Chapter 3: The Meaning to Our Methods

Ignored, skipped over, presumed confusing: research methodology is often perceived as the unloved section of research writing. Alternatively, we hope you dig into this chapter to understand that the scaffolding of this book stands upon our methodology and methods. We have undertaken a significant challenge to upend traditional, dominant narratives of leadership. To manifest this hopeful disruption, we employed thoughtful implementation of narrative research methodologies (our overarching approach to the project) and methods (how we collected data and analyzed it) as well as theoretical and conceptual frameworks.

This chapter serves as an overview of paradigms, methodology, theoretical and conceptual frameworks, and research methods for the entire text. We share a review of how this study aligned across a large umbrella of narrative methodologies and within lenses that allowed the researchers/authors to co-explore the participants’ narratives with intentionality. In this chapter, we also share the story of our collaborative process, including how we came together over several sessions to share ideas, thoughts, and inspiration. We examine all these steps through our conscious process to build a foundation for the book based on previous qualitative, narrative explorers.