Women Leaders in Christian Higher Education: Resilience in Moments of Shame

• In Event: Illuminating Challenges and Resilience in Women Leaders

Short Description

What happens when a cis-woman leader in higher education encounters gender-based stereotypes? How does a moment of shame disrupt perceptions of leadership effectiveness? What does it look like for women leaders to embody/enact resilience to shame? This study is important for developing an understanding of how to make sense of moments of shame and resilience when encountering gender-based stereotypes. It also provides insight into how to develop leaders who bounce back when experiencing the effects of shame in social discourse.

Detailed Abstract

The focus of this qualitative study was to produce knowledge on what women leader’s in Christian higher education do when encountering gender-based stereotypes and experiencing a moment of shame. What was found was that while my participants were describing their experiences of shame in the interview they also described enacting resilience. In other words, resilience was present in moments of shame. The primary question that informed my analysis was: What are the moments of articulating shame and gender-based stereotypes that reveal resilience?  This question focused my thinking on how the participants deferred their understanding of shame and what they did when they experienced a moment of shame. What was produced in the analysis was ten aspects of resilience and shame in leadership (six included in this paper). The methods used for this study were in-depth interviews. The research questions were designed to generate deep conversations that examined moments of shame in leadership. They included what do women do when a moment of shame is evoked by gender-based stereotypes? What resources did women leaders use to navigate moments of shame in leadership? How did a shame instance disrupt their effectiveness as a leader and the institution? How did participants understand/articulate moving through shame and into resilience? What had they learned about leadership, gender-based stereotypes and shame resilience in Christian higher education? The methodology was to think with deconstruction, feminist poststructural and shame resilience theories as the transcripts were analyzed.
Keywords: Resilience, shame, women leaders, leadership, Christian higher education.

Presenter

• Darla Tillman-Samuelson, Veterans Association