The Wounded Healer: Feminist Leadership Nurtured by American Zen Buddhism

Abstract

Within the field of gender and leadership studies there is a call for alternative theoretical and methodological innovations that would “enter uncharted territory” (Martin and Collinson, 2002: 255) and “navigate roads not yet taken” (Kark, 2004: 173). This study takes up the call by exploring gender and leadership in American Zen communities with a researcher-centered approach. I developed a Zen-informed feminist research methodology in the process of doing a field study at four major American Zen centers, three of which had been directly impacted by sex scandals of founding abbots. Based on research findings I propose a Zen-informed feminist leadership model in relation to my own emotional and spiritual transformation as a result of the research. The paper illustrates how a Zen-informed feminist research as well as Zen-informed feminist leadership can be healing, empowering and transformational.