Disrupting masculinities within leadership: Problems of embodiment, ethics, identity and power

Abstract

This study provides a concise summary of the book Leadership, Gender and Ethics: Embodied Reason in challenging Masculinities, New York and London: Routledge, 2021. It examines the masculinity of leadership and how through an embodied form of reasoning, it might be challenged or disrupted. A central argument of the book is that masculine leadership elevates rationality in ways that marginalise the body and feelings and often has the effect of sanctioning unethical behaviour. In exploring this thesis, the book provides an analysis of the comparatively neglected issues of identity/anxiety, power/resistance, diversity/gender and the body/masculinities surrounding the concept and practice of leadership.