Professional Leader Identities in Media

Abstract for master’s thesis (dissertation in UK)

This study examines what identities professional leaders construct in the public sphere by looking at what positions they take in interview responses published in a national newspaper. Professional leaders, both male and female, from corporations to startups as well as health and sports organizations, are studied for their identity work as they answer questions about their childhood, education, and key events in their career. How do professional leaders construct their sense of self in relation to themselves, to others and to the audience and how do these micro identities relate to macro identities in the professional world? The data finds several prominent discourse themes within which leaders take up subject positions in their identity construction. ‘Small stories’ in the leaders’ identity work are used to explore how shorter narrative text may assist in giving insight to identity claims through language in specific discourses. While the study takes special care not to categorize language use based on gender, part of the findings indicate a relevant relationship between the two while other results point towards a strong relationship between the constructed leader self and the socially approved leader self.