Stitching up the leader: empirically based reflections on leadership and gender

Abstract

Purpose

This paper seeks to use two empirical episodes to investigate gendered critiques of leadership.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses an action inquiry approach by reflecting on two pieces of work, one collaborative and one individual, to reflect on ideas about women's ways of leading, and women's leadership of groups. The work includes the making of artefacts which it uses as a stimulus for reflection and as a reflective practice in itself. The artefacts which it uses are quilts, and the feminised nature of quiltmaking is also considered.

Findings

The paper begins by reflecting on the ability of a leaderless group of women to achieve a task in a highly successful and timely manner. It uses this experience to explore theories of distributed leadership in work groups, and suggests an alternative proxy for leadership. It then uses the creation of a piece of art about Elvis Presley and the Madonna to consider gendered constructions of leadership, including heroic and post‐heroic leadership. Drawing on the work of Fletcher, it considers why feminised post‐heroic leadership is so often vaunted and so seldom seen. It posits the tension between self‐abnegation and self‐promotion and service and individual achievement as an explanation of the slow adoption of this more feminised form of leadership. The paper traces the emergent process of the work itself, and hints at the difficulty of getting the “right answers” from research participants, and reflects on the role of nostalgia as a limiting factor in organisational research.

Originality/value

The collaborative method of the piece synchronises with the ideas under investigation, and builds on the critique of post‐heroic leadership as an observable phenomenon in organisations.

Citation

Rippin, A. (2007), "Stitching up the leader: empirically based reflections on leadership and gender", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 209-226. https://doi.org/10.1108/09534810710724766