Constructions of Leadership Identities via Narratives of African Women School Leaders

Abstract

The paper explores African women school leaders' constructions of their leadership identity. Using self-perception theory which sees changes in self-perceived leadership skills and dispositions as being related to changes in perceived leader identity, constructions of African women's leadership identity are mapped over a lifelong career. Leader identity is, in this sense, inextricably linked to gender and an attempt is therefore made to understand these leader identities as gendered. The paper presents an analysis of the interviews of three women selected from a bigger study of 89 school leaders from four countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The three narratives of women leader identity construction are drawn from three of the four case study countries. The narrative approach to data analysis reflecting women school leaders' experiences of leader identity construction involved reading transcripts and coding them with themes characterizing the processes of becoming a leader and being identified as one. Findings suggest that processes of becoming a leader are influenced by women leaders' experiences of early socialization that gave them ways of doing leadership as well as values and attributes that shape their approach to leadership. These women grew up with a strong perception of who they are, and this instilled a sense of agency that facilitates leaderful actions. These actions were then affirmed through their different stages of growth and career development, thus strengthening their leader identity. It is concluded that understanding women leaders' experiences of leader identity is an important ingredient of leadership development.

In search of factors that hinder the career advancement of women to senior leadership positions

“…Values are a central explanation for women's desire to advance in their careers (Jenni, 2017). According to Moorosi (2020), the values and characteristics shaped their approach to leadership amongst African female school principals.…”

Girls’ and young women’s leader identity development: a scoping review

“…Imm and Wahid (2020) observed that enduring hardships led to their participants becoming "resilient, persevering, courageous, and resourceful" (p. 211). Moorosi (2020) claimed the hardships one woman went through early in life "shape [d] her resilience and strength as a leader [. .…”

Impact of gender differences in perception of creative identities of artist, creator, manager, entrepreneur and leader on sustainability

“…The leader's identity with the gender lens has been analyzed in many dimensions. The research was done based on particular nationalities, e.g., China (Chen, 2018), France (Saint-Michel, 2018), India (Datta & Agarwal, 2017;Reutzel et al, 2018), Indonesia (Hudson et al, 2020), sub-Saharan Africa (Moorosi, 2020), South Africa (Bornman, 2019;Herbst, 2020), the U.S. (Ko et al, 2015;Peachey & Burton, 2011;Yun et al, 2020) or in the intra-national perspective. Researchers used the following approaches in area of leader's identity: gender and leader's effectiveness (Collica-Cox & Schulz, 2020; Ko et al, 2015;Rhee & Sigler, 2015), gender and the pursuit of innovation opportunities (Reutzel et al, 2018), gender and leadership style (Bornman, 2019;Brands et al, 2015;Rhee & Sigler, 2015), gender and communication style (Violanti & Jurczak, 2011), gender and errors/mistakes (Thoroughgood et al, 2013), gender and external audience response to organizational failures (Montgomery & Cowen, 2020), gender and stereotypes and prejudices (Parker et al, 2020;Rhee & Sigler, 2015;Saint-Michel, 2018), gender and looking for help (Rosette et al, 2015), gender and narcissism (Chen, 2018), gender and leader's behavior and emotions (Schreiner et al, 2018;Yun et al, 2020), gender and behavioural integrity (Gatling et al, 2020), gender and personal and professional identity transitions (Meister et al, 2017), gender and conflict (Veldman et al, 2017).…”