Leadership Through Queer Eyes

Abstract

Although gender exists along a spectrum, the body of research regarding the intersection between gender and leadership still primarily focuses on research subjects within the traditional gender binary. This highlights the need for more extensive exploration of LGBTQIA+ individuals and communities, especially given their increasing openness and significant contributions to both organizational and societal spheres. Thus, this paper aims to explore how queer individuals experience leadership, and how they build relationships within the leadermember dyad. Utilizing ethnographic research approaches, narrative inquiry, and embodied research methods, several in-depth interviews were conducted with eight individuals who selfidentify as either gay, gender fluid, and non-binary. In Vivo and thematic coding were employed to find the patterns in the collected data, resulting in four main themes emerging: perceptions of queer individuals, queer experiences, leadership experiences, and building relationships. Queer methods were used to interpret the results more critically. Through the research, empirical data shows that queer individuals in the sample primarily perceive leadership through the leader-centric perspective, but intuitively enact leadership in a more relational approach. Their leadership experiences indicate aspects of significance such as a sense of control, trust, admiration, and influence, serving both as prerequisites and outcomes of leadership. Queer individuals nurture leader-member ties based on trust and care, as well as, fostering two-way and long-term relationships. These key findings draw implications at the individual, organizational, and societal level. It is recommendable for queer people to expand and cultivate alternative forms of leadership by embracing ambiguity and utilizing their tendency to pay attention to the context and value relationships. For organizations and society, it is imperative to advocate for diverse forms of leadership, nurture a safe and respectful environment, and take further steps on diversity and inclusion education. At the end of the paper, acknowledgment of limitations and recommendations for future research are also provided.