Widespread social unrest occurred in the United States in the Summer of 2020. Citizens took to the streets to challenge the prevailing social justice framework. According to event systemstheory, these Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests were high-strength, as they represented novel, critical, and disruptive events. They were also mega-threats as they focused on threats to the social identities of the marginalized communities. Because different approaches were taken in navigating the BLM protests by authorities, it was unclear what constitutes effective leadership during these events. We integrate insights from event-oriented literature with intersectionality of gender and race research to introduce an intersectional leadership advantage (ILA). This framework suggests that Black women, owing in part to the rich tapestry of their social experiences, tend to develop a distinct leadership style characterized by sensitivity to racial injustice, leaning into risk, and commitment to the community. These qualities enable Black women leaders to be effective during events like BLM protests. Utilizing data from six public sources covering 11,540 protests across 3,338 U.S. cities from May to August 2020, we hypothesized an interaction of city police chiefs’ gender and race in relation to protest-related violence (measured in three ways). Results revealed that protests in cities with Black women police chiefs were associated with the lowest levels of violence compared to other groups. This study provides insights into qualities associated with leadership effectiveness in high-strength mega-threat events, and it connects diversity in leadership roles to favorable outcomes.

中文翻译：

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抗议之夏：利用事件系统理论测试交叉领导优势

2020年夏天，美国发生了大范围的社会动荡，公民走上街头，挑战现行的社会正义框架。根据事件系统理论，这些“黑人生命也是命”（BLM）抗议活动是高强度的，因为它们代表了新颖的、批判性的和破坏性的事件。它们也是巨大的威胁，因为它们关注的是对边缘化社区社会身份的威胁。由于当局在处理 BLM 抗议活动时采取了不同的方法，因此尚不清楚在这些事件中什么构成了有效的领导。我们将事件导向文献的见解与性别和种族研究的交叉性相结合，引入交叉领导优势（ILA）。这一框架表明，黑人女性在一定程度上由于其丰富的社会经历，往往会形成一种独特的领导风格，其特点是对种族不公正的敏感性、倾向于风险和对社区的承诺。这些品质使黑人女性领导人能够在 BLM 抗议等活动中发挥作用。利用来自六个公共来源的数据，涵盖 2020 年 5 月至 8 月美国 3,338 个城市的 11,540 起抗议活动，我们假设城市警察局长的性别和种族与抗议相关暴力之间存在相互作用（以三种方式衡量）。结果显示，与其他群体相比，黑人女警察局长所在城市的抗议活动所导致的暴力程度最低。这项研究提供了对高强度特大威胁事件中与领导有效性相关的品质的见解，并将领导角色的多样性与有利的结果联系起来。