Communicative Understandings of Women's Leadership Development : From Ceilings of Glass to Labyrinth Paths EPUB

Communicative Understandings of Womens Leadership Development: From Ceilings of Glass to Labyrinth Paths, edited by Elesha L. Ruminski and Annette M. Holba, intertwines the disciplines of communication studies, leadership studies, and womens studies to offer theoretical and practical reflection about womens leadership development in academic, organizational, and political contexts. Womens leadership development exists at the intersection of consciousness-raising, communication competence, and education to increase ones knowledge and practice of leadership, which makes the weaving together of these three disciplines important.

Thus, Communicative Understandings of Womens Leadership Development claims a space for womens leadership studies and acknowledges the paradigmatic shift from discussing womens leadership using the glass ceiling phenomenon to what Eagly and Carli (2007) identify as the labyrinth of leadership. Recognizing this metaphoric shift is crucial because many women now develop leadership amid the postmodern flux of organizational change; hierarchical, top-down systems are being eroded in lieu of transformational, collaborative, even improvisational leadership processes.

Womens leadership studies is emerging as a fruitful interdisciplinary area that reframes the debate about whether we live, work, and learn within a third-wave feminist or post-feminist context. While this area might include feminist theorizing, it also might not emphasize such epistemologies. For this reason, Ruminski and Holbas edited collection explores and highlights a variety of feminist and non-feminist intersections, and is thus an important and timely contribution to both marking where we are with womens leadership development in higher education and how women can further develop themselves as leaders.