Lapland’s municipal directors face rapid turnover as outsider women exit first

Municipal leadership in Lapland has become unusually volatile, with directors—particularly women from outside the region—frequently forced out after short tenures, Yle reports.

Since 2020, Enontekiö alone has had five different municipal directors, while Sodankylä, Kemijärvi, Kittilä, and Pelkosenniemi have each cycled through three in six years. Pelkosenniemi is currently reviewing its director’s standing, and Kemijärvi’s director has applied for positions elsewhere.

Jenni Airaksinen, director of the Municipal Development Foundation, notes the instability is extreme even by national standards. “There are many Lapland municipalities where the director’s position seems exceptionally precarious,” she said.

Two patterns emerge among the departures: outsider women, often dismissed or resigning due to lost confidence, and local men who move between municipalities despite short stints. Women in Kolari, Sodankylä, Pelkosenniemi, and Kittilä have left under such circumstances, while men like Petri Härkönen (who led Sodankylä, Enontekiö, and Savukoski in five years) and Jari Rantapelkonen (Enontekiö to Kittilä to Sodankylä) secure repeated appointments.

Rantapelkonen attributes his success to understanding Lapland’s “unique mindset,” though he avoids the term äijäkulttuuri (“bloke culture”), describing it instead as a “feet-on-the-ground, hands-in-the-dirt” attitude. Eero Ylitalo, Enontekiö’s director, agrees: “It’s no disadvantage if a Lapland municipality is led by someone from Lapland.”

Airaksinen links the turnover to clashes between directors’ adherence to legal and procedural rigor—seen as obstructive—and local expectations of flexible, politically attuned leadership. “There’s a tradition of resisting outsiders telling us how to make decisions,” she said. “Meticulous, rule-based preparation is sometimes met with ‘Doesn’t this guy get it?’”

Repeated crises paralyze municipal operations, she warns, urging councils to examine their own role in fostering instability. “If leaders keep changing, elected officials must ask what kind of environment they’re creating.”