Doing scholarship differently: Doing scholarship that matters An interview with Amanda Sinclair

Abstract

As a feminist and critical scholar, University of Melbourne Professor Amanda Sinclair's writings over the past two decades have informed both academic scholarship and practice. Sinclair's interest in leadership grew out of her early research in Trials at the Top, where they were looking at the reasons for the glass ceiling: why were there so few women in leadership in corporate Australia. In moving from the third person that characterizes so much of mainstream management research, to the first person, and very consciously reflecting on her own experiences, she is modeling an important dimension of feminist scholarship -- the centrality of personal experience. Given the reach of Sinclair's work into diverse communities, it is clear she is no 'lightweight'. Not only is she engaging in fine scholarship, she's taking people to the edge and challenging their traditional thinking by linking feminist theories, critical management studies and eastern philosophy in her analyses of leadership.