The world of leadership has often been considered a callous world characterized at
best only by masculine feelings, such as aggressiveness. In addition, leadership has
traditionally been considered an influential skill of individuals. In this study, leadership was examined as a socially constructed phenomenon that develops as a result of
interaction between leaders and their subordinates and that cannot be separated from
the framework in which it takes place.
The target phenomena in the present study were leaders’ emotional experiences
related to those who were being dismissed. The main research task was to conduct an
empirical study on leaders’ experiences as parties giving notices and analyse their
leader relationship to those being made redundant. The research target was approached by means of empirical hermeneutics, and the method of data collection was
an in-depth interview. As its theoretical contribution, the study is hoped to generate
new understanding of
leaders’ emotional experiences in severance situations as well as
to further extend Ladkin’s (2010) Leadership Moment – theory by adding an emotional
perspective to it. The practical contributions are reflections on what kinds of feelings
leaders have and what kinds of means of emotion work help them to cope with their
task as parties giving notices.
The results of the study support the notion that leaders use emotions in their
work both bodily and verbally and that emotions have a significant role in the leadership moment experiences. According to the author’s interpretation, a leader’s emotional experience changes dynamically along with the change of the framework in a severance situation and with the meaning relationships alternating between distance and
closeness, showing and concealing emotions as well as between caring and justice. The
meaning relationships are not independent of one another. Instead, they are interconnected and form an entity giving rise to a leadership moment of emotional experience.
The study shows, however, that leaders often have a need to conceal their emotions in
a severance situation in order to avoid an experience of leadership failure. In addition,
the study supports the notions that leaders’ emotional experiences are gender-based
also in severance situations. Female leaders tended to consider using and showing
emotions more natural, but they had a greater need to control their emotions than men
did. According to the experiences of male leaders, visible emotions were a sign of successful leadership, which was why they did not have a great need to conceal their emotions.
The results of the study show that the emotional perspective should be integrated
into Ladkin’s (2010) Leadership Moment – theory more deeply than what has been
customary thus far.
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