Figure 1.
The conceptual flow diagram begins with a prolonged crisis context comprising sustained uncertainty, heightened responsibility, organisational disruption and role ambiguity. Next, these conditions converge into structural demands shared across participant groups. These demands include increased responsibility and coordination, risk exposure, performance pressure and constant availability. The flow then divides into divergent gendered experiences. For women leaders, the pathway includes relational and psychosocial risk orientations, negotiated authority and legitimacy work, porous boundaries and relational care, and reflective sensemaking and connection-seeking. For men leaders, the pathway includes system and operational risk orientations, structurally assumed but fragile authority, rigid boundaries and emotional containment, and instrumental sensemaking and self-reliance. Between the 2 pathways, gendered meaning-making leads to identity negotiation and then emotional regulation. Finally, both divergent pathways converge on leadership outcomes comprising wellbeing, role strain, leadership persistence and legitimacy under strain.Convergence–divergence framework of gendered leadership experiences during a prolonged crisis
Note: The divergent pathways represent contextually situated tendencies within the 15-case IPA subsample. They do not indicate fixed traits or causal gender differences, and variation was evident within both groups
Source: Authors’ own work