Introduction
Proliferating prefixes of community-, shared-, peer-, thought- and self-leaderships in our culture have created the impression that anything and everything is leadership. This observation has led critics to suggest that leadership is an illusion of beautiful, seductive images constructed by theorists and practitioners to capture our desires and sell development programmes (Grint 2010; Liu and Baker 2016; Sinclair 2007; Ĺliwa et al. 2012). The inherent emptiness of leadership , however, provides a space where power can be exercised to decide whose interpretation of leadership matters most (Kelly 2014). As I have argued elsewhere (Liu 2015, 2016, 2017a, 2017b; Liu and Baker 2016), our enduring romance with leadership is in many ways a romance with white elite class masculinity . The subtle gendered , raced and classed ideals of âleadershipâ mean that we have a tendency to venerate leaders for individualism , competition , aggression , rationalism and pragmatism , and to discount relationality , generosity and inclusion . Those who contravene the hegemonic models tend to be denied the mantle of leadership.
This chapter draws on the work of Black feminist , Patricia Hill Collins , to theorise on inclusive forms of leadership that are practised by those on the periphery of organisations and society . Locating her work in the experiences of Black women in the United States , Collins (1986) explores the sociological significance of people who occupy a marginal status and bear a unique standpoint on self, family and society. As âoutsiders withinâ , Black women are sensitised to the interlocking systems of domination and their violence that often elude insiders , and seek to resist oppression through redefining themselves and their cultures (Collins 1986, p. S14).
Collinsâ work suggests the potential for leadership to be practised within an ethico-politics of inclusion by studying the attempts to lead from those relegated to the margins. Demonstrating the power of Collinsâ theory to transfer across different forms of marginalisation , I draw on her framework to analyse a study of Chinese Australian leaders and their practices of inclusive leadership in the face of their own exclusion in organisations and Australian society. Illustrating through the profile of one leader in particular, this chapter presents the ways another group of outsiders within can work to reclaim self-defined identities , expose interlocking oppressions and redefine what it means to lead.
The chapter first outlines Collinsâ âoutsider-withinâ theory and discusses its implications for leadership studies. It then introduces the study of Chinese Australian leaders and offers the case of one participant to illustrate the diverse , and sometimes ambivalent , ways inclusive leadership is practised. This chapter concludes with the claim that to develop radically inclusive forms of leadership in relation with followers , we may look beyond the spotlights into the margins towards those who are practising leadership otherwise. The margins may serve as liminal spaces in which leadership practices that subvert exclusionary white masculinist norms can be practised.
Outsiders Within in Leadership
Patricia Hill Collinsâ (1986) landmark theory of âoutsider withinâ has made a lasting intellectual and political impact on critical sociological inquiry . A key achievement of this conceptual contribution was that it subverted the taken-for-granted marginalisation of Black womenâs voices in the social sciences by articulating the sociological rationale for studying their experiences and other such forms of knowledge that were often overlooked (Baca Zinn 2012).
In developing the outsider-within theory, Collins (1986) reflected on the history of Black womenâs lives in the United States and the intimate yet marginal positions Black women have held as domestic workers in white households. She proposed that this balance between being âinsidersâ of white families yet ultimately remaining âoutsidersââthe outsider withinâoffers Black women a unique standpoint from which to understand the self, family and society (Collins 1986).
The sustained exclusion of Black womenâs voices in sociology has historically produced solipsistic knowledge where white lives, interests and identities have been allowed to define what is considered normal and legitimate social science (Bonilla-Silva 2012; Grimes 2001; Leonardo 2009; Levine-Rasky 2013; Sullivan 2006). Collins (1986) challenged the devaluation of Black womenâs subjectivity and drew on the rich examples of Black womenâs art, intellectualism, community and culture to demonstrate the processes by which Black women assert their full humanity in spite of their dehumanisation in the wider society.
Collins (1986) offers three dimensions of Black feminist thought that bears importance for sociological analyses: (1) Black womenâs self-definition and self-valuation; (2) the interlocking nature of oppression; and (3) Black womenâs culture. First, Collins establishes that externally-defined stereotypes of people of colour pervade our cultures. Controlling images like the âangry Black womanâ are designed to denigrate Black womenâs assertiveness and mitigate the ways they may threaten the status quo . A key dimension of Black feminist intellectualism is to develop self-definitions of their identities and their own standards for evaluating Black womanhood beyond racist stereotypes.
Second, Black womenâs marginalisation in both the Civil Rights and the Womenâs Rights movements raised their awareness of the interlocking nature of gender, race, class and other axes of power . Their experiences revealed that the struggle for racial equality can overlook the patriarchal domination between Black men and Black women, while the struggle for gender equality can reproduce white domination and racism. From this perspective, social justice cannot be won on single axis issues. Also understood under the term intersectionality, Black feminist thought pioneered the analysis of simultaneous oppressions, turning their attention to the links between multiple systems of power (Collins 1986, 2012; Crenshaw 1991; hooks 1984, 2012).
Third, Black feminist thought has advanced social research that centres the lived experiences of Black women, illuminating their cultural practices around sisterhood and solidarity (Collins 1986). Embedded in the outsider-within theory is the assumption that one cannot separate the content of thought from the historical and material conditions that shape the lives of its producers (Collins 1986). In detailing the...