Chapter 17: Cultivating a Systems Mindset Through Feminist Leadership

Educators work hard to dispel notions that leadership only refers to those with positional power. Rather, leadership may also be constructed as a relational process between and among people who seek to make a positive difference in the world (Higher Education Research Institute, 1996). Going further, Ospina and Uhl-Bien (2012) describe the “relational turn” in leadership studies where “both leaders and followers are ‘relational beings’ who constitute each other….in an unfolding dynamic relationship” (p. xix). In this way, leadership is about how people interact, engage, and negotiate with each other and inherently incorporates social context into leadership research (Ospina & Uhl-Bien, 2012). Whether contexts are construed as liberating or toxic makes a difference in how feminist leadership is constructed and perceived. This chapter suggests that cultivating a systems mindset can facilitate the naming and claiming of feminist leadership.