Leader Normativity in Crisis Management: Tales From a School Fire

This study examines the handling of a school fire in a rural Swedish community and the role of the normalized narratives of leaders in crisis management. The article claims that leader normativity legitimizes certain positions and actions in a crisis management narrative and marginalizes others. The study uses theories on gender, boundary work and space to illuminate this claim. To explore such processes in narratives, we use feminist theory and critical management studies. The study shows that leader normativity creates gendered differences that result in both inequalities and the marginalization of any parts of crisis management that do not apply to leader normativity. The study shows that there is a strong norm of crisis management as an individualistic perspective that focuses on heroes and higher-level management as the people managing a crisis. Support for describing crisis management as a collective achievement and caring perspectives become marginalized.