Restoration

The concluding chapter brings together the key ideas within the book and reflects on the real challenges of engaging in anti-racist feminist struggle. It summarises the key arguments and contributions of the book, before reflecting on the challenges ahead for leadership in organisations and society. In particular, it recognises that the ongoing struggles against imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism and patriarchy will unlikely be carried on the back of any one heroic individual, but brought about by a coalition of committed communities.

Introduction

This chapter canvasses recent global events including white nationalist rallies in the United States, the protectionist vote for Brexit, and the mainstreaming of racist far-right political groups across Europe. It then turns to the landscape of leadership and organisations and discusses how the backlash that we have observed against diversity is institutionalised in business practice. The chapter lays the groundwork to interrogate the violences of leadership theorising and practice in more depth as well as provide ways forward through anti-racist feminist resistance.

White Allyship

This chapter addresses white readers in particular and acknowledges the guilt and shame that they may experience when engaging in difficult dialogues about race and racism. It analyses the concept of white allyship and, in particular, emphasises the need to understand white allyship as an ongoing process of redoing whiteness rather than a fixed identification. The chapter also delineates the concept of abolishing whiteness and applies it to leadership and organisations as a strategy to dismantle white supremacy. It explores how becoming a ‘race traitor’ comes with considerable risks, where white allies are often met with hostility from their white peers, and how they may overcome these challenges.

Undoing Leadership

Following from the collective wisdoms of anti-racist feminisms, this chapter discusses the ways leadership may be theorised and practised beyond the reinforcement of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal violence. In particular, it explores three ways to ‘do’ leadership theorising and practice differently: decolonising our minds; relating with others; and reimagining leadership. These are not discreet domains of activity, but interconnected processes of social transformation; so that in relating with others, we can collaboratively reimagine leadership, and by reimagining dominant constructions of leadership, it will more readily enable us to decolonise our minds.

Anti-Racist Feminisms

This chapter draws on the collective wisdoms of Black, Indigenous, Latinx and Chicanx, Middle Eastern and Asian feminisms to identify and challenge the interlocking systems of power that undergird leadership. Specifically, the chapter explores how the theorising and practice of leadership may embrace a recognition of interlocking oppressions, experiment with language and reach, and struggle towards solidarity, self-definition and love. The distinct and complex practices of anti-racist feminisms are not homogenised into any universal ‘how-to’ guide for leadership but offered instead as promising possibilities for localised struggles.

Dominance

This chapter examines the hegemony of white masculinity and critiques the imperialist fantasy of white masculine dominance, strength and power. This historical image bestowed white men the right to command and control humanity, which translates in contemporary organisational practice to the abiding association of white masculinity with leadership. Classical leadership theories are explored, showing how mainstream texts from charismatic leadership to transformational leadership assume and celebrate a white masculine subject. Media profiles of celebrity CEOs, Richard Branson and Steve Jobs, are analysed to illustrate the ways contemporary business leadership embodies white masculine ideals.

Salvation

This chapter introduces the range of theories that have sought to articulate the moral and ethical dimensions of leadership. In particular, the chapter critiques the traditional promotion of individual heroism. It will illustrate the limitations of an individualist approach through the examples of benevolent sexism and racism, which reveal the structural and ideological machinations of white patriarchal power. In particular, the figure of the white saviour is explored in more depth, tracing its origins back to colonial discourses and showing how it has shaped contemporary ideas of ethical leadership. The chapter draws on examples of Australian philanthropic billionaires and the rise of ‘sustainability leaders.’

Purity

Having interrogated hegemonic white masculinity in the previous chapter, this chapter presents a critique of white femininity and the rise of postfeminism. Entrenched in imperialist notions of beauty, delicacy and purity, this chapter examines the fraught performances of white femininity in our current age as it attempts to balance between asserting dominance and maintaining an idealised innocence. The chapter investigates the ways organisations prioritise a white patriarchal feminine subject, for example, how research of women in leadership has overwhelmingly focussed on the needs and interests of elite professional women at the expense of queer, working-class and non-white women. Consequently, organisations waving the banner for ‘gender equality’ can often end up reproducing heterosexism, classism and racism. Carolyn McCall and Sheryl Sandberg’s media profiles are analysed to explore white femininities in leadership.

Destruction

This chapter introduces the concept of organisational violence to examine the consequences of gendered racism. It illuminates the ways organisations become inhospitable spaces for diversity. Specifically, the chapter demonstrates how diversity management has gradually supplanted social justice agendas through a capitalist logic. Despite the modest gains of diversity initiatives, recent backlashes against diversity highlight the significant hostility towards change in white patriarchal organisations and societies. Considering that much of what is written about diversity centres on the figure of a white male leader who extends inclusion to the Other, the chapter interrogates how dominant assumptions and practices of diversity can ultimately harm those who diversity initiatives are said to benefit.