Historically, leadership research has focused on managers’ characteristics and behavior, their leadership style and its implications for a business’s success. In contrast, this dissertation examines how working conditions in the workplace affect first-level managers’ everyday work, their possibilities to practice leadership, and consequently their leadership style. The theoretical framework guiding the dissertation is a gender analysis with a doing gender perspective and the methodology is a case study. Two workplace organizations in a Swedish municipality are studied: a male-dominated manufacturing industry and a female-dominated elderly care service. The empirical materials consist of twenty-six semi-structured interviews, primarily with male and female first-level managers, but also with their immediate supervisors. In addition, the materials include a questionnaire and organizational documents. The results show that organizational structure and culture have implications for managers’ working conditions and consequently the leadership style they are willing and able to implement. The sex ratio among employees did not have any implications for which type of leadership informants described in their everyday practices. The ideal leadership and the everyday leadership practices portrayed by informants entail being explicit, controlling and rational managers who are able to make decisions and carry forth extensive structural changes. Their narratives reveal an authoritarian and task-oriented leadership style that has its roots in early industrialism. Leadership is strongly marked by masculinity, and even though women and men describe practicing the same type of leadership in their everyday work, their ideas about gender depict two complete opposites in which women and femininity is subordinated to men and masculinity. This indicates a divergence between the gender we think and the gender we do. Nonetheless, sex ratio among employees has implications for the level of sexism. While informants in both workplace organizations described gender discrimination, only those in the manufacturing industry described experiencing sexual harassment.

Befattningen enhetschef innefattar mängder av krav från brukare, anhöriga, politiker och även krav som följer med uppdraget. De arbetssituationer som chefer hanterar kan kräva resurser och stöd som underlättar och gör arbetet hanterbart. Lagförändringar inom funktionshinderomsorgen som skett de senaste åren och har gjort att förutsättningarna för enhetscheferna har ändrats (Socialstyrelsen, 2018). Syftet med denna studie är att belysa enhetschefers arbetssituation inom funktionshinderområdet och uppmärksamma det stöd som underlättar arbetet samt de strategier som enhetscheferna använder sig av. Datainsamlingen genomfördes genom öppna intervjuer med åtta respondenter. Intervjuerna transkriberades och analyserades genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultatet visar att intervjuade enhetschefer upplever en hög grad av administrativt stöd från IT- och HR-avdelningarna. Brister i enhetschefernas arbetsmiljö uppstår också när möjligheten till ersättare är begränsad. Fysisk närhet och personligt förhållande till chefskollegor är en viktig aspekt av enhetschefernas stödsystem, men detta kan även vara en börda. Belastningen är stor i proportion till arbetets tids- och resursaspekt. Det finns en oförståelse från politikerna och ledningen när det gäller verksamhetsområdet och utformandet av insatserna för att tillgodose brukares behov. Aktuell studie bidrar med en förståelse av brister i enhetschefers arbetsmiljö vilket är en utgångspunkt för att skapa hållbara arbetsförhållanden och verksamheter med god kvalité. / The position as unit manager includes a number of demands from users, relatives and political decision makers as well as the demands of the assignment itself. The work situations that managers deal with may require resources and support in order to make the work manageable. The change in legislation of disability care during recent year has changed the conditions for unit manager (The national board of health and welfare, 2018). The aim of this study is to highlight the support the unit managers need and the strategies that they may use in order to function in a changeable and stressful work situation. The data collection of the study was conducted through open-ended interviews with eight respondents. The interviews were then transcribed and analyzed by a qualitative content analysis. The result shows that the interviewed unit managers experience a high level of administrative support from the IT and HR departments. Deficiencies in the unit managers' work environment arise when no substitute managers are engaged. Our interviews indicate that the burden of the unit manager’s assignment is too large in proportion to the time and resource that are allocated for the work. There is also a lack of understanding from politicians and management to design efforts that is needed to meet the needs of the end users and the unit manager. Physical closeness and personal relationships to senior colleagues are an important aspect of unit managers’ support system, but this can also be a burden. Current study contributes to an understanding of shortcomings in the unit manager's work environment, which is a starting point for creating sustainable work conditions and activities with good quality.