No woman left behind: Critical feminist leadership development to build gender consciousness and transform organizations

This chapter explores how women get left behind in their quest to become leaders and how leadership development may be culpable in this process. It aims to interrogate dominant perspectives and practices of leadership development from a critical feminist stance to propose a new path for developing women leaders. The chapter examines the gap and crisis in women’s leadership and introduces current feminist discourse to frame leadership development from a critical, feminist perspective. Facilitating critical feminist leadership development (CFLD) is proposed by integrating critical feminist theory, thinking, and action. The chapter concludes with a call for leadership development educators to question prevailing power relations, challenge the status quo, and help learners understand, act on, and transform their systems.