Leadership Experiences of Gender-Diverse Managers in U.S. Libraries and Museums

Authors

• Galen Jay Talis, James Madison UniversityFollow

Publication Date

5-29-2026

Faculty Department

Libraries

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This article explores how gender-diverse managers in U.S. libraries and museums experience leadership and perceive gender to influence leadership. In-depth interviews were conducted with five gender-diverse managers. Data were analyzed with inductive, semantic thematic analysis and a complementary, deductive analysis using Wharton’s multilevel gender framework. Participants described relational, pragmatic, point-person leadership—connecting and supporting people, coordinating work, and translating between units—while expressing ambivalence about formal and hierarchical roles. Most did not initially link leadership to gender; when prompted, they articulated gender’s influence at individual, interactional, and institutional levels. Gender discrimination and transphobia persist even in woman-dominated contexts, shaping decisions about visibility, risk, and advancement. By centering gender-diverse managerial experiences in libraries and museums—contexts underrepresented in public leadership research—this study challenges binary norms and demonstrates the value of grounding leadership in multidimensional gender theory.

Comments

This is an author's accepted manuscript. The article’s final version appears as: Talis GJ (2026), "Leadership experiences of gender-diverse managers in US libraries and museums". International Journal of Public Leadership, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPL-10-2025-0170

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

Recommended Citation

Talis, Galen Jay, "Leadership Experiences of Gender-Diverse Managers in U.S. Libraries and Museums" (2026). Faculty Scholarship. 64.
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/faculty-submissions/64