Women deans: Leadership becoming

The term 'leadership' metaphorically embodies a gendered hierarchy of labour. In this study women deans' values were found to be incongruent with the masculine discourse creating inner conflicts and alternative discourses. Data collected from 10 women deans from both male-dominated and female-dominated colleges were used to deconstruct leadership using a feminist poststructuralist perspective. Unlike a critical perspective, poststructuralism questions hierarchical relationships between knowledge and power, thus enabling us to understand leadership in differently shaded terms. The data portrays the multidimensional qualities of power and how women use power consciously and unconsciously to move within academic discourses.