Study with the several resources on Docsity
Earn points by helping other students or get them with a premium plan
Prepare for your exams
Study with the several resources on Docsity
Earn points to download
Earn points by helping other students or get them with a premium plan
Community
Ask the community for help and clear up your study doubts
Discover the best universities in your country according to Docsity users
Free resources
Download our free guides on studying techniques, anxiety management strategies, and thesis advice from Docsity tutors
The concept of feminist leadership, challenging traditional leadership paradigms and advocating for a more inclusive and equitable model. It analyzes the historical and systemic barriers that have marginalized women and other underrepresented groups in leadership positions, highlighting the need for a shift towards relational, collaborative, and transformative leadership. The document draws on the work of amanda sinclair, who argues that feminist leadership is not simply about women taking on positions of power but about fundamentally rethinking how leadership is practiced and valued.
Typology: Summaries
1 / 9
This page cannot be seen from the preview
Don't miss anything!
In Amanda Sinclair’s article, “A Feminist Case for Leadership,” a more detailed criticism of prior leadership approaches and creation of a feminist leadership as a transformative leadership as her leadership option. Sinclair subsequently presents leadership as constructed through scripts of patriarchal leadership based on notions of individualism, dominance, and hierarchy following an initial overview of leadership’s contextual history. And yet these characteristics always get coded as male or masculine, and they are too narrow and exclusionary when it comes to what a leader looks like, she says. In doing so, marginalized women (and broadly other marginalized groups) tend to be excluded, maybe even devalued in the context of leadership spaces, with systemic mechanisms aimed to verify such ineptitude. The article starts with an example of the speech of Julia Gillard, Australia’s first female prime minister in 2012, where she talked about the sexism and misogyny that derailed her in her Parliament. According to Sinclair, in a sense, Gillard’s speech was a personal defense of her role among a handful of women politicians, but also as a demand to confront a battery of pervasive systemic gender biases in politics and in leadership. This moment exemplifies Sinclair’s larger argument: In other words, if we understand leadership in the context of power and privilege – that is to say that power and privilege dictate who can and will become a leader
traditional leader mold. This, Sinclair says, is also about other broader social narratives that delegitimize women’s authority and restrict women’s access to power. For example, Sinclair also advances the power of this feminist leadership as a very different alternative. Feminist leadership is based in the need to tear down hierarchies and give voice to marginalized voices operating in collaboration and reflexivity rather than in exclusivity and reflexivity. The thesis calls into question the idea that leadership is something that can be accomplished by an individual and instead proposes leadership as a collective and relational endeavor. One thing that the feminist leaders in our world need to do is take a lot of power and privilege in order to really think about that, really think about power and privilege, really think about leaders being reflective about how they act in ways it may be impactful on other folks and to create space for a wide variety of perspectives. The article also discusses longer term ramifications of feminist leadership to areas of guaranteeing the end of systemic issues of sexism, racism and inequality. What Sinclair is looking for is for leaders to break away from the tokenistic approach to diversity that is masking the real issue of structures and cultures that keep marginalized people out. And this is not just about represent, it’s changing the norms and values underpinning traditional leadership actions. Sinclair thus makes a strong case for rethinking leadership by straddling the gap between theory and reality through a strategic mix of theoretical insights and real life examples that provide an account of feminist perspectives as being absolutely necessary. Through her situated leadership approach she provides a leadership vision based on a large social justice and equity framework that facilitates our current issues with modernity, it is both more inclusive and powerfully applicable.
Sinclair argues it has led to an exclusionary culture that does not only exclude women from leadership positions, but punishes them even if they dare to show up. For example, we chastise women leaders for being so unintelligent as to be over emotional (or not intellectual enough without being emotional), or for being self-righteous (i.e. aggressive) even when claiming prerogative made from spilling over qualities of integrity (i.e. not emotional). Her criticism revolves around how organizations teach and overlook leadership — where creating a culture that does not appreciate team work and lack of empathy for others, is wrapped up in ‘Yes I Can’ by individualism and heroism. Sinclair asserts that this narrative removes work at the back end and is not a concept of relational leadership. To take one example, CEOs and politicians have 'traditionally' been credited with organizational success with little examination of the teams and communities that allow them to work. What I find most powerful about this analysis of leadership as a socially constituted and gendered phenomenon is not so much that it describes leadership as given to individuals, but that it brings us to the systems and cultures that create it. Sinclair challenges us not only to think differently about who we choose, but also about what and who we choose to think of as leadership.
3. The Structural Barriers to Women’s Leadership Indeed, Sinclair is her most timely, if not her most compelling argument, criticizing the history of leadership as a masculinized domain. And so put here is leadership, linked always to the traits of assertiveness, competitiveness and decisiveness — all in the mode of masculine. These traits have been glorified in leadership literature: men are natural leaders, while women and other groups of marginalization go down the list. Sinclair argues it has led to an exclusionary culture that does not only exclude women from leadership positions, but punishes them even if they dare to show up. For example, we chastise women leaders for being so unintelligent as to be over emotional (or not intellectual enough without being emotional), or for being self-righteous (i.e. aggressive) even when claiming prerogative made from spilling over qualities of integrity (i.e. not emotional). Her criticism revolves around how organizations teach and overlook leadership — where creating a culture that does not appreciate team work and lack of empathy for others, is wrapped up in ‘Yes I Can’ by individualism and heroism. Sinclair asserts that this narrative removes work at the back end and is not a concept of relational leadership. To take one example, CEOs
and politicians have 'traditionally' been credited with organizational success with little examination of the teams and communities that allow them to work. What I find most powerful about this analysis of leadership as a socially constituted and gendered phenomenon is not so much that it describes leadership as given to individuals, but that it brings us to the systems and cultures that create it. Sinclair challenges us not only to think differently about who we choose, but also about what and who we choose to think of as leadership.
4. Critique of Relational Leadership Models Although Sinclair commends the advances fostered by relational (Macy, 2003) and adaptive (Zohar, 2002) leadership models, she takes issue with a lack of exploration of deeper matters of power and privilege. This often takes the shape of collaboration, inclusivity, changing the way we do work, but it doesn’t challenge the structural ‘inequality’ that underpins how we lead. As a result, they risk falling back into superficial fixes, not real solutions. In the realm of diversity and inclusion initiatives, particularly, Sinclair’s critique is especially timely, as these are frequently treated as the solution to an 'fix' whom underrepresented people, as opposed to changing the systems that do not include them. One example is that programs dedicated to creating women leaders are often focused on women’s ability to adapt to current leaders norms, rather than working to change those norms themselves. Sinclair argues that true progress will look more radical – transforming the leadership culture, rather than simply diversifying its participants. 5. The Promise of Feminist Leadership in Modern Contexts Sinclair’s idea of feminist leadership is a critique of the past but also a road to the future. Integral to the current awareness that leadership today should not be devoid of diversity and should be inclusive, inclusive and collective empowering serves as points of emphasis in her work rather than seeking personal glory and individual enrichment. #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter movements have called attention to amplifying marginalized voices with a systemic imperative while feminist leadership provides the lens for doing so. Feminist leadership can work towards prioritizing collaboration and shared success in an organization to work through the ambiguity of a diverse workforce, allowing everyone to do the work they’re best suited to do.
