This book is a written account of a qualitative, narrative-based critical autoethnography exploring the development of leadership identities of women leaders, including the author, working in various educational settings, including K-12 schools, universities, politics, research centers, and community non-profit organizations.
The author layers key findings from these participant stories with her own experiences, as well as with dominant US cultural ideologies about leadership, to capture the lived experiences of participants. Alsup also understands leadership identity through the lens of the animal-human bond, by integrating personal experience and scholarship about animals and their complex, evolutionary relationships with humans. This book is grounded in interdisciplinary scholarly research and theory exploring leadership, identity, mentoring, empathy, feminist thought, and animal studies. This project aims to better understand the leadership trajectories of women leaders in educational settings and, by extension, inspire and transform young women thinking about leadership.
Chapter 1. Discourses of Leadership Identity Development: An Interdisciplinary and Subjective Vision.- Chapter 2. Metaphors of Leadership: Doors, Walls, Boundaries, and Portals.- Chapter 3. Mentorship, Collaboration, and Relationship Building.- Chapter 4. Mothers, Children, and Friends: Embodying a Leadership Identity.- Chapter 5. Empathy and Emotional Intelligence.- Chapter 6. Responsibility Fatigue: Meeting Challenges, Handling Failure.- Chapter 7. Negotiating Paradox and Integrating Self.- Chapter 8. Strong Men or Servant Leaders? Balancing Divergent Cultural Narratives of Leadership.- Chapter 9. Opening Identity Portals for New Educational Leaders.
Janet Alsup is Professor of English Education at Purdue University, USA, where she has been a faculty member since 2000. She is a former department head in Purdue s College of Education, as well as a former high school teacher. She has authored, co-authored, or edited eight books, including Teacher Identity Discourses: Negotiating Personal and Professional Spaces (2006).
