From hero to host: moving beyond gendered stereotypes in emergency management leadership

Leadership in times of volatility and uncertainty has come under increasing scrutiny. There is a need to critically examine how crisis management leaders develop their leadership practices and what leadership practices are needed to support teams, stakeholders and communities in conditions of transition, change and deep uncertainty. Just over a decade ago, Owen (2013) reported research that examined the gendered nature of incident management. That research included a survey of emergency response agencies that were members of the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (AFAC). Survey respondents included 476 men and 77 women. In incident management teams the women surveyed were predominately in planning and logistics functional team leader positions and, of the 117 incident controllers/deputy controllers included in the study, only 4 (5%) were women. The research reported that women experienced working in such teams as culturally challenging, in part because of a masculinist culture often referred to as a ‘command and control type attitude’ (Owen 2013, p 7). In considering this, this paper explores the representation of women in leadership positions in emergency management and what attributes women bring to these roles. The paper concludes by proposing a move beyond gendered stereotypes of leadership (masculine/feminine) towards the metaphor of ‘leader as host’.