Women''s Leadership

Women's Leadership  challenges traditional concepts of leadership that draw on the male experience and offers an alternative construction that emerges from the female experience. Highlighting leadership's social, cultural and political roots, the authors argue that leadership is neither a free floating nor a gender neutral concept.

Women''s Leadership takes a fresh and engaging approach to leadership and leadership development by examining accounts of women''s experiences of becoming leaders. Within the context of a persistent lack of equality in the workplace and a dearth of critical academic examinations of women''s leadership, Valerie Stead and Carole Elliott present an in-depth analysis of women leaders'' accounts. Providing an overview of current debates, they examine the extent to which traditional understandings of leadership exclude women''s experiences.

Using vivid examples from their research, Valerie Stead and Carole Elliott show that gender matters. Women''s leadership is influenced by a series of relationships that result in women leaders being perceived and treated differently to men. This leads to women finding alternative ways of learning leadership to enable them to deal with barriers at work. The book concludes with a sample women''s leadership development workshop.

This book will appeal to researchers and students who are looking for a critical and up-to-date analysis of women''s leadership and is also designed to be helpful for leadership development practitioners who are seeking ways to work with and develop women leaders at different stages of their career.