Ethnic, gender and class intersections in British women’s leadership experiences

Abstract

A qualitative study was conducted to examine how gender and ethnicity influenced leadership experiences of a mixed ethnic sample of British women. An intersectional framework was used which took the viewpoint that socio-demographic identities should be considered simultaneously in order to challenge universalist, gender and ethnic neutral assumptions of leadership. One hundred and thirty women of white, black, Asian and mixed ethnicity in senior management and leadership positions from a broad range of sectors participated in focus groups and interviews exploring leadership constructions and enactment. White women's leadership definitions reflected contemporary leadership models. In contrast, minority ethnic women defined leadership using predominantly ethno-cultural lenses, which informed their self-identities and orientation towards others. Regarding enacting leader identities, white women described historical gender and class barriers to enacting leadership, while minority ethnic women described current barriers linked to ethnic and religious identities. Practical implications for women's leader identity development and theoretical implications for developing more inclusive leadership theories are discussed.

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“…In line with this argumentation, Heikka and Hujala (2013) argue that 'we must stop thinking about leadership as one person's work' (578). Showunmi, Atewologun and Bebbington (2016) claim that there has been a shift in research on leadership, from focusing on aspects of 'who' , with the purpose of distinguishing between personality characteristics of leaders and non-leaders, to a direct interest in relational dimensions. According to Showunmi et al approaches such as distributed leadership and transformational leadership point to the significance of engagement and the leader's impact on his or her followers.…”

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“…Showunmi (2016) conducted a research and asked women to define the meaning of the leadership. All definitions made by women had common attributes such as: strong orientation towards other people, comprehension and sensitivity, networking, being a visionary, following their values (Showunmi et al, 2016). Analysis of the leadership traits were based only on examples of men leadership at the early stage of leadership theory, while women were eliminated from these studies in order to avoid data inaccuracy (Powell, 2011).…”

“…A number of researches were published analyzing the case of women executives in the biggest corporations included in Forbes 500 or Fortune 1000 ratings, also analyzing the issues of gender in companies' boards and its influence to corporations' financial indicators (Stainback & Kleiner, 2016). In addition, women's leadership is extensively examined in various market sectors: medicine, information technologies, accounting, audit and military as well as women's leadership in the context of cultural differences (Abelson, Chartrand, Moo, Moore, & Yeo, 2016;Broadbent & Kirkham, 2008;Dambrin & Lamber, 2008;Njaramba, Chigeza, & Whitehouse, 2018;Showunmi et al, 2016). Scientists also discuss the phenomenon of glass ceiling (Acker, 2009;Akpinar-Sposito, 2013;Sharif, 2015), however women's leadership in the context of e-commerce is not analyzed extensively, just a few researches were made in different countries.…”

“…Informal social communities of school friends, university friends, ex-colleagues, customers, suppliers, social media followers (Bullough et al, 2017;Henry, 2011;Sidani et al, 2015;Zhou & Chang, 2015) also play a significant role in the development of effective social competencies, however some authors distinguish the importance of formal communities -formal business networks such as associations, chambers of commerce, federations. A membership in these formal organizations helps making connections with more experienced entrepreneurs, learning from their experience as well as extending the network of potential partners, suppliers and customers (McGowan et al, 2015;Showunmi et al, 2016;Todorov et al 2018). In addition, 18 social competences and 11 management competences factors were distinguished ( Table 1).…”

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“…The metaphor of intersection, as formulated by Crenshaw (1989Crenshaw ( , 1991, Hill Collins (1990), and King (1988) among others, is used to describe the ways in which identity categories such as race and gender are both mutually constituted and mutually constitutive. This is evidenced by the emergent intersectional turn in gender and politics scholarship, which has begun to document the multiplicity of ways in which patterns of political recruitment, descriptive representation and leadership vary among women as well as between women and men (inter alia, Bratton et al 2006;Brown 2014;Celis et al 2014;Darcy et al 1993;Durose et al 2012;Evans 2015;Nugent and Krook 2015;Philpot and Walton 2007;Showunmi et al 2015;Smooth 2008).…”