Fiercely Focused: How Women’s Lived Experiences Influence their Approach to Leadership

• In Event: Women in Educational Leadership: Understanding Stress, Emotional Labor, and Resilience in Unique Contexts

Abstract

While the literature provides some information regarding the influence of emotional labor on women in the workplace, little has been described specific to women leaders in higher education. We have noticed that many women leaders we know are effective and successful regardless of multiple and persistent stressors that create emotional labor. Emphasizing the phenomenon of emotional labor in the workplace, our chapter, titled “Fiercely Focused: How Women’s Lived Experiences Influence their Approach to Leadership” reports a qualitative, empirical study that tells the stories of how six women’s lived experiences - from childhood to adulthood, domestic and professional, successes and failures - have influenced their approaches to leadership in higher education. For the six women leaders in our study, being “fiercely focused” involved both internal drive and external influences. While the external influences were sometimes positive and sometimes negative, how the women interpreted and used these experiences to propel themselves forward in life and in leadership made all the difference.

Authors

• Jana Hunzicker, Bradley University

• Amanda Scott, Bradley University

• Rachel Borton, Bradley University

• Deborah Erickson, Bradley University