Abstract:In this article, we investigate the charge that women leaders fall short when it comes to ‘vision’. We track the roots of this charge, and the effects this has on women in the workplace, back to the binary representationalist logic that underpin gender stereotypes. We challenge these representationalist stereotypes by offering a more material account of how identities come into being, drawing on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. In the last part of the article we explore an alternative understandi… Show more
“…For example, Eagly and Carli’s (2007) research reported that female executives feel that they cannot fully express their preferred leadership style. According to Painter-Morland and Deslandes’s (2014) work, female executives sense that if they adjust their behavior to align with leadership, cultural norms it is likely to be construed as ‘inauthenticity.’ Similar affects have been seen in research that examine the relationship between power and ‘authenticity.’ Kraus, Chen, and Keltner (2011) have shown that people with high power feel that they are able to maintain a stable sense of ‘self’ in different situations, and that they report higher levels of feeling ‘authentic’ than those with low power. This supports the view that structural power shapes individual’s perceptions of their ability to practice ‘authenticity.’ People at different levels of society have differential access to power, especially the power to determine what is important, or to set the rules of the game.…”
Section: Decontextualization and Structural Powermentioning
The Problem. Many leadership development activities in modern organizations focus on the individual, either finding an individual with the secret sauce, named leadership potential, or training the individual in so-called effective leadership competencies. For women, this focus often leads to a 'fix the women' approach. Avolio and Gardner's Authentic Leadership (AL) theory with its overemphasis on the individual and narrow definitions of what it means to be 'authentic' reinforces the concept of the 'ideal leader' as the hero who will rid organizations of unethical practice. The theory's lack of attention to the role of context leads to errors in our understanding of gender and leadership, and perpetuates discrimination. The Solution. Bourdieu's Social Theory is used to explore AL theory with a view to illuminating the role of power and privilege inherent in this concept. The Stakeholders. Stakeholders are leadership development practitioners and HR specialists who are interested in reducing inequalities in organizational practices.
“…For example, Eagly and Carli’s (2007) research reported that female executives feel that they cannot fully express their preferred leadership style. According to Painter-Morland and Deslandes’s (2014) work, female executives sense that if they adjust their behavior to align with leadership, cultural norms it is likely to be construed as ‘inauthenticity.’ Similar affects have been seen in research that examine the relationship between power and ‘authenticity.’ Kraus, Chen, and Keltner (2011) have shown that people with high power feel that they are able to maintain a stable sense of ‘self’ in different situations, and that they report higher levels of feeling ‘authentic’ than those with low power. This supports the view that structural power shapes individual’s perceptions of their ability to practice ‘authenticity.’ People at different levels of society have differential access to power, especially the power to determine what is important, or to set the rules of the game.…”
Section: Decontextualization and Structural Powermentioning
The Problem. Many leadership development activities in modern organizations focus on the individual, either finding an individual with the secret sauce, named leadership potential, or training the individual in so-called effective leadership competencies. For women, this focus often leads to a 'fix the women' approach. Avolio and Gardner's Authentic Leadership (AL) theory with its overemphasis on the individual and narrow definitions of what it means to be 'authentic' reinforces the concept of the 'ideal leader' as the hero who will rid organizations of unethical practice. The theory's lack of attention to the role of context leads to errors in our understanding of gender and leadership, and perpetuates discrimination. The Solution. Bourdieu's Social Theory is used to explore AL theory with a view to illuminating the role of power and privilege inherent in this concept. The Stakeholders. Stakeholders are leadership development practitioners and HR specialists who are interested in reducing inequalities in organizational practices.
“…The distinction made above is reminiscent of the gender stereotypes dominant in leadership discourse (Painter‐Morland and Deslandes, ) and could be read as attributing agentic (masculine, control) characteristics to the lexical item leader whereas arweinydd seems to be described in communal (feminine, caring) terms (Eagly and Carli, ). In addition, for participant E and N, leader takes on a public, political perspective whereas arweinydd bears a socio‐historical meaning: Leader – the word feels like something remote perhaps because the English language is like that to me.…”
Adopting a multilingual perspective, this empirical paper explores the varied use and meanings of referents of leadership and management among 24 Welsh senior managers. We argue the importance of recognizing the linguistic imperialism of the English language – and its dominant leadership discourse of the heroic individual leader – over locally signified referents of leadership and management in other languages and discourses. At present, the lexical item leadership lacks evaluation of its relevance and meaning within other languages and multilingual contexts. We add to this gap through a discussion of research that analyses 24 Welsh senior managers’ reflections on referents of leadership and management and their varied meanings in their two official workplace languages, namely, Welsh and English. Based on the findings, we explore linguistic power dynamics represented in their reflections on this language diverse work setting and conclude with implications for the practice of leadership and management.
“…Habits are at their root dispositional and social, rather than behavioural. They emerge socially, not only within individuals as some philosophical and organizational accounts may suggest (Ravaisson 2008;Grosz 2013;Painter-Morland and Deslandes 2014). Through language, we segment what is essentially an ongoing flow of action into partially stabilized and socially shared segments of meaning, which are then called habits (Woolsey Biggart and Beamish 2003;Lorino 2018).…”
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