New Anthology Rethinks How to Address Global Inequities

Despite the passage of time and dire results of male-dominated leadership throughout history, gender stereotypes and the glass ceiling still play an outsized role in the world today. That’s true in the cultures of both the West and the East.

A groundbreaking new book published by the State University of New York Press, among the most respected scholarly presses in the U.S., offers a powerful selection of works that challenge the outdated belief in gender dualism and offer ideas of new paths of leadership – paths taken by servant-leaders who cross gender boundaries and integrate both feminine and masculine attributes and perspectives.

The ideas in the SUNYPress anthology “Servant-Leadership, Feminism, and Gender Well-Being: How Leaders Transcend Global Inequities through Hope, Unity, and Love,” utilize the scholarly work of many members of Gonzaga University’s School of Leadership Studies faculty, alumni, and students, and point toward ways organizations can generate new, more equitable sources of health and wholeness.

“As a whole, the book is comprised of an international community of writers hailing from Asia, Europe, and the Americas,” said Shann Ray Ferch, professor of Leadership Studies.

“In the School of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University a commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion across systems of inequality based on gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, class and other forms of discrimination is given direct expression in this stunning new anthology. The chapters comprise an integration of servant-leadership, feminism and gender well-being attuned to the nuances of intersectionality, signaling how a paradigm-shift in leadership theory and practice through avenues inherent to servant-leadership can move organizations from hierarchy-driven, rules-based, and authoritative models to those oriented toward justice, love, transparency, and the kind of authentic power that is value-driven, follower-oriented, and participative.”

All chapters in this anthology first appeared in the “International Journal of Servant-Leadership,” published by Gonzaga University’s School of Leadership Studies in collaboration with the Spears Center for Servant-Leadership.

The book was edited by several faculty, alumni, and current students of Gonzaga’s Ph.D. program in Leadership Studies: Jiying Song, Ph.D., (assistant professor of Business and Economics at Northwestern College), Joe Walsh, (PhD candidate at Gonzaga University) Kae Reynolds, Ph.D., (lecturer in Strategy and Leadership at the University of the West of Scotland), Jennifer Tilghman-Havens (PhD candidate at Gonzaga University and executive director of the Center for Jesuit Education at Seattle University), Shann Ray Ferch, Ph.D., (professor of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University), and Larry C. Spears (Servant-Leadership Scholar at Gonzaga University and president of the Spears Center for Servant-Leadership).

In addition to Song, Walsh, Reynolds, Tilghman-Havens, Ferch, and Spears, other faculty, alumni, and current students represented in the anthology include Patricia Valdez (Ph.D.), Nadine Chapman (Ph.D.), Jose Hernandez (Ph.D.), Lyna Matesi (Ph.D.), Carla Penha-Vasconcelos (Ph.D.), Faith Renae Regh Gilbert (Ph.D.), Erin Davis, Carmen dela Cruz, and Matthew Williams.