Gender and Race as Social Practice in Leadership: The Management of Intersecting Identities among Women with Marginalised Backgrounds

Abstract

The significant increase in the number of women joining the workforce in recent decades represents considerable progress towards gender equality. However, despite the growing presence of women in leadership roles, there are few critical psychological studies focused on understanding the unique obstacles and experiences encountered by women in these positions, especially women with culturally and racially marginalised (CARM) backgrounds and, in the context of Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. This research was guided by the conceptual lens of intersectionality and informed by the critical perspectives of social constructionism, feminism, social psychology and race studies (the latter two both taking an explicitly critical approach). The program of research in this thesis comprises a published critical literature review, as well as two empirical studies (the first published and the second submitted to a journal). The critical review of the literature explored research spanning 20 years to consider under-representation of culturally diverse women in positions of leadership. This published literature review found that most of the research underscores the paucity of culturally diverse women in the leadership literature. Where there is such literature, research has described the distinct challenges women with CARM backgrounds encounter as they strive for leadership roles (and also once they become leaders) and provided some insight into their perspectives on their roles and engagement in leadership. This study also highlighted the need for a more nuanced approach to the understanding of how culturally diverse women navigate and make sense of their leadership experiences. In the second and third studies, research was conducted with a methodological approach drawn predominantly from the insights of discursive psychology and the critical discourse analytic approach developed by Margaret Wetherell. The empirical data consisted of a corpus of publicly accessible speeches made during the ‘Women in Leadership’ series convened from 2010 to 2017 by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia. In the second study, I analysed the data to explore the ways in which women portray themselves as leaders. This published research examined intersectionality as a social action, rather than a purely theoretical concept. In this approach, intersectionality is grounded in empirical data to explore the prominent identities which women foregrounded. In the third study, I examined the data corpus to explore the discursive representations of leadership by asking: What do women with CARM backgrounds and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women talk about when they talk about leadership? Altogether, this research project evidenced: • How women with CARM backgrounds and First Nations women remain on the margins of social psychological studies and leadership literature; • How women with CARM backgrounds and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women represent themselves as leaders, what key identities emerge, and how they use these identities as strategic resources; and • How leadership is constructed and understood in culturally and socially situated ways, such as collectivism. This research enriches the academic literature by bringing forth a diverse range of perspectives and narratives that have been historically under-represented in leadership studies. It challenges the homogeneity of leadership research and encourages scholars to consider the experiences of leaders from diverse racial and gender backgrounds. Furthermore, this thesis highlights the importance of applying an intersectional lens to leadership studies. This work recognises that women with CARM backgrounds and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women face unique challenges and experiences due to the intersection of gender and race that together challenge traditional leadership theories and calls for the development of more inclusive leadership models. This could lead to a more comprehensive understanding of leadership in multicultural and global contexts.