Access the summary of Amanda’s PhD research.
Organisations are struggling to recruit and retain women in leadership, and women are struggling to stay.
While current approaches to address this are well-intentioned and have made some inroads, this world-first research demonstrates how recognition of embodied experiences within leadership (i.e. performances, experiences, and emotions associated with our bodies) could lead to greater recruitment and retention of women in leadership.
These are workplaces where people feel they can authentically bring the diversity of their human, and vulnerable, experiences into their leadership roles and where women (especially mothers) dt just survive, but thrive.
Drawing on PhD research conducted by Dr Amanda Sterling, which explores the experiences of embodied mothers in leadership (i.e. pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, and care of children, and the embodied strategies that women engage in to manage these experiences), this report highlights:
- the additional labours mothers in leadership experience;
- how recognising the experiences, performances, and emotions associated with our bodies can lead to more empowered leadership;
- possibilities for more inclusive, connected, and purposeful leadership when we do; and
- the pathway forward for organisations, and the leaders within them, to apply this research in increasing representation of women in leadership.