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Guest Post: Transformative Feminist Leadership in Action  

Over the last few months, EMCC has been hosting placements for Applied Gender Studies MSc students from the University of Strathclyde. As part of her placement, Ursula Grant has been researching feminist leadership. Here she writes about beginning her research project. 

Before starting this research, I had never come across the concept of Transformative Feminist Leadership. In exploring its meaning, I was particularly struck by the South African definition of “transformative” as “the process of making institutions and organisations more democratic” (Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, 2025). This resonated deeply. While feminist leadership is about working with and for people, adding transformation signals something more powerful - feminism in action. It implies structural change, institutional accountability, and a reimagining of power. This insight reshaped my understanding of feminist leadership as not just about representation, but about driving meaningful, systemic change.  

To explore what transformative feminist leadership is, or how it is utilised, I looked at a paper published by Oxfam in 2017, written by Shawna Wakefield, a women’s rights and gender justice consultant, formerly Oxfam’s Senior Gender Justice Lead, titled “Transformative and Feminist Leadership for Women’s Rights”. Oxfam as an organisation understands that women’s leadership is central to its work in promoting gender justice and as a result of this, the organisation invested in an approach called Transformative Leadership for Women’s Rights (TLWR), stating “TLWR challenges and transforms power relations and structures into an enabling environment for individual leadership potential. It embodies the principles and values of human rights, gender equality, participation, consultation, and respect for the dignity of all people”.  

As the above visual from Wakefield shows, Transformative Feminist Leadership began emerging as a distinct framework in the early 2000s. Before this, transformative leadership and feminist leadership were separate concepts. Transformative leadership was mostly developed through studies of male leaders and didn’t account for gender. However, both approaches shared key values - such as empathy, collaboration, and the rejection of top-down leadership models. Wakefield, drawing on Alexandre, points out that both focus on building mutual goals and empowering others through connection rather than competition. These shared principles helped shape transformative feminist leadership into a more inclusive, socially responsive way to lead.  

Exploring transformative feminist leadership through Wakefield’s work made it clear that understanding its application - particularly as this example shows, within government programmes, social justice movements, and NGOs - was essential. As a Gender Studies student, witnessing theory come to life in these contexts was both affirming and energising. One report that significantly deepened my understanding was “Transformative Feminist Leadership: What It Is and Why It Matters” by Srilatha Batliwala, a globally recognised feminist scholar and activist whose work has been foundational to the field of feminist leadership. Her report offers practical, grounded examples of how transformative feminist leadership operates across different contexts and reinforces its potential to reshape leadership as inclusive, accountable, and rooted in collective empowerment.  

Examples of Transformative Feminist Leadership in Practice  

• Deepika, a young leader at Feminist Approaches to Technology, used insights from a feminist leadership training programme to address the lack of rest and wellbeing support for activists balancing care work and activism. She secured a dedicated space for rest within the organisation and introduced wellbeing practices like yoga and meditation, which significantly improved the team’s energy and internal culture.  

• Launched in 1988 by the Indian government, the Mahila Samakhya programme used feminist popular education to empower marginalised women in rural areas. In response to critiques of traditional hierarchies, the initiative introduced rotating leadership and collective decisionmaking within village-level women’s groups. Though it faced its initial challenges, this model of shared leadership eventually became central to the programme’s structure.  

• The Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. offers a powerful example of transformative feminist leadership through its decentralised, self-financed, and locally driven structure. With no central leader, the movement remains agile and responsive, with women taking on key leadership roles across all levels - demonstrating the strength of non-hierarchical, collective leadership.  

• The women’s movement in Iran exemplifies dispersed transformative feminist leadership under extreme political repression. Operating through guised and informal gatherings like tea parties and sewing circles, women have sustained local, decentralised activism despite arrests of prominent figures. This model has fuelled ongoing resistance, seen in today’s large-scale protests involving both women and men.  

• The World YWCA, one of the oldest women’s organisations, has restructured its leadership to centre young women - now holding 60% of board seats and 30% of voting delegate positions. This shift has empowered young members to influence leadership decisions and shape the organisation’s priorities at both local and national levels.  

To conclude, I’ve included my own definition of transformative feminist leadership, shaped by the work of the inspiring scholars I’ve engaged with throughout this research. From what I’ve observed in practice and gathered from theory, transformation in this context means going deeper - it’s about turning values into action and striving for genuine, structural change. The final examples in this blog highlight just how powerful and life-changing transformative feminist leadership can be. There is an urgent need for more women in leadership, particularly women from marginalised communities, and transformative feminist leadership offers a compelling and necessary pathway toward that goal.  

“Transformative feminist leadership is an ongoing, evolving process that centres human experience - particularly that of the most marginalised - at its core. To meaningfully engage with this model, organisations must be self-reflective, intersectional, and open to both internal critique and structural change. Feminist leadership is not a fixed achievement but a continuous practice - one that requires sustained commitment, adaptability, and a collective drive toward equity across all dimensions of organisational life.”  

- Ursula Grant

Reference List 

Batliwala, S. (2022) Transformative Feminist Leadership: What It Is and Why It Matters. Available at: https://www.genderhealthhub.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Thinkpiece-TransformativeFeminist-Leadership-v4.pdf

Transformation noun - definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | oxford advanced learner’s dictionary at oxfordlearnersdictionaries. Com (no date). Available at: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/transformation (Accessed: 20 April 2025). 

Wakefield, S. (2017) Transformative and Feminist Leadership for Women’s Rights. Available at: https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam-us/www/static/media/files/Transformative_and_Feminist_Leadership_for_Womens_Rights_1.24.17.pdf