On being disruptive: Disruption as feminist leadership praxis

Feminist leadership in higher education (HE) will take different forms for different people. In this chapter, I conceptualise feminist leadership praxis as disruptive. In this context, disruption is not to be taken as an issue–the notion of disruption conjures ideas of change and challenge. The feminist educational leadership framework is unpacked in the context of Sara Ahmed’s notion of ‘leaky pipes’, to demonstrate how feminist leadership looks in practice. Ahmed’s research and practice breaks down issues within our institutions and provides a toolkit for transforming our own feminism and practice. I weave in my own experiences of leadership in HE, contextualised through my own feminist identity journey. The conclusions to be drawn from this chapter bring personal ethics into professional spaces and highlight how formative power and networks are in producing feminist leadership as disruptive.