Received: 26 August 2019
Revised: 28 April 2020
Accepted: 30 April 2020
DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12463
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Performative contortions: How White women and
people of colour navigate elite leadership roles
Christy Glass1
1
|
Alison Cook2
Department of Sociology, Social Work, and
Anthropology, Utah State University, USA
How do non-traditional leaders negotiate their entrance
Department of Management, Utah State
and inclusion in elite leadership roles? This study explores
University, USA
the intentional strategies used by non-traditional leaders to
Correspondence
obtain and sustain elite leadership positions. While previous
Alison Cook, Department of Management,
research has documented the barriers that limit the
2
Utah State University, 3555 Old Main Hill,
Logan, UT 84322-3555, USA.
Email: alison.cook@usu.edu
advancement of White women and people of colour, this
study extends our understanding to the deliberate, intentional strategies outsiders use to negotiate their entrance to
and inclusion in elite leadership roles. We use Bourdieu’s
concept of habitus and Puwar’s bodies out of place perspective to analyse the ‘performative contortions’ of outsiders who occupy elite roles. Our analysis relies on 32 indepth interviews with White women and men and women
of colour who occupy senior leadership positions in large
organizations. Our findings uncover a range of embodied,
cultural and interactional strategies outsiders employ to
gain entrance to top positions and thus reveal the ways
gender and race are embedded in the ‘hidden curriculum’ of
elite organizations. The ongoing labour required of organizational outsiders to negotiate their own inclusion sheds
light on the continuing failure of current efforts to achieve
equity and inclusion among elite leadership ranks.
KEYWORDS
bias, gender, leadership, race/ethnicity
1 | I N T RO D UC T I O N
Significant barriers — often referred to as the ‘glass ceiling’ — limit access to elite leadership positions for women
and minorities, resulting in the continued dominance of White men in elite roles (Cotter, Hermsen, Ovadia, &
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Gender Work Organ. 2020;27:1232–1252.
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Vanneman, 2001; Elliott & Smith, 2004; Ridgeway, 2001). The glass ceiling metaphor describes the range of invisible
barriers that prevent outsiders from gaining access to organizational power, prestige and status. The metaphor further suggests that the ascension of White women or people of colour into top leadership positions signal that,
against the odds, they have successfully overcome a range of significant barriers (Ferree & Purkayastha, 2000). Yet
relatively little is known about their continued efforts to manage the bias, heightened visibility and burdens of doubt
they may experience above the glass ceiling.
Previous research has focused on a range of organizational factors that limit the advancement of organizational
outsiders, including formal policies, informal practices and the demographic composition of jobs (Bell &
Nkomo, 2003; Cohen & Huffman, 2007; Kanter, 1977; Roth, 2004; Skaggs, Stainback, & Duncan, 2012). Other
scholars have identified the impacts of gendered and racialized workplace cultural norms, which limit the full inclusion women and minorities in organizational hierarchies (Acker, 1992, 2006; Holvino, 2010; Wingfield, 2013). Taken
together this research suggests that structural and cultural barriers limiting access to workplace authority are pervasive, patterned and resilient to change (Dobbin & Kalev, 2016; England, 2010).
While barriers to advancement into elite leadership roles are well documented, less understood are the
conditions that allow certain individuals to transcend these obstacles (Ely, 1995; Gorman, 2006; Ryan &
Haslam, 2007). A growing body of research has sought to explore the factors that promote the advancement of
women and minorities. This research has focused primarily on organizational factors, including the gender or racial
composition of jobs, organizational performance measures and/or cultural construction of particular jobs
(e.g., Cook & Glass, 2014; Ely, 1995; Gorman & Kmec, 2009; Shams & Tomaskovic-Devey, 2019; Skaggs
et al., 2012; Wingfield, 2009). Less understood, however, are the mechanisms by which individual ‘outsiders’
negotiate their entrance into White and male-dominated leadership roles. We contribute to this growing body of
research by exploring the individual-level strategies non-traditional leaders employ in order to navigate positions
above the glass ceiling. Specifically, this study asks how do non-traditional leaders negotiate their entrance and
inclusion in elite leadership roles?
We frame our study using Bourdieu’s (1984) concept of habitus and Puwar’s (2004) bodies out of place perspective. These perspectives guide our analysis of interviews with 32 White women and people of colour who occupy
senior leadership roles in large American organizations. Our analysis relies on the concept of performative contortions,
which we define as the requisite performance styles outsiders must adopt in order to achieve and sustain membership in elite leadership roles. Interviews revealed three types of contortions — embodied, cultural and interactional —
that shape their negotiation of belonging and structure their experience of leadership.
By uncovering the individual-level strategies outsiders employ to negotiate inclusion, this study reveals the
social and cultural labour required of women and people of colour to sustain credibility in leadership roles. Our study
also reveals the ways in which gender and race are embedded in the hidden rules of the game at the highest organizational ranks. The social labour required of outsiders to achieve insider status reveals the nature of power and
inequality in work organizations as well as the weight of race and gender in everyday interactions. As
Wingfield’s (2013) work shows, elite professional roles illuminate the simultaneous experience of privilege and disadvantage. By revealing the deliberate, conscious strategies outsiders deploy in order to negotiate inclusion in elite
leadership roles, this study illuminates a key contributing factor to the failure of ongoing diversity and inclusion
efforts in American companies.
2 | T H E O R Y & R E S E A RC H
2.1 | Cultural barriers to mobility
Several studies have illuminated the ways in which cultural performance shapes access to and mobility in work organizations. Williams and Connell (2010) illustrate the ways in which retail jobs place enormous weight on the
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appearance and demeanour of workers in recruitment and hiring. They identify aesthetic labour — the mannerisms,
styles and dispositions of workers — as central to employers’ perception of workers as capable and competent.
Research on elite organizations also reveals the ways in which culture and cultural performance shape inclusion and
mobility (e.g., Gill, Mills, Franzway, & Sharp, 2008; Kang, DeCelles, & Tilcsik, 2016). Rivera (2012) identifies cultural
fit or ‘matching’ as a formal evaluation criterion for elite jobs. Merit and qualifications are often synonymous with
one’s social and cultural similarity to incumbents. Similarly, Turco (2010) reveals the ways in which familiarity with
cultural resources of elite incumbents shapes the experiences of women and racial/ethnic minorities in high-status
professional jobs. Neely’s (2018) ethnographic work in the hedge fund industry reveals that many insiders refer to
their organizations or work units as fraternities or tribes, terms that imply homogeneity, trust, loyalty and social closure and which mark minorities and women as outsiders.
While this rich body of work reveals the ways in which cultural resources and performance demarcate
belonging in elite positions, less is known about the deliberate strategies leaders adopt in order to successfully
achieve and sustain mobility in elite positions. For instance, Derks, Van Laar, and Ellemers (2016) identify three
strategies that women leaders adopt in elite organizations — assimilation, distancing from other women and legitimation of the status quo. However, while these may reflect general patterns, they do not reveal the conscious,
deliberate strategies of actors themselves or the reasoning that motivates such strategies. Likewise,
Yoshino (2007) identifies covering — the act of downplaying aspects of your identity in order to achieve assimilation — as a common strategy for high-status professionals. Yet race and gender are often ‘focal points’ or status
markers for professionals (Neely, 2018), limiting the efficacy and adequacy of covering as a strategy for inclusion
for women and people of colour.
2.2 | Habitus and bodies out of place
Bourdieu’s (1984) concept of habitus refers to the shared social meanings and dispositions that reflect and are reflective of one’s social status. Habitus refers to one’s ‘feel for the game’ in terms of speech, dress and deportment that
are sustained through repetition and that make one’s membership in a social class visible, known and ‘readable’ to
others. By demarking the boundaries of status and belonging, habitus simultaneously signals one’s inclusion or exclusion from a group. Thus, habitus reproduces inequality by regulating social practice. Bourdieu’s concern is the way in
which social structure shapes individuals, resulting in embodied markers of speech, habit and gait (Wolkowitz, 2006).
Insiders are entitled to inhabit various roles while outsiders’ right to access certain positions is contested or
questioned.
The ease with which insiders navigate social environments obscures the social labour required to perform social
class. Insiders’ belonging appears natural and legitimate, a reflection of their individual competence, skill or qualification rather than the product of social labour. Thus, while members of elite groups navigate those environments with
ease, outsiders’ labour must be deliberate and intentional and thus visible.
Bourdieu’s focus was primarily on social class distinctions and the ways in which social class is reproduced
through cultural hierarchies. Thus, while the concept of habitus captures the cultural barriers confronting nonelites seeking to gain entrance to elite organizations, the theory does not engage with the ways in which
gender and race shape access and mobility in elite settings. Yet gender and race serve as critical axes of
inequality and both are embedded in logics of work organizations (Acker, 2006). Thus, while habitus focuses
our attention on the ways in which structural hierarchies shape recognition and access within elite settings,
Bourdieu’s perspective is limited in its ability to illuminate the gendered and racialized barriers to accessing
privileged positions.
Puwar’s (2004) bodies out of place perspective builds upon Bourdieu’s class-centred theoretical frame but grounds questions of elite inclusion in understandings of race and gender within the context of organizations. Race and
gender refer to the processes that classify and construct bodies based on social categories of difference (Hill
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Collins, 1990). Racialized and gendered classifications reinforce and justify social hierarchies, resulting in the reproduction of inequalities within organizations (Acker, 2006). Critical feminist and race scholars promote scholarly
approaches that place the lived experience of gendered and racial classification and identity at the centre of analyses
of inequality (Hill Collins, 2000). Puwar’s perspective is primarily concerned with the consequences of the entrance
of differently gendered and racialized bodies into elite organizational roles previously reserved for White men. The
entrance of White women and racial/ethnic minorities into elite roles ignites a process of classification and exclusion
that both disrupts existing performative norms and reinforces status differences and hierarchies. As a result, outsiders face conflicting scripts that make the performative enactment of such positions highly fraught and problematic
(Puwar, 2004, p. 11).
The very presence of gendered or racialized outsiders threatens that status quo by making existing hierarchies of
inclusion and exclusion visible. As Wolkowitz (2006) notes, the workplace is the ‘crucial domain’ for understanding
the ways in which social structure and structural hierarchies impact cultural and embodied norms (p. 20). Outsiders’
presence is experienced as a disruption, even a threat, and they are often confronted with a burden of doubt regarding their competence, suspicion regarding their trustworthiness, infantilization of their roles, hyper-surveillance of
their work performance and an amplification of their numbers and influence (Kanter, 1977; Puwar, 2004).
Hyper-surveillance includes scrutiny of the movements, gestures, speech and deportment — the habitus — of
outsiders (Puwar, 2004, p. 51). Such scrutiny places limits on the agency of outsiders, and creates significant pressures on outsiders to engage in the social labour of learning the rules of the game. Importantly, mimicking the performance of insiders is necessary yet insufficient. Outsiders must consciously and deliberately enact social
performances that simultaneously increase their visibility and legitimacy as insiders while also decreasing their visibility and illegitimacy as outsiders. Thus, they must engage in a complex performance of mutually exclusive scripts — to
perform race and gender in non-threatening ways while also enacting their elite roles.
According to Puwar (2004), these pressures require outsiders to pay deliberate and methodical attention to
every aspect of self-presentation, including comportment, dress, etiquette and speech (p. 78). This performative
enactment includes ‘managing one’s Blackness and femininity’ (p. 147). In this way, mobility in elite organizations
becomes dependent on one’s performative accomplishment that requires constant attention and repetition. Failure
to effectively manage one’s body, emotional display and interactional style can and does often result in bias, hostility
and exclusion (Meriläinen, Tienari, & Valtonen, 2015).
Combined, these perspectives suggest that while habitus is central to achieving access and mobility in work
organizations, habitus is circumscribed by race and gender. Understanding mobility for outsiders as a performative
accomplishment leads to a deep engagement with the conscious strategies of ‘outsiders within’ elite leadership roles
(Hill Collins, 2002). While Puwar’s theory provides a deep analysis of the barriers outsiders face when entering elite
organizational roles, she focuses less on how outsiders experience these barriers and how they adapt to and navigate
them in their daily work lives. The current study extends this perspective, therefore, by providing an empirically
grounded analysis of the range of strategies outsiders employ to navigate and negotiate their entrance into elite
roles. Our focus is on the agency of outsiders, specifically their ability to identify the requisite rules of behaviour —
the ‘feel for the game’ — and to perform them in a way that enables them to overcome the burden of doubt in order
to be seen by insiders as trusted and respected (Puwar, 2004, p. 110). This approach builds on previous research
(e.g., Atewologun & Sealy, 2014) that foregrounds the agency of individuals to manage, navigate and negotiate marginalized identities in elite corporate settings. This focus highlights the practical knowledge and ability of outsiders to
achieve the requisite performance as a necessary condition of sustaining leadership roles and reveals the ways in
which power and inequality are inscribed into the everyday rules of interaction in elite organizations — including at
the highest levels.
Outsiders seeking to scale the boundaries of belonging in elite organizations must learn the rules of the game,
which are often subtle, unspoken, hidden and informal. Gaining mastery of these rules requires embodied, cultural
and interactional labour (Brunner & Dever, 2014; Gimlin, 2007; Haynes, 2012). Accent and grammar, style and gait,
leisure activities and cultural knowledge all affect one’s potential for mobility and must be mastered deliberately and
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consciously. Outsiders must mobilize techniques of the body and adapt to rules of sociability that conform to the
requisites of elite organizations. We term these techniques performative contortions because they require outsiders
to consciously enact styles, dispositions and practices — i.e., performances — that are complex and strange or that
deviate from their own habits and styles. Our analysis of interviews focuses on the range of performative contortions
undertaken by outsiders in elite organizations that sustain their membership, albeit in a tenuous and impermanent
way. Our analysis elaborates on three types of contortions — embodied, cultural and interactional — and to show the
ways in which racial and gendered boundaries shape the experience of leadership. By requiring such contortions of
outsiders, elite organizations place the burden and the costs of inclusion on marginalized individuals rather than on
systematic rules and practices that shape access and mobility.
3 | METHODS
To examine our research propositions, we conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with 32 White women
and people of colour who served in senior leadership ranks between 2016 and 2018. We used purposive and snowball sampling to identify respondents. Respondents include leaders from a wide range of industries including transportation, financial, information technology, manufacturing, media and entertainment, education, and service and
hospitality. The average size for our sample is just under 100,000 employees in the firm. All organizations were
headquartered in the United States, though some of the respondents were located overseas. Within the United
States, the headquarter locations comprise all geographic regions. All respondents held senior leadership positions
within their organizations, specifically seven were either President or CEO of their organization, seven held C-level
positions, two served as Executive Directors and ten held Senior or Executive Vice President roles. The remaining
interviewees were other high-level positions such as General Counsel. Ages of the interviewees ranged from 45 to
70. Twenty-six of the respondents were women and six were men of colour. Fifteen were White, ten were Black, six
were Latinx and one was Asian. Our interviewees include prominent and recognizable leaders. To provide a confidential analysis, only generalized information is shared about individual respondents’ positions, industries in which
they work and their career histories. Providing too specific information for each participant could make our interviewees identifiable given the small population of women and men of colour to hold these top leadership positions.
A generalized participant list with pseudonyms is included in the Appendix in order to provide greater context, but
still offer protections of anonymity.
Semi-structured interviews lasted 60–90 minutes. Using a semi-structured model allowed us to be flexible in our
interviews, which allowed the respondents to lead the research (Lee, 1999). For example, none of our set questions
specifically asked about dress, language or cultural awareness. One question did ask about the advantages and disadvantages of visibility. The interpretation and the corresponding answer, though, were completely driven by the interviewee. The respondents, through our discussion of numerous topics, freely volunteered these crucial aspects of
their everyday work life. The topics illustrated in this article organically emerged within our interviews, thus, affirming the objectivity of the interview process (Gibbert & Ruigrok, 2010; Lee, 1999).
Each interview began with a detailed discussion regarding the IRB (Institutional Review Board) process and the
importance of anonymity and confidentiality. We also offered the respondent time to ask any questions before we
began. This introductory segment was effective in putting the respondents at ease given the sensitive nature of our
discussion (Gibbert & Ruigrok, 2010). We conducted the interviews both face to face and over the phone. Phone
interviews, though, were the primary method given the geographical dispersion of the high-level executives we were
interviewing (Sturges & Hanrahan, 2004). Both techniques have been shown to be reliable interview methods
(Cachia & Millward, 2011), and within our sample, there was not a noticeable difference with regard to the respondents’ willingness to share their experiences.
Interview questions focused on the key themes of career trajectory and promotion history, factors that shaped
mobility over time, challenges faced (if any) throughout their career, and other factors that either facilitated or
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hindered their career success. General themes were emailed to the interviewees prior to our discussion to allow
them time to reflect on their experiences. Specific questions, though, were not given to the respondents. Coding of
the emergent themes from the interviews was done independently by each author. Software was not used for this
analysis. It was an iterative process where we each identified a theme and topic that emerged across respondents,
and then through back-and-forth discussion, we were able to refine our understanding and ascertain the commonalities across our interviewees. A third party was not involved in the coding given our assurances of confidentiality.
Names mentioned below are pseudonyms for our participants.
4 | FINDINGS
4.1 | Embodied contortions: Presentation of self
While previous scholars have analysed the ways outsiders must adapt to gendered and racialized cultural scripts
within work organizations (e.g., Dellinger & Williams, 2002; Wingfield, 2010, 2012), Puwar (2004) notes that
the scrutiny of outsiders increases significantly with upward mobility. Thus, for those in elite leadership roles,
the stakes for impression management are high and many respondents noted that even minor missteps could
reinforce their outsider status and undermine their authority. As one of our Latina respondents (Cristina) noted,
there are a lot of constituencies that I have to make sure I make a good impression … You will have more
doubters if you are a woman or a woman of color. I don’t think it ever changes because mediocrity is never
an option for women or people of color.
Work organizations enforce unofficial dress and appearance norms that regulate the degree to which outsiders can express gender or race at work (Dellinger, 2002). In this way, dress norms represent a process of navigation and ‘appearance management’ for outsiders (Kaiser, 1997); violation of such unspoken rules can reinforce
one’s outsider status (Reddy-Best, 2018). While all respondents spoke about impression management generally,
the significance placed on dress was more salient — and more fraught — for women leaders (Haynes, 2012;
Meriläinen et al., 2015). Previous research has found that while men’s professional dress is highly standardized,
the standards of professional dress for women are contradictory and complex (Tannen, 1993), resulting in significant tensions for women particularly in elite roles (Mavin & Grandy, 2016). While women professionals are penalized for overly feminine dress they are simultaneously sanctioned for the absence of femininity in their
appearance (Gutek, 1989).
Several women respondents equated immaculate dress with perceptions of them as legitimate and competent
leaders. These respondents also viewed the standards of scrutiny of their dress as unequal to that of their male
peers, requiring hyper-attention and perfection. A White woman respondent (Donna) emphasized this perfection
standard in her job performance as well as in her appearance:
I do feel like I have to better than everybody else. I have to look great, dress great. Some of these guys, my
god. I have to look fabulous. That’s part of looking a certain way, that’s a pressure on women, not on men.
Other women emphasized the importance of dress in establishing distinctions between them and women in
lower status positions — a necessary distinction for women who are tokens or solos in top leadership roles. A Black
senior executive (Alexandra) noted that her professional dress prevents her from looking ‘like a secretary’ to her
colleagues. An Asian woman respondent (Lila) described sustained efforts early in her career to deploy dress as an
attempt to appear older so as to garner more respect and status:
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I tried to dress older and more stodgier so I might be taken more seriously. I was cute when I was younger.
That isn’t good in an environment where you are trying to be taken seriously.
One Latina executive (Cristina) described her navigation of the contradictory expectations for women leaders,
trying to be feminine but not too feminine:
I always think about how I dress. If it is a dress or a suit, what color my nails are, how am I doing my hair?
You want to be put together but not too much — then it seems like you care too much.
Others reflected on the potential career harm for women who do not attain the ideal standard. For
instance, a Black woman respondent (Serena) reflected on a colleague whose career mobility has been limited by
her status as overweight, which was judged by her peers as unprofessional (Mason, 2012). Describing her
overweight colleague as ‘very bright’, this respondent (Serena) noted that ‘we have many heavy men around here
and no one says anything … [yet] I am not sure she has been as successful because she doesn’t care [how she
looks]’.
Some respondents viewed this scrutiny as pressure not just to establish their own credibility but also to establish
belonging for women leaders generally. A White woman executive (Hannah) noted,
I have always felt that how I behaved, how I led, how I looked, how I treated others reflected on
women generally … Those in dominant positions blaze the trail for everyone else. Let me say that I am
very aware that there is a much more narrow band of appropriateness for a woman than a man. You
can walk into any offices — you will notice a woman inappropriately dressed or speaking too aggressively — you have to be careful to act professionally, dress professionally. The scrutiny comes from both
men and women.
Respondents were also concerned with managing their language, both written and verbal, in ways that reduced
the salience of their outsider status. Bourdieu (1977) elaborated the notion of symbolic capital with respect to language, referring to ‘legitimate language’ as that which is formulated according to established conventions or forms.
In elite professional settings, such forms are produced and reproduced according to tacit expectations and requirements of insiders. Thus, the deployment of language in elite professional settings places outsiders at risk for ‘linguistic penalties’ for failing to meet the informal linguistic norms (Roberts, 2010).
Respondents identified language as a significant source of scrutiny and contortion. For outsiders in particular,
linguistic errors risked highlighting their outsider status and harming perceptions of their competence and capability
as leaders. For instance, a Black woman executive (Alexandra) noted the degree of labour required in order to protect
her status as competent. She said,
I am like a fanatic about typos. I work really hard that what goes out over my signature is perfect. If it is a
White guy, people think he doesn’t have good help. But with me, I think people think she isn’t smart … I
want my work product to be impeccable. Other guys just shoot some things out … [but] I cannot afford to
open a cut where criticism comes though.
As with dress, respondents perceived that flawless adherence to unstated norms and rules was required in order
to sustain a reputation as capable.
Several respondents noted that while they face penalties for failure to adopt the legitimate linguistic norms of
their status, their insider peers also remarked upon or exaggerated their successes. According to a Black woman
executive (Naomi),
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I have spoken [publicly] at different things. It always seemed like a surprise [to my peers]. People try to put
things in a nice way … [They don’t] say I could speak well, but that is what [they mean]. People still are surprised when I can string three words together.
In elite professional contexts, social class and nativity may intersect with gender and race/ethnicity to reveal
challenges meeting linguistic norms. For instance, a first-generation Latina (Camila), who was among the highest
ranking leaders in her organization, proofed every speech for particular words that emphasized her accent. Aware of
the ways in which her accent might trigger questions regarding her competence, she said,
Some of us still do have stronger accents and that doesn’t mean that we’re less educated or less able to
communicate but there is sometimes in certain circles, certain words I won’t use because that’s gonna
come out really Spanish. I have to think about [that] when I’m writing a speech, what words to utilize
because certain words will sound a stronger accent than others … It’s always at the top of my head with
regard to public speaking, corresponding in writing, something I need to pay close attention to. If you sound
different, you’re less intelligent, educated.
Finally, in addition to dress and language, respondents were careful to manage their emotional displays in the
workplace, particularly in interactions with organizational insiders. Wingfield’s (2010) important work on emotions at
work reveals that work organizations reproduce ‘feeling rules’ that limit the ability of Black professionals’ emotional
performances and thereby reinforce the salience of racial differences. Extending feminist scholarship on emotional
labour (e.g., Hochschild, 1983; Pierce, 1995), Wingfield’s work shows that emotional permissibility in professional
workplaces is deeply racialized as well as gendered. Specifically, Black professionals are denied the expression of
anger and frustration and instead expected to adhere to displays of pleasantness.
For respondents, these emotion rules are amplified by the heightened visibility resulting from their leadership
status. To achieve credibility as leaders and to overcome burden of doubt with regard to their competence, respondents had to engage in significant emotional masking as well as meticulous emotional performances that emphasized
their level-headedness. Their goal was the attainment of a ‘presence’ consistent with that of a legitimate leader.
According to an Asian woman executive (Lila), certain types of emotional displays disqualified outsiders for leadership roles:
I realized that [my passion] was not, it made people not take you seriously because they felt there were
too many highs, too many lows, not a good leader … [I learned] one, understanding the audience and two,
tempering your presentation not only words but body language to make sure you come across more
smooth and more even-keeled. Not reacting right away to criticism or provoking questions in board meetings so you are not being perceived in a negative way.
Significant emotional masking was also required of women in order to overcome stereotypes that they are too
sensitive to effectively lead. One woman executive (Donna) described an experience of intense criticism during a
meeting of top executives:
What made senior folks see me was being calm, cool and collected. The [national newspaper] was
writing an article about this project I was working on. People were being terrible to me. None of the
senior executives were supportive of me. I went into the bathroom and cried a few minutes [then]
came out and appeared calm. People commented to me about how calm and collected I was during
that situation. As a woman, you don’t want to be emotionless but you have to remain calm and cool
under pressure. What do people think of you? Your technical skills of course but also your presence.
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For Black respondents, emotional management extended to physical management aimed at minimizing the visibility of their embodied difference. For example, one Black man executive (Carl) engaged in emotional as well as
physical management when interacting with White colleagues. A former professional athlete, he recognized that his
physical size risked increasing the salience of racial stereotypes of Black male aggression. In response, he made it a
practice to arrive for meetings early so that his interactions took place with him sitting down. He said,
Of course, you still needed to know your job, but people need to be comfortable with you. When you are
60 800 living in a 50 900 world, it was important that I knew how to speak to people. It was important to make
sure my tone was a certain way. I would make sure I sat down or be at their level. Little things that I
adjusted to, because I’m no longer the average height as in [my sport], you don’t want to intimidate these
guys.
While physical size may be salient for tall White men as well, Carl understood that his visibility as a Black
man in an overwhelmingly White executive suite made him particularly vulnerable to scrutiny and negative
stereotypes. Note that he viewed making his White colleagues comfortable as part of the labour required of him
for a successful career. He went on to say that part of his navigation of his executive role was developing an
intimate understanding of how his White colleagues viewed him and adapting to that understanding: ‘White folks
don’t need to know anything about Blacks to be successful [but] Black folks need to know about White culture
to be successful.’
4.2 | Cultural contortions: Tenuous assimilation
Previous scholars have identified pressures on outsiders to assimilate to the dominant culture. For instance,
Kanter (1977) writes that token members of work organizations face pressures to demonstrate cultural affinity with
members of the dominant group through assimilation to dominant norms. In addition, outsiders are expected to pass
loyalty tests that demonstrate allegiance to the dominant group, thereby demonstrating to members of the dominant
group that they do not pose a threat to the status quo (Wingfield, 2013). Yoshino’s (2007) concept of covering relates
to assimilation pressures in that outsiders are expected to downplay cultural differences in order to conform to the
expectations of insiders.
Our findings reveal important nuances of these patterns with regard to the cultural performance of outsiders in
elite leadership roles. While respondents did indeed engage in masking of cultural differences, their experiences also
reveal hyper-attention to cultural learning and adaptation. Respondents understood that their assimilation with
insiders — achieved through meticulous attention to cultural performance — was both necessary and tenuous. As a
result, adaptation and learning were part of a continuous process for outsiders.
Our respondents described ongoing efforts to minimize and mask cultural differences in order to overcome bias
and achieve mobility. Significantly, our respondents felt that pressures to mask differences increased rather than
decreased with career success and mobility.
Respondents described a number of ways in which they sought to downplay or minimize the visibility of their
differences, from cultural consumption practices to leisure activities. One Black man executive (Carl) was careful to
highlight his cultural affinity for mainstream or elite musical forms, believing that this was an important tool for overcoming preconceived stereotypes. He said,
I couldn’t control how you would perceive someone like me, but I could try to affect that perception. You
come in with preconceived notions about me but then I start speaking about the Beach Boys or classical
music … I throw them off. The bar, in their minds, the expectation is low. That is insulting to me. If I know
that right away, I can use that to my advantage.
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One Latino executive (Leo) noted his attempts to establish credibility as a leader was ongoing, and required
extensive cultural work on his behalf. He said,
You take great pains to establish your credentials, a traditional person doesn’t feel the pressure to do
that … trying to guess how the ‘ruling class’ will determine if I belong or not. Most people on a gut level
know there is a bias, a tendency for leaders to feel comfortable with those who surround them. It is
about how you present yourself. You need to appear as someone who belongs and can fit in that inner
circle.
A Black woman executive (Cassandra) also described her ongoing efforts at minimizing cultural differences
by engaging in social labour to put members of the dominant group at ease: ‘You have to align yourself [with
members of the dominant group]. You have to reach out and reach out, disarm them. Make them feel
comfortable.’
While Wingfield (2013) finds that men of colour are better able to assimilate to masculine workplace norms that
dominate many professional workplaces, women find doing so more difficult. This was echoed among our respondents; few men described golf, sports or drinking as an obstacle to their cultural assimilation, women faced greater
challenges acclimating to masculine professional norms. One White woman (Gabby) described her successful
attempts to be viewed by her male peers and superiors as ‘cool’ and ‘likeable’:
Softer skills are critical, you have to be a guy’s girl … [Women] don’t want to show weakness or vulnerability. You need to laugh things off … you are not making yourself look stupid, you are making yourself likeable … Women who have had brothers are better at this … It’s just important to be likeable. In fact, [this
counts more] than competence in some companies.
Another White woman executive (Olivia) also described her attempts to assimilate with masculine work cultures:
[Over time] my style has become more masculine, the older I’ve gotten … I hear women talking sometimes
and they sounds so girlish. There’s a communication style that is a good thing but in a business environment, especially a male oriented one, you almost lose them at hello … It’s a reason that women don’t succeed. They don’t read the environment. I’ve been in this role ten years, today they don’t see me as a
woman.
A woman executive with a military background1 noted how the military facilitated her assimilation into her current work environment,
You are working with all men and have to rise to the occasion. You are learning their styles as well. There
are very few women [at the top], you have to get on board if you want to have what [the men] have.
Another Black woman executive (Alexandra) chose silence as a form of cultural assimilation, particularly
when it came to discussions about leisure time. Recognizing the devaluation of the cultural capital of
marginalized groups in elite settings (Yosso, 2005), she chose to avoid mutual sharing about her own cultural
practices.
Everyone was talking about [a symphony performance] on public television last night. I was watching basketball. I felt the race issue right then. I was doing what Black people do, watching sports … I don’t know
any Black people that go to the orchestra. These people were talking about the orchestra. These cultural
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issues continue to be challenges … Workplace discrimination is simple. Figuring out the cultural differences
and being a leader are far harder to remedy.
For a Latino executive (Leo), silence as assimilation extended to experiences of racism. Though his surname is
Spanish, he noted that he often passed as White:
I don’t look like a minority. There are taboos about what you cannot say [about race]. In settings where
people thought I was part of the majority, I would hear things people wouldn’t say otherwise.
A White woman (Annie) respondent who identified as gay reflected on the importance of assimilation through
silence as well. Though she worked for a large sporting goods corporation, she was not out at work and, as a result,
endured years of homophobic slurs in silence. She said,
I didn’t come out because I didn’t think it was anybody’s business. I just didn’t want to have that be a discussion at work. I knew there were managers who had a low opinion [of members of the LGBTQ community] — I would hear jokes about dykes … I didn’t think it was relevant.
As noted above, these efforts were ongoing and did not lessen — but were in many ways exacerbated — as
respondents reached highly visible leadership roles. One Black woman executive (Naomi), who held one of the
highest positions in her organization, noted that her mastery of the ‘hidden curriculum’ of elite professional roles was
ongoing: ‘I need a road map. I am still learning how to navigate things.’ Another Black woman senior executive
(Alexandra) speculated, ‘there are probably doors we don’t even know exist’.
As these challenges were exacerbated over time as respondents achieved career mobility, respondents saw their
adaptations as tenuous and ongoing. One Black man executive (Cole) noted that:
There’s much more social and subjective dimensions that come into play as you move higher in organizations other than performance. Your ability to play golf, go socialize, interact on a non-work basis and be
comfortable in those environments and not like or dislike them but perform well in those in addition to onthe-job things … [These become] more influential in selection, perception of success, performance evaluations, at the higher levels.
Respondents understood that their legitimacy as leaders was tenuous and required constant attention to cultural
assimilation and adaption. A Latina (Cristina) noted the subtleties of these efforts:
The exclusion is not expressed in a blatant kind of way. It is a feeling of not belonging and not knowing
what is going on. To me, it is studying the culture and getting experience and gaining credibility.
4.3 | Interactional contortions: Proximity and avoidance
In addition to embodied and cultural contortion, respondents described meticulous attention to their interactional
strategies and styles. Their goal, as with the efforts described above, was to gain legitimacy as an outsider within.
According to Puwar (2004), the presence of highly visible outsiders risks amplifying outsider status and threatening
the identity of insiders. This creates risk to outsiders of interacting with ingroup members or of engaging in activities
— such as diversity-oriented initiatives — that amplify their differences. Vallas (2003) notes that staking out spaces
with members of the ingroup group can provide shelter from bias and hostility as well as solidarity and belonging.
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These benefits, though, are often denied to those seeking to achieve mobility in elite professional roles because they
risk amplification, isolation and stereotype threat.
Our respondents described parallel efforts of proximity and avoidance. First, respondents sought to gain
proximity to high-status insiders so as to facilitate their own boundary crossing from outsiders to insiders. Second, respondents engaged in avoidance of groups, individuals or initiatives that risked reinforcing their outsider
status.
In terms of avoidance, very few of our respondents were actively engaged in racial/ethnic or gender-based affinity groups or programmes, and few pointed to such groups as important to their mobility. One Black man executive
(Cole) who did engage in affinity group networks did so behind the scenes:
You [network] anyway but you do it a little more behind the scenes than out in front of everybody because
you don’t want to have the baggage of the assumptions that might be placed on that relationship outside
… you don’t want others using that [against you].
A White woman executive (Hannah) suggested that engagement with such groups or programmes risks isolating
members to the detriment of their long-term career trajectory:
I don’t like those programs … When you isolate women or minorities in separate programs it immediately
stamps you that you have to be groomed … these programs isolate rather than tackle the large issue of
integration.
Many respondents also described conscious career choices that avoided leadership roles in human resources,
community relations or diversity management — positions that would have been visible but would also have
reinforced their outsider status and risked stalling their long-term career mobility (Bell & Nkomo, 2003). One Latina
executive (Elena) described her efforts in terms of positioning: ‘I want[ed] to position myself differently — not the
“softer side” areas — but [develop] broad skills to better position myself for bigger things.’ A Black woman executive
(Serena) echoed this, stating
If a group of [executives] get together and see a woman go up — not from a traditional female role, not
HR, not community relations … that is when you get taken seriously.
Other respondents talked about their ongoing reluctance to champion diversity initiatives — initiatives that
they otherwise would have strongly supported — for fear of undermining the legitimacy of such issues. One
Black woman executive (Alexandra) worried about how such efforts would be viewed by members of the
dominant group:
That worry affected what I would do, how loud I would be, how often I would talk about those issues. I
don’t want to do injury to the matter by sounding like a broken, self-interested record.
Finally, several respondents noted that, as leaders with considerable organizational power, they held a
higher bar for promoting or sponsoring members of their ingroup. Many suggested that their outsider status
made such support suspicious and unsuccessful minority candidates risk reinforcing the idea that such support
was biased, unfair or self-serving. A Black man executive (Cole) articulated his concern like this:
I’m either tougher on African American candidates or my credibility is on the line if they are not successful.
If I select an African American, did I select them because they are African American or because they are
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the best? And others are looking at me, saying he just hired that person because [of their race] … So I’m
going to be tougher.
These deliberate and conscious avoidance strategies grant nuance to previous studies that highlight the
unwillingness of senior women to support other women (e.g., Derks et al., 2016). Rather than being a sign of hostility
or even gender blindness (Britton, 2017; Demaiter & Adams, 2009), our findings suggest such avoidance is due to
ongoing efforts aimed at self-protection, inclusion and legitimacy.
While avoiding visible engagement with diversity programmes or practices, respondents actively sought proximity to high-status White men who could help grant them legitimacy by proxy. A Latina executive (Cristina) explained
the importance of insider proximity like this: ‘White males show you the way, show you how to be an insider to a culture that is not very transparent.’ Often gaining access to White males required significant labour on the part of outsiders. Describing experiences of overt exclusion, one Black woman executive (Cassandra) noted her efforts to gain
entry into the informal networks in her organization:
You find those cliques all too frequently in organizations, the more different you appear, the harder it is to
be part of one of them. It is there, it exists. To overcome that, I will go up to them and start talking. Try to
establish a relationship or rapport.
Several women pointed to this proximity to powerful White men as central to their career mobility. One Black
woman executive (Serena) developed a close relationship to a senior vice president that opened doors for her career:
[He] took me under his wing and gave me a lot of advice. With him and [another White male leader], I
would not be successful without them. I would like to look back and say it was a woman leader who helped
me, but I can’t say that.
A White woman executive (Gabby) described the necessity of allowing her White male boss to take credit for
her work in order to receive career payoffs down the road:
I was fine with him being the front person. It became clear [over time] that I was whispering in his ear. And
it became clear I was doing a lot of what saved the project.
Proximity to White male sponsors was important for respondents to overcome the burden of doubt with regard
to their competence and capability. Insiders could provide the ‘stamp of approval’ that was recognized by other
insiders. A Black man executive (Marcus) said that the biggest hurdle for minorities in terms of achieving career
mobility was not just having a sponsor but the ‘right kind’ of sponsorship:
I’ve been promoted because someone said, I’ve seen what [he] can do and I think he can do it at an officer
level. Someone has to say that out loud to someone to get them onboard. There aren’t enough people saying that out loud to make them want to take that change and risk. You need a maverick leader with great
business acumen, insight into human nature, psychology of people, to be able to know how to motivate an
organization to make that kind of change.
In addition to supporting their careers in tangible ways, respondents also noted that proximity to powerful
White men was important for learning the informal rules of the game. One Black man executive (Carl) described his
mentor as someone who taught him the invisible rules of the organization: ‘He taught me perceptions of Black males
from White males. If I take an assistant to lunch, make sure I take another person. He taught me to be aware.’
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5 | D I S C U S S I O N A N D C O N C L U S I ON
This study asked: how do non-traditional leaders negotiate their entrance and inclusion in elite leadership roles? We
extend research on the barriers to advancement for women and people of colour by focusing on the individual strategies of those who successfully attained top leadership roles. We analysed the strategies White women and men
and women of colour use to negotiate their ascension and inclusion in elite leadership roles. Our study was framed
by Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and Puwar’s bodies out of place perspective. While Bourdieu’s concept of habitus
highlights the ways in which social performance reflects social class hierarchies, Puwar’s (2004) bodies out of place
perspective grounds these insights in an understanding of race and gender. Taken together these perspectives
guided our analysis of the consequences of entry into elite leadership positions by outsiders. We build upon and
extend these perspectives, however, centring our analysis on the agency of actors and the specific categories of
strategies they employ to navigate and negotiate their entrance into elite roles. We introduce the concept of performative contortions, which we define as the requisite performance styles outsiders must adopt in order to achieve and
sustain membership in elite leadership roles. Interviews with 32 White women and people of colour who hold top
leadership positions revealed three types of contortions — embodied, cultural and interactional. According to respondents, these contortions shape their experience of leadership in significant ways. Our findings have several
implications.
First, the experiences of our respondents challenge conventional assumptions regarding the glass ceiling metaphor. According to the glass ceiling, invisible barriers limit the mobility of White women and people of colour to top
leadership roles. Implicit in this metaphor is that once these barriers are scaled, barriers associated with sexism and
racism are eliminated or at least significantly reduced. The experience of our respondents belies these assumptions.
Rather than inclusion, our respondents discovered that their presence in top leadership roles exacerbated the challenges they experienced because of their gender, race and/or ethnicity. Previous research on the glass ceiling suggests women’s odds of advancement decline as they move up the organizational hierarchy (e.g., Ferree &
Purkayastha, 2000). Our findings extend this work by illuminating the ongoing performative pressures outsiders confront as they move beyond the glass ceiling. Not only do women and people of colour face cumulative disadvantages
in terms of opportunity to achieve leadership positions (Ferree & Purkayastha, 2000; Purkayastha, 2005), they also
face heightened scrutiny, resistance and bias once they obtain such roles.
Our findings suggest that these performative feats — what we term contortions — may be enhanced rather than
reduced the higher one climbs. In elite leadership roles far above the glass ceiling respondents experienced greater
visibility and scrutiny and greater pressure to ease anxiety resulting from their presence. According to our respondents — the glass ceiling was less of a barrier than the invisible resistance they experienced as leaders; getting to the
top was less challenging than staying at the top.
Respondents’ experiences further suggest that performative contortions are necessary but insufficient for
achieving inclusion at the top. None of our respondents felt that they had — or ever would — reach a position where
their presence went unquestioned and unchallenged. Instead, they viewed their performative contortions as continually necessary for establishing credibility. Thus, our findings suggest that in elite organizations, individuals bear the
weight and the costs of sexism and racism.
These findings belie the assumption underlying many so-called diversity initiatives that focus on individual
efforts, from leadership training, assertiveness exercises and affinity groups. Such Lean In-esque prescriptions place
the responsibility for undoing gender and racial bias in the workplace on the shoulders of those most impacted by
oppression. The new economy has placed demands on workers that increasingly blur the boundaries between work
and private life. One of the ways in which work bleeds into individuals’ non-work lives is through heightened
demands for ‘body work’ and self-management (Brunner & Dever, 2014), particularly in highly skilled professional
jobs. The ideal professional worker is one who ‘mobilizes her agency and autonomy in order to maximize individual
opportunity and advancement’ (Fodor & Glass, 2019, p. 1119; Gill, Kelan, & Scharff, 2017). Thus, equality in the
workplace becomes a function not of collective political mobilization and structural change but of the individual’s
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ability to self-manage in a way that maximizes one’s inclusion in a White and masculine work culture
(Adamson, 2017; Brown, 2005). The bodies of women and people of colour become a personalized ‘brand’ to be
modified, managed and scrutinized for inclusion (Banet-Weiser, 2015).
Our findings suggest that such approaches will be ineffective in achieving inclusion and equity in elite work settings (Kang et al., 2016). Instead, our findings suggest that individual strategies of empowerment work to obscure
the systematic nature of bias and discrimination by granting the illusion of control to individuals without accounting
for the structural nature of discrimination (Kim, Fitzsimons, & Kay, 2018). And, perhaps most significantly, our findings suggest that such strategies increase rather than decrease the emotional, embodied and social labour required of
women and people of colour seeking inclusion into elite roles, resulting in the reproduction of racial and gendered
hierarchies.
Importantly in terms of practical implications, respondents’ organizations had a stated commitment to equity,
diversity and inclusion. Most had policies and practices in place to enforce these commitments including a range
of diversity programmes and practices (Dobbin & Kalev, 2016). Indeed, many respondents’ presence in top leadership positions was used to highlight and showcase the organization’s success at recruiting, retaining and advancing women and minorities. And yet respondents’ experiences undermine claims regarding the efficacy of these
investments. Particularly in top leadership roles, respondents found that their success was dependent less on their
ability to master the skills of their jobs and to produce above and beyond their peers — though that mattered as
well. Their continued success depended on their ability to master the unspoken rules of the game and, through
hypervigilance, continually master a performance that made their colleagues comfortable with their intrusion into
elite spaces.
There are significant consequences of our findings for individuals and organizations. First, as noted above,
White women and people of colour bear the brunt — and the burden — of inclusion in top leadership roles. Not
only must they pursue a range of performative contortions aimed at making their White male colleagues comfortable with their intrusion, but they must do so on a consistent and continuous basis. Their status as top leaders —
even the status as the highest ranking member of their organizations — does not inoculate them from the burden
of establishing their competence and credibility while also easing the anxiety of their intrusion into White maledominated spaces.
Over time these efforts exacerbate the isolation, loneliness, exclusion and performance fatigue that organizational outsiders endure. These pressures — combined with the ongoing burden of contortion — likely contribute to
the well-documented dislocations non-traditional leaders experience including lower job satisfaction, higher risk of
underperformance and disengagement and higher rates of depression (Eagan & Garvey, 2015; Ely, Padavic, &
Thomas, 2012; Jackson & Stewart, 2003). These pressures likely also contribute to cynicism among non-traditional
leaders regarding fairness and equal opportunities. According to a recent survey of executives, fewer than half of
White women and fewer than a third of Black women believed that the best opportunities go to the most qualified
candidates (McKinsey, 2018).
Our findings also imply significant costs to organizations. First, the pressures non-traditional leaders experience
likely contribute to a significant talent drain. To the extent that non-traditional leaders have overcome significant
barriers to achieve top leadership roles, they tend to have unique capabilities and talents. Indeed, as several scholars
have shown, non-traditional leaders tend to have exceptional skills (Hasford, 2016; St. Jean & Feagin, 2015). A lack
of support for their leadership combined with continual pressures to accommodate and overcome bias likely contribute to the shorter tenure of top leaders in large organizations. Indeed, research on the career tenure of women CEOs
in the Fortune 500 reveals that they experience much shorter tenures than men CEOs and are much less likely to
continue on in a corporate leadership role after they leave their companies (Glass & Cook, 2016).
Are the careers of non-traditional leaders cut short due to bias among decision-makers or due to performance
fatigue among non-traditional incumbents? Our findings suggest that these two factors may be inseparable. As our
respondents’ experiences show, bias toward non-traditional leaders exacerbates the stress and performance pressures that these leaders experience. The heightened visibility and scrutiny they experience at the top further induces
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cynicism and fatigue. Together these factors lead to a significant loss of highly skilled leadership capital for organizations, which robs them of the best talent with which to solve problems, generate innovation and advance strategic
priorities.
The current study is limited by our inability to analyse the significant differences in the experience and
response to bias by members of different gender and racial/ethnic groups. Due to the lack of diversity in senior
leadership roles, which is reflected in our sample, we were unable to sufficiently untangle the important
nuances and distinctions in the experience of leadership at the intersection of race/ethnicity and gender. We
echo calls for inequality and organization scholars to approach the study of workplace inequality through an
intersectional lens (e.g., Holvino, 2010). Future research can extend and elaborate our findings in at least
three ways.
First, researchers can extend our analysis by exploring the intersections of other axes of identity, including gender identity and expression. A small but growing body of research concerns the strategies and challenges that trans
individuals confront in the workplace (e.g., Schilt, 2010; Schilt & Connell, 2007; Westbrook & Schilt, 2014). Scholars
have documented significant evidence of trans discrimination and myriad negative impacts of bias and inequality on
trans workers (James et al., 2016; Waite, 2020). Applying our analysis of the performative contortions to the strategies trans workers employ in work organizations could yield important insights into the ways in which gendered hierarchies are challenged, regulated and reproduced by the entrance of gender non-conforming individuals.
Second, scholars can contribute to the growing literature on body work by exploring more thoroughly the ways
in which sexuality and sexual identity are produced and reproduced within work organizations (Pullen, Thanem,
Tyler, & Wallenberg, 2016). Current workplace norms treat sexuality as a contagion with the potential to corrupt
ideal workplace interactions (Schultz, 2009). This ‘sanitized’ approach to sexuality, however, serves to marginalize
sexual minorities whose sexuality fails to conform to the prescriptive silence around sexuality and the heteronormative default (Van Lear, 2017). Adopting our framework would provide insight into the agency of sexual minorities navigating inclusion in work settings. Such an approach would uncover how these individuals negotiate inclusion
in both formal and informal interactions.
Finally, the growing literature on the body has inspired new theory and scholarship on the ways in which bodies
are managed, marked and regulated within work organizations (Wolkowitz, 2006). Within this field, scholarship on
masculinity and the body has identified ways in which heteronormativity, race and gender shape hegemonic norms
regarding masculinity, masculine bodies and masculine identity (Gill, Henwood, & McLean, 2005). Scholars have
found that White men often face codes of hyper-masculinity that require particular masculine performances
(Giazitzoglu, 2020). Approaching elite workplaces from this perspective could provide insight into the performance
of power and status within work organizations. Specifically, future research could analyse the everyday experiences
of racial and gender privilege by attending to the varied performative cultural, embodied and interactional achievements related to reproducing status hierarchies. How do elite White men navigate work organizations in ways that
reinforce their status and reproduce their position within the hierarchy? And what are the consequences for the regulation of their bodies?
DECLARATION OF CONFLICTING I NTE RESTS
The authors have no conflict of interest to report.
ORCID
Christy Glass
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1230-088X
Alison Cook
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8271-0596
ENDNOTES
1
Race/ethnicity and pseudonym withheld to protect respondent’s identity.
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHI ES
Dr. Christy Glass joined Utah State University in 2005 after completing her PhD in Sociology at Yale University.
Her research and teaching focus on gender and racial/ethnic inequalities in work organizations. Dr. Glass has
published widely in top journals in sociology and management including Social Forces, Work & Occupations,
Gender & Society, Social Problems, Strategic Management Journal and Human Resource Management. Her work
has also been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, National Public Radio, Huffington Post, CNN and
the Harvard Business Review.
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1250
Alison Cook received her PhD in Organizational Behavior from the Krannert School of Management at Purdue
University. Her research examines diversity in the workplace, specifically focusing on the factors that either facilitate or hinder promotion opportunities for women and racial/ethnic minorities and factors that facilitate or hinder their post-promotion success. Dr. Cook’s work has been published in Strategic Management Journal, Human
Relations, Human Resource Management, and Journal of Business Ethics, among others. Her work has also been
featured in The New York Times, Public Radio International, Fortune, National Public Radio, Associated Press,
The Guardian, Harvard Business Review, and Bloomberg News.
How to cite this article: Glass C, Cook A. Performative contortions: How White women and people of colour
navigate elite leadership roles. Gender Work Organ. 2020;27:1232–1252. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.
12463
APPENDIX
Participant Table
Pseudonym
Gender
Race
Position
Organization size
Sector
Lila
Woman
Asian
SVP or EVP
150,001–250,000
Service
Serena
Woman
Black
C-level
150,001–250,000
Service
Cassandra
Woman
Black
SVP or EVP
50,001–150,000
Service
Alexandra
Woman
Black
General Counsel/Other HL
<5000
Service
Naomi
Woman
Black
President or CEO
150,001–250,000
Service
Tiffany
Woman
Black
Executive Director
<5000
Service
Camila
Woman
Latina
President or CEO
<5000
Service
Cristina
Woman
Latina
General Counsel/Other HL
<5000
Service
Regina
Woman
Latina
SVP or EVP
<5000
Service
Sofia
Woman
Latina
C-level
>250,000
Manufacturing
Elena
Woman
Latina
President or CEO
<5000
Service
Olivia
Woman
White
SVP or EVP
150,001–250,000
Manufacturing
Gabby
Woman
White
President or CEO
150,001–250,000
Service
Ava
Woman
White
General Counsel/Other HL
<5000
Service
Maggie
Woman
White
President or CEO
<5000
Service
Hannah
Woman
White
General Counsel/Other HL
<5000
Service
Clara
Woman
White
President or CEO
<5000
Service
Diane
Woman
White
General Counsel/Other HL
<5000
Service
Kathryn
Woman
White
General Counsel/Other HL
<5000
Service
Isabelle
Woman
White
SVP or EVP
150,001–250,000
Service
Service
Maya
Woman
White
SVP or EVP
150,001–250,000
Annie
Woman
White
SVP or EVP
5000–50,000
Evelyn
Woman
White
Executive Director
<5000
Manufacturing
Service
(Continues)
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GLASS AND COOK
GLASS AND COOK
Pseudonym
Gender
Race
Position
Kylie
Woman
White
SVP or EVP
Organization size
<5000
Sector
Manufacturing
Donna
Woman
White
C-level
150,001–250,000
Service
Shelly
Woman
White
C-level
<5000
Service
Michael
Man
Black
President or CEO
150,001–250,000
Manufacturing
Cole
Man
Black
SVP or EVP
50,001–150,000
Manufacturing
Gregory
Man
Black
C-level
150,001–250,000
Service
Marcus
Man
Black
C-level
50,001–150,000
Manufacturing
Carl
Man
Black
SVP or EVP
Leo
Man
Latino
C-level
>250,000
Service
150,001–250,000
Service
To protect anonymity, the columns are collapsed into the following categories: positions listed are President or CEO,
C-level, SVP (Senior Vice President) or EVP (Executive Vice President), Executive Director and General Counsel/Other HL
(high-level post); organization size is the number of employees in groupings of <5000, 5000–50,000, 50,001–150,000,
150,001–250,000, >250,000; and all industries are grouped into one of two primary sectors, service or manufacturing.
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