Umeå University's logo

To be a young manager is to deviate from the norm, because youth and management are perceived as contradictory social positions. Thus, young managers are positioned as nonprototypical, which poses challenges to gaining acceptance and claiming the managerial identity. In this multicase interview study, we show how available social prototypes of management and self-to-prototype comparisons are important as young managers approach the identity work process. We conducted interviews (N = 38) and workshops (N = 6) in three businesssectors with young and senior managers, subordinates, and those performing support functions. Based on an analysis of these interviews and workshops, we developed a theoretical model illustrating how young managers use implicit theories of leadership (ILT) to reduce the incongruity between internal self-conceptions and external prototypes of management as a benchmark toward managerial identity, revealing three main approaches to identity work. Young managers approach age-based drawbacks by acting based on noncontextualized ILTs, making adjustments in relation to available prototypes, and by making self-to-prototype insights. Our findings augment the identity work theory by providing an age perspective on this process and highlight the importance of future research engaging in depth with age as a sociodemographic factor in relation to the managerial role.

In this study, guided by a fit with the job and organization perspective, we examine how industry type, gender, and educational level are related to turnover among young managers aged 19–29. We also explore, based on the Job Demands-Resources framework, how young managers perceptions of various work environmental factors are associated with their intentions to leave their jobs. Register and survey data targeting all young managers (N = 2000) in the Swedish private sector were used to conduct comparative analysis between those who had left their position and those who remained. Among those who remained in a managerial position and responded to the survey (N = 395), we also examined the relative associations between a range of work environmental factors and turnover intentions. Overall, our results show that young female managers had a higher turnover rate than their male counterparts. Furthermore, emotional demands and job resources in terms of role clarity, perceived organizational support, and the ability to exert influence were associated with young managers’ turnover intentions. Our study provides new insights into why young managers may leave or remain in their position at an early stage. These findings can inform organizations and strategic human resource management practices, offering guidance on factors to consider for enhancing the retention of tomorrow’s managerial workforce.

While the role of the organizational context in enabling leadership behaviours has attracted increasing research attention, the role of leaders’ age in this dynamic has been overlooked. Using transformational leadership theory (Bass, 1985) and Oc’s framework of context (2018), we examine how aspects of the task, social, physical, and temporal context shape leadership behaviour from a lifespan perspective. A random sample of young leaders and their older colleagues was surveyed (n = 847). Multiple group structural equation modelling was used to test the study hypotheses. Results indicated that the task context, in terms of role clarity, was a stronger predictor of transformational leadership among young leaders than it was among their older colleagues. Social, physical, and temporal contexts did not differ in their effect on the leaders’ ability to exhibit transformational leadership. Our findings suggest that organizations can facilitate young leaders’ role clarity to support their development of constructive (i.e. transformational) leadership behaviours. In addition, our study demonstrates that leadership research benefits from a lifespan perspective to facilitate a better understanding of how leaders’ age influences the emergence of leadership behaviour.

It has been suggested that with age comes experience in how to deal effectively with stressors, and therefore resources needed to uphold constructive leadership behaviors partly depend on managers’ age. This relation between age and leadership behaviors may also depend on the level of support that managers are given. In the present study, we depart from conservation of resource theory and lifespan theory to examine the link between managers’ age and inefficient leadership, with stress as a mediator in this relation. We also investigate whether social support buffers the relations between managers’ age, stress, and inefficient leadership. Self-report survey data from a randomly selected sample of swedish managers were collected at two time points, six months apart. In total, 781 managers answered the survey at both times. We found that, as expected, managers age was negatively related to inefficient leadership through stress. In other words, younger managers perceive themselves as more stressed andnbecause of that more inefficient. Contrary to what we expected, these relations were not influenced by social support. Our study is among the first to study managers’  age as an antecedent to inefficient leadership behaviors. The study also adds to the understanding of this relation by including stress as a mechanism. Furthermore, our research contributes to the examination of potential boundary conditions for when age may translate into stress and inefficient work behaviors by investigating social support as a potential moderator.

Leaders who feel well are essential for an organisation and its employees, as this affects well-being and work engagement. Despite the importance, research on leaders’ well-being is scarce, specifically regarding subgroups of leaders such as young leaders. The overall aim of this thesis was to investigate how young leaders experience their work environment, well-being and identity work process in the private sector in Sweden. Furthermore, to investigate if these experiences differ due to gender. Three studies were carried out using quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method designs to enhance knowledge in the field and to capture the complexity of being young in leader roles by applying a lifespan perspective. Results from Study I reveal that young leaders experience a poorer work environment compared to their older counterparts. Specifically, young leaders experience higher emotional demands, lower support from the organisation and find the leader role more challenging in terms of it being unclear and conflicting. Moreover, they rate their well-being as poorer with a higher degree of burnout and lower levels of vigour. These results indicate risks for young leaders’ well-being and possibilities to thrive in this position. In Study II, the identity work process of young leaders was examined in three case organisations. In-depth interviews reveal how young leaders approach the leader role from a ‘nonprototypical’ position, that is, they deviate from the norm of the typical leader due to their youth and inexperience. Thus, young leaders face challenges in the acceptance-gaining process and try out different strategies on how to act and navigate the leader role. Study III investigates whether hardships for female leaders are established at an early age. On a general level, young female leaders experience a lack of resources with less influence and less organisational support, and rate their well-being as poorer in terms of vigour compared to other leaders. Advancing these results, cross-case comparisons between organisational settings with different gender compositions reveal that these challenges manifest differently due to context. Conclusively, a prerequisite to improve the situation for young female leaders is to increase the intersectional awareness to be able to adapt interventions for improvement. All in all, the increased knowledge from this thesis shows how age, and youth in particular, is an important contextual factor to consider in the advancement of our theoretic understanding of leader well-being and identity. Theoretically, findings contribute by advancing the lifespan model of leadership and can be utilized in practice to help organisations safeguard the well-being of young leaders and provide them with a good start in working life. 

Building on the job demand resources (JD-R) model, we examined the experience of work environment and well-being among young leaders in a two-wave survey study of 1,033 leaders within the private sector in Sweden. Our results reveal that young leaders report higher levels of burnout and lower rates of vigor compared to older colleagues. Further, they appraise demand and resources differently, perceiving higher emotional demands and less organizational support, and they seem to struggle with the leader role, seeing it as unclear and conflicting. Our findings underline the necessity of viewing the leader role from a lifespan perspective as well as considering age-specific aspects in the JD-R model. In practice, we urge organizations to improve prerequisites for young leaders by providing support and role clarifications to prevent impaired well-being and improve retention. By bringing leadership and lifespan studies together, we aim for a better understanding of what specific prerequisites young leaders need to thrive in the leader role thus showing how age matters and bring the field of research forward.

Den här guiden bygger på två svenska forskningsprojekt om unga chefers förutsättningar. Forskningsprojekten genomfördes under 2018–2023 vid Umeå universitet och Karolinska Institutet och finansierades av Afa Försäkring. Guiden har utarbetats tillsammans av forskarna i de två projekten och är baserad på forskningsresultaten från projekten. Syftet är att underlätta för organisationer som vill säkerställa goda förutsättningar för unga att trivas och utvecklas i chefsrollen. Guiden summeras kortfattat nedan och beskrivs mer detaljerat med konkreta exempel i huvudtexten.