Precarious Selves: Women’s leadership identity emergence

Abstract

Despite myriads of initiatives and policy interventions, the numbers of women emerging into organizational leadership positions remains steadfastly low. Leader emergence is a complex process, underspecified in identity research. Leadership is socially constructed, so considering the interplay of leadership identity development and gender processes, what is the process by which non-typical leaders emerge? We employ the concept of liminality to understand the transitional experiences of women navigating towards leadership positions, considering whether the portrayal of women in precarious leadership positions develops ‘precarious selves’. Whilst acknowledging conceptual developments in this area in the past few years, researchers point to a need for further empirical research, particularly at the intrapersonal level of leader identity development, in applied organisational settings, and using qualitative approaches. This study aims to address that call, conducting qualitative interviews with women who have reached the senior roles, focusing on how they successfully made the transition from management to leadership levels.