An authentic military in general

Sammanfattning: The Swedish Armed Forces was the last ever organization in the history of the Swedish labor market to terminate a male occupational monopoly. Even though women have had the same opportunity as men to join the organization since 2017, they still constitute a vast minority. Additionally, the stereotypical picture of a the male soldier is contributing to the picture of a masculine military leader. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether this masculine norm is affecting female leaders' authenticity in the Swedish Armed Forces. Nine qualitative interviews were conducted with female military leaders with different levels of experience and from different battalions. These interviews were analyzed with authentic leadership theory as well as gendered authentic leadership theory to investigate female military leaders' ability to perform authentic leadership as well as how this leadership conforms with the gendered military norm. The findings indicate a dilemma where deviations from authentic leadership, gender authentic leadership and/or the military norm appear disadvantageous but also inevitable.