Awakening to a Performance of Whiteness in Leadership

• Main Author: Sarver, Rebecca S
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01.01.2017
• Subjects: Management; Organizational behavior; Social structure
• ISBN: 0355372517; 9780355372519

This project is a phenomenology that uncovered the lived experience of five participants who underwent an awakening to their performance of whiteness in their leadership in midlife. The phenomenon of an awakening can best be described as a journey of selfawareness in concert with Others who act as guides during a difficult, painful developmental experience. The Jungian journey of individuation offers an appropriate theoretical model for the lived experience of the participants’ awakening as they moved from first-half-of-life awareness and empathy for the plight of Others to second-half-oflife awakening to the gnarliness of reconciling a system of whiteness that dominates and disadvantages Others. Participants acknowledged their roles within this system through critical self-reflection in spite of their efforts to act as allies, a difficult process which manifested in embodied distress but nevertheless strengthened their conviction to continue on their journey of awakening. Their participation in leadership moved fluidly between leader and follower in everyday moments of leadership rather than in heroic occurrences, which differs from mainstream leadership models of individual leaders with heroic traits. The journey of an awakening offers a possible model for leadership development for those desiring a more socially just system beyond what whiteness allows.