systemic work-related challenges such as the quality of cross-boundary interactions with organizational members working in other divisions were discussed during the interviews. This issue was mentioned by one participant who felt that she was not fairly treated by out-group members from other units. The underlying cause of such a treatment is that there is a lack of inter-professional socialization between divisional units.

Two participants who had worked in the private sector complained that the experience of dealing with clients and other organizational members was different between these two contexts. They suggested that the work culture was different as they “had to deal with the frustration of dealing with others who can’t make changes, and don’t want to.” One of the reasons evoked by these participants was that “everything moves slowly” and “there’s not always a straight approach” to doing things in public organizations. In other words, their statements suggest that the structure workflow system is less harmonized or performance-driven in the public sector than in the private sector. Performing job tasks fast depends on working with team members or people “you have developed a relationship with.” That said, despite having some issues with the organization of work, most participants gave the impression that they were satisfied with working in the public sector. Anecdotal to this sense of job satisfaction is underscored in statements such as “I am more proud to be an administrative assistant, and I value the learning that comes from the performance of leadership roles” and “Most of my work, I find it very rewarding.”

Cross-Gender Interactions

There are two narratives that participants harbor on their experience with professional relationships at work. The first narrative entails a sense of negative experiences generated by bad behaviors exhibited by male clients on a few occasions. These behaviors were described by two participants in words such as clients trying to flirt or undermining their role. However, these women did not use victimhood language when discussing these issues. They are able to deal with such clients by setting boundaries in their professional relationships or proving their merit. But they did not go to the extent of reporting these poor treatments to the management. They stated that these experiences do not negatively affect their occupational identity as they enjoyed doing their job and would not stop doing the same job in the future.

The second narrative chiefly relates to the positive perceptions that they have about the behaviors displayed by their male colleagues at the team level. Participants stated that they “get on very well” with these organizational members and that they did not behave in a discriminatory manner against them. Statements indicative of this workplace cohesion were, for example, made by a participant working in healthcare. She stated that “Men and women within the workforce, I think it has been pretty awesome actually. . .We get along and work well together for the most part.” This cohesion is driven by a common purpose that they share in achieving organizational goals such as “taking care” of clients.

However, it appears that the data suggest that female-to-female co-working relationships within teams are not immune from negative experiences. This occurrence was described by participants in terms of some female colleagues exhibiting poor behaviors such as “making a drama out of nothing.” Nonetheless, this determinant is perceived as a minor issue by these women as they feel “closer” to their female colleagues and able to build and maintain “friendships” beyond professional jurisdictions. This female friendship bond is echoed in statements such as “I discuss challenges with other women, with whom I can strategize around ways to navigate them skillfully.” This network support is something that they have not done with their male colleagues, with whom they have only developed professional relationships that are limited to work settings.

That said, this socialization preference should not be interpreted as an epitome suggesting that these women have developed an occupational identity characterized by distrust against their male colleagues. On the contrary, they see value in working with these organizational members to the extent that some participants positioned themselves during interviews as advocates of masculine leadership. This was, for example, the case with a participant in her sixties who adheres to the values of the first feminist movements and not the MeToo Movement. But this stance is marginal in the discourse held by most participants who did not mention feminist theoretical constructs in their responses. Overall, the above findings suggest that the work environment of these women is embedded with paradoxes or mixtures of positive and negative professional relationships.

Discussion and Directions for Future Research

This study contributes to the body of PSL literature by identifying some of the leadership competencies underscoring the leadership behaviors of women in junior positions. Plus, the fact that this study uses a qualitative method represents in itself a contribution as well. This is the case to the degree that it responds to the critique raised by Van Wart (2013) who stated that there is a need for scholars to conduct more studies on leadership competencies that are not the result of using “leadership survey feedback questionnaires as is common currently.” Hamlin and Whitford (2020) also shared the same concern by arguing for the need for more qualitative studies on PSL behaviors. Based on this aforementioned contribution, it could be argued that this study enriches PSL scholarship given that historically, most public sector administrative leadership research has been limited to the study of reform, administrative discretion, and ethics in government (Hamlin & Whitford, 2020, p. 9).

The other contribution is that contrary to most existing gender studies (e.g., Adisa et al., 2021), this study suggests that the workplace climate can also be less discriminatory against women. However, this phenomenon may be unique to the case of women herein given that this dynamic chiefly occurs at the unit-level leadership. Although not raised by these participants during the interviews, this organizational reality can be theoretically explained by the fact that the public sector is heavily regulated by progressive legislation (e.g., anti-discrimination laws) put in place by the government to create a more equitable and inclusive workforce as a political agenda (Mandel & Semyonov, 2021). Owing to these factors, public organizations generally have a better reputation when it comes to gender inclusiveness and diversity compared to business organizations or other employers who are more driven by an economic agenda. Arguably the findings of this study contribute to the explanation of why women in general prefer working in the public sector (Mandel & Semyonov, 2021) given the positive perspective that women herein associate with their unit-level leadership identity.

In addition to that, this study contributes to PSL scholarship by exploring the leadership behaviors from the perspective of women’s self-views in a scholarly context where the leader’s self-concept has been largely ignored in the study of leadership (Rus et al., 2010). Employees often exhibit inauthentic behaviors to maintain job security in an organizational environment where they work on conforming on organizational values (Hewlin et al., 2017). This factor may explain why some women stated that their interactions with male clients or coworkers were not causes of great concerns. To ensure the authenticity of such a representation of self, scholars argue that there must be alignment between one’s self view and that of others (Caza et al., 2018, p. 731). As such, it is fundamental to conduct comparative studies on how team members rate or perceive the leadership behaviors of each other. A study on intra-professional perceptions is commendable given that existing research suggests that sex differences exist in the perceptions of self.

However, this study has not explored the question of knowing whether the active leadership behaviors of women herein have led to situations of role intrusion. This is a fundamental question for scholars to address because employees often perform tasks that fall outside of the boundaries of their professional jurisdiction. This phenomenon is called by organizational theorists as role expansion (Grant & Hofmann, 2011) and poly-occupationalism (multitasking; Caza et al., 2018). A particular element that scholars could address in relation to that question is finding out if the leadership behaviors of women in junior positions are underscored by tasks traditionally ascribed to managers. If that is the case, scholars could investigate if such role intrusions lead to cooperative or competitive relationships with managers. Doing so is important because this phenomenon is both associated with organizational incongruity and characteristics (e.g., conflicts) of a dysfunctional bureaucracy.

In addition to that question, scholars could address the question of whether the leadership behaviors of these public employees are characterized by the formation of multiple occupational identities (Caza et al., 2018). It is an important question to address because to date, research on work reorganization continues to present some limitations as most studies focus on examining the structural factors that push and pull employees “into generalizing and combining multiple work roles” while overlooking the subjective experience of work (Chong, 2021, p.432). There is an indicator in the data which suggests that this could be the case given the aspiration of these women for recognition. Thus, conducting a longitudinal study on this question could provide a substantial and in-depth understanding of the types of occupational identities developed by these women as they reflect on their transformational or active leadership characteristics.

One critical element that this study and existing studies (Lee & Tapia, 2021) on gender roles in the workplace have not addressed that scholars can explore is the question of intersectionality. This is something that is not only missing in leadership research (Sim & Bierema, 2025) but in the field of industrial or employment relations (Lee & Tapia, 2021) as well. Speculatively speaking, the findings on cross-gender interactions could have been different if the factors of race, class and disability were taken into consideration. But this question necessitates a whole study on its own given that it requires a different theoretical framework and set of questions. For that reason, scholars could explore the lived work experience of women from underrepresented groups in public organizations. Applying an intersectional comes with many advantages as it provides a theoretical framework for exploring how multiple social identities shape the outcomes of women in the workplace. One of the key arguments raised by proponents (McBride et al., 2015) of this approach is that intersectionality provides an important caution against the over-generalization of lived work experiences that often obscure the organizational realities or stories of public employees from underrepresented groups.

Conclusion

The findings of this study suggest that much of the contribution of these women in leadership processes mostly occurs at the unit level. The leadership behaviors of these individuals are embedded in positive relational realities and moderate challenges. They know who they are in terms of leadership competencies, intrinsic values, and the phenomenon of their social location or work environment. However, given that the collection of data was only limited to this group, this authenticity cannot be ascribed to the organizational realities of all women in junior positions in public organizations. For that reason, more empirical research of on the self-perception of these women on the embodiment of leadership is needed. For the time being, the proposed directions for future can be of greater importance to public management scholars.