On the Road

I’ve discovered that I’m an abominable (or superlative – depending on how you look at it!) skim reader. Imagine a speedboat riding along the waves/pages so fast that you are barely touching the surface of the water/words. This is a good thing, at present, although perhaps a habit I will later regret? Anyway, I’ve read almost 3 novels (300 pages approx. each) in the last 4 days (and that’s with work and weekend commitments!). I would estimate that I can read a full novel of that size in probably less than four hours without disturbances. Textbooks are bit trickier – although my tactic with them is to highlight and post-it note until kingdom come! Meticulously going over them later and typing up each underlined sentence.

The direction I’m taking with my thesis has changed somewhat over the last week. Although I was hesitant at first to focus solely on women’s leadership, especially since authentic leadership was/still is something I’m quite passionate about and interested in, in terms of creating excellent discussion material and contributing to feminist discourse within business and leadership studies, refining my focus seems like the best course of action. Furthermore, finding good literature with strong female characters which also contained examples of ‘authentic’ leadership moments was proving tricky!

This doesn’t mean that at least one of the stories I select can’t be concerned with authentic leadership and how women enact it and experience it (I’m thinking The Secret Life of Bees!), but rather that I’ll have the freedom to utilise both a wider range of literary texts and make the whole study more provocative, topical and hopefully less ‘fluffy’/feel good – I don’t want to simply provide nicely packaged ‘right’ answers. Thus, the focus will be more on women’s leadership development rather than authentic leadership lessons.

With this in mind I’m in the process of re-defining my criteria for the selection of texts. For example: “Novels, short stories, and plays that raise contemporary leadership issues outside the bounds of traditional business case studies and are particularly concerned with the experiences of women, not only in relation to one another but also in relation to men. The narratives must create tension, raising pertinent questions and concerns about women’s leadership, and thus facilitating discussion on a diverse range of issues such as expectations & perceptions, female stereotypes, communal/relational leadership, feminism, working mothers, post-heroic leadership, authenticity, etc…”

Since the semester started four weeks ago I think now is as good a time as any to evaluate my progress. Obviously I’ve read a much broader range of material (see end list) than I am presenting here, but for time’s sake here are the possibilities so far (including an applicability rating, the relevant ‘women in leadership’ themes & a few thoughts on how each text could be used/discussion points):

1.       The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingslover

Applicability Rating: 6.5/10

Relevant Themes: Power + status, crisis situations, followership

Key thoughts: Examples of leadership in crisis, personal reflection, patriarchal domination, women's struggles and position relative to men. Only concern is that the material is much weightier than would be suited to a management course, and subjecting it to corporate scrutiny would overpower its more subtle, yet equally powerful elements (such as racial tensions).

2.       The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

Applicability rating: 6/10

Relevant Themes: Female ambition, power relationships between women, unsettling role models

Key Thoughts: I initially didn’t enjoy this novel and, to be honest, I still don’t think I like it very much (Jean Brodie is just…ugh!!). But the story does say some very interesting things about power and independence, expectations and perceptions, and what happens to women who act outside the bounds of societal convention. So while Miss Brodie is rather unlikable, her methods are unconventional (at least for the time period she is situated in), and thus worthy of discussion; i.e. what should young women be taught? How do female role models influence students? What power dynamics exist between women? 

 3.       The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Applicability Rating: 8/10

Relevant Themes: Authentic leadership & engagement, racial issues & women

Key Thoughts: A clear work environment (the honey business) where there is leadership and followership between women. August Boatwright exemplifies authentic leadership in its fullest sense, i.e. heart leadership, solid values, passionate engagement, self-discipline. Since the story is told from perspective of Lily, I could investigate how women respond to authentic leadership and female support.

4.       Sur by Ursula K. Le Guin

Applicability Rating: 8/10

Relevant Themes: Communal leadership, post-heroic leadership, expectations

Key Thoughts: A party of 9 women head to Antarctica in 1910 unbeknownst to almost any men, they explore the freezing territory for over 3 months and work as a team to accomplish their exploration, all of which goes completely unacknowledged as it wouldn't be acceptable (or even believable!) for women to have done this alone. It presents a range of examples of teamwork, leadership moving between group members, authentic engagement, the unique problems they encounter as women and the continual struggle to be accepted in a ‘man’s world’.

5.       A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

Applicability Rating: 7/10

Relevant Themes: Conditions for female leadership & examples of the social constructionism of gender.

Key Thoughts: This is a pioneering feminist text. While it is a non-fiction piece, Woolf examines in  detail the struggles faced by women in a world dominated by patriarchy, asking: “What does it require and mean for a woman to be successful? Can she ever be equal with the ‘dominant’ sex? How can she come into her own [as a writer and as a leader]?” Woolf uses a range of novels as examples to illustrate her point so it could work as part of my study if I picked out certain portions (mostly located in the latter half of the book) for analysis. Virginia Woolf is not very well read these days so most women (apart from literature buffs) are unlikely to have encountered her work in any great depth, and if they have, more likely one of her novels, such as Mrs Dalloway of To the Lighthouse.

 6.       The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan

Applicability Rating: 9/10

Relevant Themes: Power & status, crisis situations, styles of leadership, the role of followers

Key Thoughts: Set in 1914 just as war is breaking out in Europe, a group of 39 men & women find themselves on a lifeboat only meant for 30 fighting for their lives. Told from the perspective of Grace (age 22) the novel explores the struggle for survival and leadership between Mr Hardie and Hannah & Mrs Grant. Grace, the protagonist, cleverly observes the leadership crisis and subsequent struggle for power between the men and women stranded on a lifeboat. At times both a supporter of Hardie and Mrs Grant, Grace sheds light on the human need for control and the power held by 'followers' in saving or damning their leaders. What is truly valuable about this novel is that it highlights the struggles women face as leaders and how when they emulate masculine styles of leadership and authority (making difficult life and death decisions) they are punished. Regardless of the time-setting, The Lifeboat is equally as applicable to today's society as 1914 America. Definitely a winner!

7.       The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Applicability Rating: 7.5/10

Relevant Themes: Maternal leadership, working mothers, female support networks, decision-making

Key Thoughts: This book is a rich portrayal of womanhood and contains a huge array of well-developed female characters. While the focus is on motherhood and the bonds between women rather than leadership per say, The Red Tent's universal themes and linear narrative lends itself to discussion on the 'power of women' and the importance of female relationships and support. How do women interact with one another when there are clear power boundaries? How does age influence leadership dynamics between women? Dinah's grandmother, Rebekah, is an example of a strong, perhaps almost masculine leader (see pages 147 - 166) who makes hard decisions which are often criticised. Yet at the same time she is also deeply perceptive and caring of those around her. Rebekah’s section may raise some good discussion points.

Other books I’ve read but have given low applicability ratings:

·         The Group by Mary McCarthy

·         Outline by Rachel Cusk

·         The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

·         The Aviator’s Wife

·         Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

As far as textbooks go, I’ve read a couple of anthologies for women’s plays and modern literature, along with a complete psychology textbook by Mary Crawford called Transformations: Women, Gender & Psychology (2012) to give me a reference point and basic understanding of current women’s issues and the nature vs. nurture argument. I’m currently reading three other scholarly texts, including Women’s Leadership (2009) by Valerie Stead and Carole Elliot, The Future of Feminism (2011) by Sylvia Walby, and Through the Labyrinth: The Truth about How Women Become Leaders (2007) by Alice H. Eagly and Linda L. Carli. I hope to finish these by the end of this week, along with at least two more novels.

All in all, I feel this is quite a good effort for just four weeks of study! I’m going to give myself three more weeks of reading before I start writing seriously. This should give me time to read at least 7 more novels/plays and finish investigating women’s leadership from an academic standpoint.

From there the road will take an upward slant and I will start on the path leading to the summit (yay for mountain analogies!).

First Steps...

“The first step is not action; the first step is understanding.”

John W. Gardner, On Leadership

Last weekend I started reading The Unreal and the Real. Volume Two, Outer Space, Inner Lands: Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin. I’ve had a soft spot for Le Guin since reading “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” last semester as part of my critical and creative research paper. While science fiction isn’t my forte, her stories are simultaneously gripping, unusual, and brutally real. Rarely are there happy endings for her characters. But whether alien, human or something inbetween, they are always redeemable, even if they don’t choose that path. There are always choices of one kind or another.

In this post I’m including a piece I wrote three months ago. Apart from getting a good grade (as a journal entry no less!), I find it still resonates with me, and, to date, is my favourite close reading/personal reflection on a literary text using the lens of authentic leadership (and it also explains in a very succinct way the basic ebb and flow of my thesis interests!):

Should Leaders be as Moral as Possible?

“As part of my thesis research I have been investigating authentic leadership. At its core, ‘authenticity’ refers to “the degree of congruence between internal values and external expressions,” and, as such, is concerned with developing a deep awareness of one’s moral values and beliefs (Roberts, 2007, p. 329). Bill George and Peter Sims, the scholars who popularised authentic leadership in the early-2000s, argue that authentic leaders do not compromise their values, particularly in difficult situations. Rather, “authentic leaders use adversity to strengthen their values…[they] take the most difficult road and do not compromise [their] values” (McManus & Perruci, 2015, p. 220). Ultimately, being as moral as possible in all circumstances is the only ‘authentic’ choice.

However, making moral or ethical decisions is not always clear-cut, and making distinctions between right and wrong actions is often difficult, resulting in situations termed “ethical dilemmas.” Many of the hardest questions, in organisations and in life, are conflicts among multiple competing responsibilities (Badaracco, 2006). Based on my experience as an arts student, I want to explore this conundrum using a short story by Ursula Le Guin, asking and answering: ‘As a leader and follower, should I be as moral as possible, regardless of the circumstances?’

Why use stories to explore complex leadership questions? Using the humanities to study leadership is an emerging and important field of management research (Marturano, Wren & Harvey, 2013; Badaracco, 2006). Badaracco contends that classic literature and fictional narratives provide valuable frameworks for examining ethical leadership, as stories not only heighten emotional engagement but encompass a more diverse range of ‘real-life’ circumstances than traditional, prosaic business case studies. In this way, literary analysis adds an important ‘human’ dimension to leadership development, since it is concerned with “trying to explore, make sense of, and capture something” about individuals’ and communities’ lives” (Marturano, et al., 2013, p. 2). Consequently, ‘The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas’ by Ursula Le Guin, with its complex postulations on moral dilemmas, choice and compromise, has the potential to help me develop “new ideas – about possibility, risk taking, and courage” (Simon, 2004, p. 101) in situations where there is no clear right or wrong moral answer. I will begin my analysis with a short summary of the story before reflecting on what it has taught me about my moral compass.

In ‘Omelas’ Le Guin invites the reader to envisage a utopian city, “bright-towered by the sea” (p. 902), a place of never-ending joy and happiness. But not all is as it seems. We are told that the prosperity and success of Omelas depends entirely upon the perpetual misery of a single child who is kept locked away in squalor beneath the city, where “it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect" (p. 904). Naked, covered in sores, and left to sit in its own filth, the child bears a horrifying burden – suffering for the sake of its fellow citizens. Sometimes the child begs for its freedom: "I will be good,” it cries, “Please let me out. I will be good” (p. 905). But even though every person in Omelas is aware of its existence, no one responds to its pleas. Many, however, have chosen to visit the child, and those who do so are invariably outraged and repelled:

They would like to do something for the child. But there is nothing they can do. If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing indeed; but if it were done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance for the happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed (p. 905).

No one, then, chooses to sacrifice the good of the many for the good of the one. But they know that they, like the child, “are not free,” and this knowledge makes them more compassionate, more noble, and more gentle (p. 906). However, there are those who individually "opt out" from the “terrible justice of reality” (p. 905) and the uneasy moral compromise the citizens of Omelas have made with the child’s suffering. They leave the city, “they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back” (p. 906).

On the surface, Le Guin’s dystopian narrative appears to be a critique of Western society’s tendency to adopt utilitarian approaches to ethical dilemmas, that is, choosing the greatest good for the greatest number (Wyman, 2012). When I first read ‘Omelas,’ I believed the ones who “walked away” were acting courageously by refusing to participate in the torturous treatment of the incarcerated child. By following their ‘authentic’ moral compass, they were ‘doing the right thing.’ The story appears then to pose a simple challenge: would you be among those who walk away?

But is taking a ‘moral stand’ by absolving responsibility and ‘walking away’ from a difficult situation the right thing to do? Wyman points out that “while the choice to walk away from the hideous bargain Le Guin puts forth may seem correct at first, a more careful reading suggests that Le Guin would elect to stay in Omelas, imperfect as it turns out to be” (Wyman, 2012). Abdicating responsibility for the child’s lot by leaving Omelas may be a good moral decision for the individual, but it not only fails to resolve the dilemma, it undermines the community, leaders and followers alike. Does that mean we should abandon the idea that good leaders (and followers) should have a reliable, strong, internal guide to right and wrong? This is a disturbing question because “we want leaders with moral clarity, who can guide and inspire organisations, especially in tough times” (Badaracco, 2006, p. 32). However, rather than offering a utilitarian excuse—the good of the many outweighs the good of the one—or encouraging individuals to ‘be as moral as possible’ by “walking away,” I conceive Le Guin as insisting on the development of a dynamic ethical system which is dependent upon all community members, existing and evolving as they work collaboratively to solve the problem.

This story resonated with me in a way no business ethics case study ever has before. Having been brought up with a strict moral code which emphasised, as George and Sims do, that you should never compromise your values, my moral compass was only suited to straightforward questions of right and wrong, so much so that I failed to see any alternatives for the people of Omelas. It has highlighted the need for me, as both a leader and follower, to work on developing a more flexible moral code that is as complex, varied, and as subtle as the situations in which I will find myself in the future. As Badaracco (2006) points out, this does not mean “abandoning basic values or adopting moral relativism” (p. 33), but in my quest for ‘authenticity,’ being willing to embrace a wider set of human values which will allow me to look beyond myself and my moral code to find better, more innovative solutions.”

References – APA 6^th Edition

Badaracco, J. L. (2006). Questions of character: Illuminating the heart of leadership through literature. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.

Le Guin, U. K. (2003). The ones who walk away from omelas. In A. Charters, The story and its writer: An introduction to short fiction (6th ed., pp. 902-907). New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martins.

Marturano, A. J., Wren, T., & Harvey, M. (2013). The making of leadership and the humanities. Leadership and the Humanities, 1(1), 1-5.

McManus, R. M., & Perruci, G. (2015). Understanding leadership: An arts and humanities perspective. London, UK: Routledge.

Simon, L. (2009). William James’s lost souls in Ursula Le Guin’s utopia. Philosphy and Literature, 28(1), 89-102.

Wyman, S. (2012). Reading through fictions in Ursula Le Guin’s “the ones who walk away from omelas”. ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews, 25(4), 228-232.

Copyright Lydia Martin (2015)

The Beginning of the Beginning or 'Listomaniac'

How to start? I don’t want to make this pre-meditated like most of my writing, which is either carefully sculpted or hurriedly assembled (uni vs. work), but rather to serve as a train(wreck) of unmitigated consciousness, unstopped and unhindered by the need to say something or anything in particular. Rather I foresee it contributing to my thesis (yes, I now have a ‘my thesis’ can you believe!) by being a space to process the great amount of information I will be attempting to cram into my brain over the course of the next 12 months. An opportunity to reflect on the poignant nuances, downright absurdities or dazzling revelations found in what I read, without worrying how it all ‘fits’ into the bigger picture. Simple existence amidst the rush, pull, push, and general distractions of everyday life. Will I share this with anyone? Perhaps, perhaps not. This is for me, after all.

But back to the beginning. The start. The inevitable. The task is daunting – how do you research, write, and give of yourself to create/mould/shape an idea which has ‘meaning’ in just one short year? Perhaps the universities have it all wrong – pumping out Masters Students and collecting money for the ‘good of mankind’ without really giving us a chance to learn, except how to meet deadlines that is. But it really is what you make it. And SO I have begun.

“But the eyes are blind. One must look with the heart.” – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

So begins the fourth book (The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin) of twenty which I am setting out to read within the next 40 or so days. To be honest, I don’t think I will continue with this one. I am learning to recognise the very subtle difference between what is merely a simple reflection of daily life/culture (or the way I want daily life to be like) – the socially acceptable and constructed way of being – and the genuinely life-changing, moving, provoking, unexpected. Some stories have this innate quality of engaging ‘the philosopher’ within (or ‘the concerned citizen’) which I suppose (or hope!) resides in all of us, while others merely reflect what is acceptable and palpable. Easy to read, easy to forget. That doesn’t mean popular fiction should be ignored or shunned, but rather that it is simply less than ‘great’ literature; less engaging, less thought-provoking, less life-changing. I think I now understand why Badaracco and Marturano & Perruci were so insistent on ‘great works of art’ for their research. The ‘great’ being the ungraspable essence which makes a story exist as an entity seemingly, and perhaps deceptively, separate from its creator and reader, so much so that I almost forget books like The Poisonwood Bible, The Handmaid’s Tale, and The Narrow Road to the Deep North (to name a few of my more recent literary endeavours) even had an author, a thinking, breathing human being who stringed words into meaning.

And so while Katniss Eberdeen or the Divergent heroine (who even remembers what her name is??) continue to perpetuate the ‘great man’ myth of leadership by replacing the titular white male hero with an even whiter female leader who is ‘just as good as a man,’ albeit moodier, I am preparing to slog my way through 20 odd books/plays/short story collections in order to find the ‘great.’ Oh and to make that harder for myself, they have to be by female authors, with female characters, practicing leadership. Sound like an easy requirement? Let me tell you – it’s not. If it’s one thing women don’t like to write about, its leadership (unless it’s about a badass, brooding heroine…who's white…and needs men to help her out). Heartache, love, family, children, relationships, violence, grief, passion, fear, endurance, etc…that we can do, yes sir. But ‘leadership’ or ‘leading’ beyond the conventional masculinities of the term? Not so easily.

Here is my list so far, with a few hopeful empty slots:

Title:	Author:	Year:	Type:
A Room of One’s Own	Virginia Woolf	1926	Extended essay
The Poisonwood Bible	Barbara Kingslover	1998	Novel
The Women’s Room	Marilyn French	1977	Novel
Top Girls	Caryl Churchill	1982	Play
The Secret Life of Bees	Sue Monk Kidd	2002	Novel
The Group	Mary McCarthy	1963	Novel
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie	Muriel Spark	1969	Novel
The Aviator’s Wife	Melanie Benjamin	2013	Historical Fiction
Cousins	Patricia Grace	1998	NZ Fiction
Their Eyes Were Watching God	Zora Neale Hurston	1937	Novel
The Golden Notebook	Doris Lessing	1962	Novel
Excellent Women	Barbara Pym	1952	Novel
The Left Hand of Darkness	Ursula K. Le Guin	1969	Sci-fi Novel
How to Be Both	Ali Smith	2014	Novel
Outline	Rachel Cusk	2010	Novel

I like these women. They’re not afraid of the unconventional. And I feel that their writing is for something better, more important than the paycheck or the Man Booker Prize. In the same way, I feel that ‘authentic’ leadership is for something more than just effectively managing people or making a company more profitable. Because really, it’s not exactly authentic to hijack authenticity to do or encourage something inauthentic. It’s a way of being more than anything else, starting with self, but flowing onto others. An individually collective endeavour, a balancing of the innate propensity for selfishness with the desire to be better, kinder, engaged and loving to others as you lead, and without ignoring injustice, inequality or ethical dilemmas for the ‘good’ of business.

I expect my viewpoints to change over the next 6 weeks as I read and absorb these stories. And so this journal is for the simple purpose of capturing change in motion. My change, and my motion. The who I am now, the who I will be, and the who I could be.