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Transformative Leadership in Action: Allyship, Advocacy & Activism

Editors: Jackie Bruce and Katherine McKee (Emerald Publishing, 2020)

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Video About the Book

In this ILA Book Buzz, author Jacklyn Bruce asks, “Leadership for what?” In today’s society the call for leadership that advances justice and equity outcomes, creating more liberated communities and promoting common good has never been more urgent. Engaging in this work can feel overwhelming and daunting.  Transformative Leadership in Action provides a roadmap, inviting educators and practitioners to join in the journey of creating more purposeful leadership for a 21st century. 

Description: In a time when the world is facing significant challenges, leaders who work for justice and equity for all people are necessary. Transformative Leadership in Action: Allyship, Advocacy, and Activism challenges the reader to do the essential self-work required of a 21st century leader, and provides the road map to developing the skills necessary to take on increasing public leadership roles to support causes related to justice and equity.

Shining a light on unexplored, yet crucial, components of the discussion around the apex of leadership and social justice, Bruce and McKee first investigate the tie between social justice work and leadership competencies grounded in theory. Second, they put forward a pedagogical guide in teaching at this apex—engaging both the instructor and student(s) in unique learning journeys.

Offering insight for educators, current leaders, and future leaders, this book is a crucial resource – providing go-to support for engaging in allyship, advocacy, and activism for justice and equity. If you want your learners to be leaders and not just think about leadership, this is the book you need.

Praise for Transformative Leadership in Action: Allyship, Advocacy & Activism

In this time of dramatic calls for social and structural change, Transformative Leadership in Action: Allyship, Advocacy & Activism provides both students and activists practical guidelines for how our understanding of leadership is changing as well. For those from privileged background who want to be authentic allies to liberation movements, the authors provide practical guidelines and examples of authentic allyship. This book adds to our understanding of social change leadership in both the university and the wider community
Drick BoydProfessor Emeritus, Urban Studies, Eastern University
As the result of cutting-edge scholarly thinking and empirical research, Bruce and McKee’s Transformative Leadership in Action profoundly articulates the theories, pedagogies, and practices essential for impactful allyship. They, alongside their esteemed colleagues, offer a deeply reflective and reflexive account of the bravery and vulnerability necessary for substantive social change, meaningful personal transition, and groundbreaking policy initiatives in an increasingly uncertain world. Through brief research accounts, personal stories, and professional cases, the contributing scholars deftly capture the compassion and determination needed to continually refine one’s allyship prowess. The ideas, tactics, and strategies collected here should be considered required reading for all aspiring allies, accomplices, change agents, advocates, and activists.
Vivechkanand S. ChunooAssistant Professor of Agricultural Leadership, Education & Communications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Transformative Leadership in Action is a book of uncommon courage, depth, and gravity. In the wake of the unfulfilled promises of democratic nations, organizations, and groups of all forms, here we find an antidote, a curative effect helping us become more whole and more capable of answering the most difficult responsibilities of the present day. The leadership and practice involved in liberatory and transformative life comes to the fore, reshaping that which has failed to enliven the best in the human community, Transformative Leadership in Action reaches into the heart of humanity not only to strengthen our collective heart, but to lead us forward and upward into a new dawn in which we more closely embody the prophetic essence Martin Luther King Jr. spoke so deeply of: that the content of our character would make us capable of transcending the chaos of the times.
Shann Ray FerchProfessor of Leadership Studies, Gonzaga University; Author of Atomic Theory 7, Forgiveness and Power in the Age of Atrocity, and American Masculine
This book serves as both an inspiration and a guide for teaching transformative leadership. Now, more than ever, we need to explore what it means to be a transformative leader and enact positive, innovative, and sustainable change. This is an incredible resource for leaders and leadership educators in all contexts looking to engaging in complex conversations about transformative change.
Kathy L. GuthrieAssociate Professor and Director of Leadership Learning Research Center, Florida State University, and co-editor of Changing the Narrative: Socially Just Leadership Education
An array of turbulence in the twenty-first century dictates that strong, confident voices rise up and address the matters of the day – dominance, privilege, social justice, activism, allyship – and without wavering, advocate for social change. Bold innovation is necessary to serve marginalized and disenfranchised populations. The editors and authors in this brilliant collection, masterfully do just that. This is a must have, must read for scholars, practitioners, students, humanitarians, and others whose goal it is to protect our collective humanity by putting transformative leadership into action.
Donnette J. NobleVoss Distinguished Professor of Leadership Studies/Director of Civic Learning and Engagement/Associate Professor of Leadership Studies – Fort Hays State University
Bruce and McKee have put together a most timely book, which goes beyond transformational leadership as a conceptual framework to transformative leadership as a call to action, that leadership involves taking steps to elevate the human condition toward greater equity and justice. Well-documented, informative, personal, inclusive, and provocative in challenging the reader's assumptions and sense of self in a broader context. All in all, the authors offer a book aimed at helping students heed a call to action to make the world a better place.
Barry Z PosnerMichael J. Accolti, S.J. Chair, Professor of Leadership, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University; Co-Author, The Leadership Challenge

About the Co-Editors

Jackie Bruce is an Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Programs, and Co-Director of The Oaks Scholarship Program at North Carolina State University. When asked who she is, however, Jackie will tell you she is an educator. It may only be one word, but there is a lot packed into that word. To her educator = leadership scholar, teacher of organizational behavior, fighter for justice and equity, believer in the power of policy, nurturer of educative environments, advisor of students, colleague of leadership practitioners, mentor of qualitative researchers, editor of a journal, relentless reader, and most importantly Mother of an awesome kid.
Katherine McKee is an Assistant Professor in Leadership at North Carolina State University where she is Co-Director of The Oaks Leadership Scholars, a transformative leadership program. Katherine’s passion for leadership education grew out of her involvement in movements for voting rights, health care access, and LGBTQ+ equality. She believes that a strong understanding of theory can support the essential work of practitioners for justice and equity. Katherine is a tireless advocate for students in and outside of the classroom and gives a mean motivational speech that includes references to dinosaurs, baseball, and believing in yourself.

Table of Contents

Preface

About the Editors

List of Contributors

Acknowledgements

  1. Leading to Transform Our World – Carolyn M. Shields
  1. Disrupting Dominance: Privilege, Positionality and Possibilities for Shared Power – Jennifer Tilghman-Havens
  1. Pedagogy: Becoming a Transformative Leader: The Student Leader Activist Identity Continuum – Katherine E. McKee and Jacklyn A. Bruce
  2. Tales from the Real World: Putting Leadership Theory into Social Justice Practice – Anna Patton
  1. Pedagogy: Developing Learner Identities Through Countering Othering – James Mohr and Kristine F. Hoover
  2. Tales from the Real World: Putting Compassion into Action: The Making of the CCC – Rebecca Schisler
  3. Case Study: Educational Equity – Lauryn Mascareñaz
  1. Pedagogy: Developing Ally Identities – Mac Benavides, Tess Hobson, Aliah Mestrovich Seay, Chance Lee, & Kerry Priest
  2. Tales from the Real World: Call to Action to Engage in Critical Indigenous Leadership Activism & Allyship – Danielle Mitchell & Kathy Bishop
  3. Case Study: Centering Queer Students – Elizabeth Indermaur & Coleman Simpson
  1. Pedagogy: Developing Advocate Identities – Jacklyn A. Bruce and Katherine E. McKee
  2. Tales from the Real World: Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) as Advocates in Corporate America – Kyle Jordan
  3. Case Study: Have Nots to Haves – Glenn W. “Max” McGee
  1. Pedagogy: Developing Activist Identities – Jacklyn A. Bruce and Katherine E. McKee
  2. Tales from the Field: Creating Pathways for Reunification for the Disregarded – William Clark
  3. Tales from the Field: Disrupting Poverty through a Whole Family Approach to Jobs Initiative in New England – Josephine Hauer
  4. Case Study: Reckoning with Slavery through Student Activism – Erika Cohen Derr, Aysha Dos, and Adanna J. Johnson
  5. Case Study: Artists as Leaders for Social Justice – Carol Burbank
  1. Pedagogy: Identifying and Leveraging Institutional Entry Points – Renee Wells
  2. Tales from the Field: Under the Influence of Masculinity – Carmelin Rivera
  3. Case Study: Women in the Movement for Black Life: Transformative Activist Leadership Reshaping Black Politics – Sharon Gramby-Sobukwe
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