Radical politics, intersectionality and leadership for diversity in organizations

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore leadership for diversity informed by intersectionality and radical politics. Surfacing the political character of intersectionality, the authors suggest that a leadership for diversity imbued with a commitment to political action is essential for the progress towards equality. Design/methodology/approach Drawing lessons from the grassroots, political organizing of the black and Indigenous activist groups Combahee River Collective and Idle No More, the authors explore how these groups relied on feminist alliances to address social justice issues. Learning from their focus on intersectionality, the authors consider the role of politically engaged leadership in advancing diversity and equality in organizations. Findings The paper finds that leadership for diversity can be developed by shifting towards a more radical and transversal politics that challenges social and political structures that enable intersectionality or interlocking oppressions. This challenge relies on critical alliances negotiated across multiple intellectual, social and political positions and enacted through flexible solidarity to foster a collective ethical responsibility and social change. These forms of alliance-based praxis are important for advancing leadership for diversity. Originality/value This paper contributes to studies of leadership and critical diversity studies by articulating an alliance-based praxis for leadership underpinned by intersectionality, radical democracy and transversal politics.

What is intersectional equality? A definition and goal of equality for organizations

“…These authors do not address organizations per se, but we argue there are several advantages to developing a perspective of coalition‐building for organizational change efforts toward equality. First of all, coalition‐building as a concept has had a long tradition in social and civil rights movements (Cole, 2008; Phelan, 1989) as it incorporates collective action to address inequality (Ozkazanc‐Pan, 2019; Pullen et al., 2019). Organizational literature on networking might be helpful in this respect (Castilla, 2005; Dennissen et al., 2018).…”

The Impact of MOOC Instructor Group Diversity on Review Volume and Rating— Coursera Specialization as an Example

“…Different professional fields of the instructor group member will increase the breadth and depth of group information acquisition and improve the work efficiency of the group [34]. Therefore, the diversity of the professional or interest field among the instructor group members has a positive impact on instructor group performance, and the higher the diversity of professional or interest fields, the greater is the contribution of the instructor group member to group goals or tasks, correspondingly improving the group performance [35]. In some online autonomous organizations, such as Wikipedia, the greater the interest diversity, the higher is the group performance.…”

Seeing and Overcoming the Complexities of Intersectionality

“…Organisational research and education that utilises an intersectional lens with practical actions is needed to challenge the views and values of organisations [23]. Research should question how practices, policy, and politics perpetuate inequity and inequality in order to re-focus on organisational social responsibility and to advance inclusion [23,[29][30][31]. Organisations should not only respond to diversity and inequalities but rather embrace intersectionality to harness diverse talent, human capital and capability, and cultivate a sense of belonging for diverse individuals.…”

“…Key to this was the foundation of transformative learning and the building of an evidence base of practice promoting an intersectional view of inclusion, using an education module as a teaching moment pedagogy that required participants' critical self-reflection and self-evaluation of behaviours beyond the nominal universal diversity of identities [29]. The consideration of the importance and role of leadership is paramount for an intersectional focus to deliver change, not only by individual behavioural modelling, but by understanding disadvantage, and to challenge thinking, behaviour, structures, policy, systems and power [20,30,34]. The educational package was developed to place individuals, using personas, into the shoes of others who have different and potentially vulnerable identity characteristics.…”