“None so queer as folk”: Gendered expectations and transgressive bodies in leadership

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between the body and leadership through a case study of a transgender leader. The study shows that the leader's body, presumed gender, and gendered appearance are salient markers that employees use to make sense of leaders and leadership, and that this gendered nature of leadership shows the deep roots of gender dichotomies and the heterosexual matrix that permeate our understanding of leadership. These two findings lead us to emphasize the need to queer leadership. All leaders experience gendered restrictions, to some extent, via the social norms and expectations of the way leadership should be performed. The construction of leadership through a transgender body reminds us to stay open to the exploration of performativity, particularly the relationships between bodies, gender, sexuality, and leadership and how any body can benefit from queering leadership.

This girl’s life: An autoethnography

“…A robot that 'does' drag shores up the heterosexual matrix by depicting it as 'real' and transgender identities are the parodic representation: it seems that the joke is (always) on us. 'do', 'perform' or 'work at' my sex/gender -all Why is transgender assumed to be 'queer' and a 'fluid' gender identity (Linstead and Pullen, 2006), a necessity before a cis-normative person can question their own gender (Muhr and Sullivan, 2013)? Furthermore, why presume a 'fluid identity' is preferable for a transgender subject whilst a stable, even if not essentialist, position is suitable for cisgender persons?…”

“…In adopting Judith Butler, and particularly her early 1990 text 'Gender Trouble', Pullen and Rhodes (2012) conflate transgender with queer identities, fluidity and transgressive practices (see Muhr and Sullivan, 2013 for a brief overview of management literature that adopts queer theory and Borgerson and Rehn, 2004 for a critique of the concept of fluidity in relation to gender). vii They are not alone in doing so as the idea of transgressive practice appears repeatedly in management literature (Brewis et al 1997;Linstead and Pullen 2006;Muhr and Sullivan, 2013;Schilt and Connell, 2007;Thanem, 2011;Thanem and Knights, 2012). Pullen and Rhodes (2012) argue that the robot's 'male' performativity is an exaggerated macho account that is 'undone' when the robot does 'drag'.…”

“…There is growing interest in management and organizational studies of the 'transgender spectrum' (Author 2016; Knights and Thanem, 2011;Linstead and Pullen, 2006;Muhr and Sullivan, 2013;Schilt and Connell, 2007;Thanem, 2011;Thanem and Knights, 2012;Thanem and Wallenberg, 2015). In this paper I wish to add my voice as a non-binary trans person to these narratives by considering both the terminology and labels used to identify trans people and a major trope that concerns trans lives -that trans people exemplify queerness, or difference, or liminality, or fluidity, or indeed any other 'radical, transgressive' understanding of gender and identity.…”

Where is Queer Theory in Organizational Studies?

“…Sexuality and Gender [39,40,47,48,55] Humour and Comedy Control and Subversion [19] Gender [44] Space Gender [43] Entrepreneurship Gender and Sexuality [45,49] Leadership Charisma [25] Gender and Body [34] Discrimination Multi-modal Approach [46] Focus Groups [43] Quantitative Survey [25] However, when our attention is directed to the main object and aspect analyzed under these themes their diversity collapses. From the thirty three articles found twenty seven relations to and have as their main object of analysis aspects of gender and sexuality.…”

“…Performativity and Performance [26,29,32,34,36,38,43,44,4 7,51,53] Heterosexual Matrix and Heteronormativity [25,28,[30][31][32][33][34]44,45,47,49,51,52,55,56] Subjectivity, Identity Categories and Identification [26,35,36,37,40,41,46,47,50 ,55,54,56] Debating Concepts about Gender [42,48] Embodiment [39] Knowledge [27] There is a huge diversity of themes studied in the organizational field that use queer theory concepts. Finding this diversity is very interesting because it shows the connections established between queer theory and management.…”