En-gendering notions of leadership for sustainability

This article explores the gendering of leadership for sustainability. It first reviews the world of corporate social responsibility, illustrating how men’s voices predominate in shaping discourses and practices. It is appropriate that men with access to power speak out advocating change for sustainability and yet, if this is all that happens, we risk replicating business as usual. To extend the analysis and seek more women’s voices and more images associating gender, leadership and sustainability, the article reviews five novels by women authors addressing environmental issues. This exploration changes the landscape of sense-making, directing attention first to broader society rather than to organizations as the base for constructing notions of sustainability. Taking this approach, themes of social justice, equality, everyday practice, ways of knowing, embodiment and the crafts of fitting in (to nature and society) move to the foreground. These provide cues for an alternatively gendered view of leadership for sustainability