Women leaders in the political field in Scotland: A socio-historical approach to the emergence of leaders

Abstract

Drawing on a contextualised case, we present a specific approach to leadership studies that brings together history, sociology and politics. We start with the following event. In August 2015, the election of Kezia Dugdale as leader of the Labour Party meant that, for the first time the leaders of the three main political parties in the Scottish Parliament were women. We approach the study of this significant leadership event, first, through a critique of aspects of leadership studies as a field. We next consider the potential for socio-historical approaches in understanding this event. Then, as a contextualised example of this alternative approach to studying leadership, we apply Bourdieu's theoretical concepts-in particular the political field-in order to historicise the conditions of possibility of this event. Finally, we consider issues of power and gender in relation to how the leaders position themselves in relation to their parties and to each other within the political field. In so doing, we contribute to critical leadership studies by developing and demonstrating a socio-historical approach that can help us to identify processes of organisation and change in relation to the emergence of leaders.

When global meets local: Action learning, positionality and postcolonialism

“…This was supplemented with Bourdieu’s sociological concept of position-taking to help make sense of participant responses in AL’s group space – a social space (or field) where agents are hierarchically positioned in a network of relationships (Bourdieu, 1977). What structures the social field is, in fact, the habitus – a universe of dispositions acquired as a result of an individual’s socialization (familial or cultural upbringing) – that provides value to cultural capital (or knowledge) and establishes field rules or the logic of practice (Robinson and Kerr, 2018). Such theorization of AL sets offered three waypoints by which to triangulate member positionality, identifying (a) how the AL space relates to the ‘field of power’, (b) what is the nature of the relationships among participants, and (c) how relations of power are constructed and actualized within an AL field (e.g.…”

Introduction

“…The Professions and Professionalization (Carter & Spence, 2014;Ernst, 2019Ernst, , 2020Larsen & Harsløf, 2020;Larsen, Hindhede, Larsen, Nicolaisen & Henriksen 2020;Nairz-Wirth & Feldmann, 2019;Schinkel & Noordegraaf, 2011;Spence et al, 2017), Multinational Corporations and Intercultural communication (Bjerregaard & Klitmøller, 2016;Lauring, 2011;Levy & Reiche, 2018), CSR (van Aaken, Splitter, & Seidl, 2013) and Management and Organizational History (Kerr, Robinson, & Elliott, 2016;Lyke, 2017;Robinson & Kerr, 2017).…”

‘Only Connect!’: Exploring the Critical Dialectical Turn in Leadership Studies

“…Challenging taken-for-granted views that white, middle-aged men are inevitably the people in charge who create visions and make decisions, feminist studies demonstrate that gender is an important source of power and influence frequently embedded in organizational structures, cultures and practices (Ford, 2006; Gardiner, 2018). They show how romanticized notions of the heroic, ‘tough’, ‘strong’ and ‘charismatic’ leader are often saturated with images and assumptions of men and masculinity (Bowring, 2004, Robinson & Kerr, 2018). Studies demonstrate that, despite relatively longstanding anti-discrimination legislation in western societies, women continue to comprise a small fraction of those occupying senior leadership, management and boardroom positions (Johnson & Lacerenza, 2019).…”