Den ökande jämställdheten i samhället har medfört förändringar i ledande positioner. Detta har skapat en osäkerhet inför ett främmande ledarskap där manligt ledarskap tidigare varit norm. Frågan har därför väckts om vilka skillnader som finns mellan manliga och kvinnliga ledare samt hur dessa grupper ställs mot varandra. Forskningen har inte nått koncensus i frågan huruvida det finns skillnader mellan män och kvinnor som ledare. Detta har skapat en möjlighet att bidra till ämnet vilket underbyggs av samtida forskare som förklarar att det behövs ytterligare forskning inom området kön och ledarskap för att utveckla förståelsen.  Kärnan i ledarskap i organisationer ur ett företagsekonomiskt perspektiv är att skapa förutsättningar för att gemensamt uppnå mål. Syftet med studien är att förstå hur ledarskap hos män och kvinnor tar sig uttryck förklarat med hjälp av olika ledarstilars egenskaper för att uppnå ett framgångsrikt resultat. Tidigare forskning om ledarskap hos män och kvinnor i kombination med teoretiska modeller om ledarstilar har använts för att uppnå syftet. Genom kvalitativa intervjuer med ledare inom ett privat vinstdrivande detaljhandelsföretag samlades empiri in för att svara på de forskningsfrågor som formulerats utifrån syftet. Data från intervjuerna analyserades med hjälp av en kvalitativ innehållsanalys och kodades utifrån forskningsfrågorna. Utöver teman förankrade i forskningsfrågorna framkom även andra teman som relaterats till företagsekonomi och med hjälp av grundad teori kodades innehållet. Resultatet visade bland annat att informanternas ledarskap tog sig uttryck genom ledarstilarna demokratiskt, tranformativt, karismatiskt och situationsanpassat ledarskap. Utöver dessa analyserades informanternas svar i relation till ett flertal andra ledarstilars egenskaper, men en reflektion var att verksamhetens sätt att organisera sig skulle kunna påverka vilka ledaregenskaper som kommer till uttryck. Till skillnad från delar av den tidigare forskning som använts till underlag för studien påvisade resultatet inte några skillnader mellan manliga och kvinnliga informanter i deras ledaregenskaper. Utifrån de undersökta ledarstilarna går det att dra slutsatser om vilka egenskaper som kan anses fördelaktiga för ett framgångsrikt ledarskap. Slutsatsen av undersökningen visade att egenskaperna: Involverande, relationsorienterad, utmanande och att vara flexibel i sitt ledarskap är mest fördelaktiga för att uppnå ett framgångsrikt resultat. / The increasing gender equality in society has led to changes in leadership. This has created uncertainty regarding unfamiliar leadership where male leadership previously has been the norm. The question has therefore been raised about the differences between male and female leaders as well as how these groups are set against each other. Research has not yet reached consensus on the question of whether there are differences between men and women as leaders. This has created an opportunity to contribute to the subject, which is supported by contemporary researchers who explain that further research in the field of gender and leadership is needed to develop understanding. The essence of leadership in organizations from a business economics perspective is to create the conditions for cooperatively achieving goals. The purpose of the study is to understand how leadership of men and women is expressed using the characteristics of different leadership styles to achieve successful results. Previous research on leadership of men and women in combination with theoretical models of leadership styles has been used to achieve the purpose. Through qualitative interviews with leaders within a private for-profit retail company, empirical data was collected to answer the research questions formulated based on the purpose. The data from the interviews were analyzed with the help of a qualitative content analysis and coded based on the research questions. In addition to themes rooted in the research questions, there were also other themes related to business administration and with the help of grounded theory theses where also coded. The results showed, among other things, that the informants' leadership was expressed through the leadership styles democratic, transformative, charismatic, and situational leadership model. In addition to these, the informants' answers were analyzed in relation to several other leadership style characteristics, but a reflection was that the business's way of organizing itself could affect which leadership qualities are expressed. Unlike parts of the previous research used as a basis for the study, the results did not show any differences between male and female informants in their leadership characteristics. The conclusion of the study showed that the qualities: Engaging, relationship-oriented, challenging and being flexible in their leadership are most favorable to achieve successful results.

In a society where the sustainability trend is growing and becoming increasingly important, companies are expected to make clearer commitments to sustainability where consumers are increasingly demanding a change when it comes to among other things, production and social responsibility. In retail, there is a clear wave of sustainability due to increased knowledge and that consumers now do more conscious choices. In turn, this result in an increased pressure on companies as a whole but also on well-functioning leadership and internal communication at store level. At the same time, there is little research on the relationship between leadership and internal communication and the importance of employees during a sustainable organizational change. The overall purpose of the study is to investigate the relationship between leadership and internal communication during a sustainable change. Further, the study intends to further answer two research questions:- How do leaders in retail work with internal communication to implement a sustainable organizational change?- How do store managers and employees experience internal communication and leadership during a sustainable organizational change? A delimitation has been made where the authors have chosen the retail company Clas Ohlson where the company’s ambitions for sustainability are in line with the government’s environmental goals until 2045, to be climate neutral. Furthermore, two stores have been selected to conduct the study. The qualitative study is based on an inductive approach with an exploratory approach, this entails a deeper analysis of the case study that is carried out. Nine respondents with three different positions within the company participated in semi-structured interviews and that additional data was collected from public published organizational document. A thematic analysis was conducted to encode the collected data where the authors found three primary factors that affect the relationship between leadership and internal communication during the sustainable organizational change: commitment, overflow of information and lack of time. The study finds that it is the commitment of the leaders through offering employee’s information and knowledge that can lead to a positive impact in the sustainable change. Furthermore, both the store manager and employees experience how communication has a negative effect due to the overflow of information that leads to employees having difficulty searching for information and the lack of time is often mentioned as a contributing factor. This leads us to the general conclusion that shows that it is not the leadership at a store level that affect, rather shortcomings in the communication which in turn, affects the implementation of the sustainable organizational change.