Andrea Kayne - Kicking Ass in a Corset: Jane Austens 6 Principles for Living and Leading from the Inside Out

Kicking Ass in a Corset

Kicking Ass in a Corset

JANE AUSTENS 6 PRINCIPLES FOR LIVING AND LEADING FROM THE INSIDE OUT

Andrea Kayne

UNIVERSITY OF IOWA PRESS

IOWA CITY

University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242

Copyright 2021 by the University of Iowa Press

www.uipress.uiowa.edu

Printed in the United States of America

Design by April Leidig

No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. All reasonable steps have been taken to contact copyright holders of material used in this book. The publisher would be pleased to make suitable arrangements with any whom it has not been possible to reach.

Printed on acid-free paper

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kayne, Andrea, 1966 author. Title: Kicking Ass in a Corset: Jane Austens 6 Principles for Living and Leading from the Inside Out / by Andrea Kayne.

Description: Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021000458 (print) | LCCN 2021000459 (ebook) | ISBN 9781609387600 (paperback; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781609387617 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Leadership in women. | Self-esteem in women. | Austen, Jane, 17751817Characters.

Classification: LCC HQ1233.K39 2021 (print) | LCC HQ1233 (ebook) | DDC 155.3/3382dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021000458

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021000459

For my mother, Margery Charron Kayne, who led me to the well within

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Acknowledgments

Striving to be internally referenced does not mean you dont need people to help you realize your vision. Certainly, many people have helped me achieve mine.

Maureen Collins, my dear lifelong friend and Janeite soul sister, was there when this work was conceived and added so much Jane Austen perception, wit, and brilliance to each draft. The director of University of Iowa Press, James McCoy, channeling Elizabeth and Darcy, provided frank, insightful, and intelligent feedback that made this a much better book. I also want to thank Allison Means, Rebecca Marsh, Susan Hill Newton, and all of the other amazing people at the University of Iowa Press who put their talent, care, and hard work into this book.

Editor and literary midwife Katy Sprinkel Morreau furnished invaluable assistance every step of the way. My research assistant (and stepdaughter), Ruby Mead, provided wonderful help distilling the stories of kickass leaders and becoming a master of the Jane Austen pink books and the Chicago Manual of Style. Donna Kiel, the director of DePauls Office of Innovative Professional Learning, has been instrumental in operationalizing this work and fleshing out the exercises, helping to establish professional development courses and a coaching program based on this work. I deeply appreciate my colleagues at DePaul who have been generously supportive of my work, especially Dean Paul Zionts and my chair, Sonia Soltero. I could not have put this work into the world without the amazing creativity and other-worldly competence of Jessie Jury, who makes all things possible. Im grateful to Jane Wesman for believing in me and the book and so ably spreading its message.

Many internally referenced Austenesque women (and men) have inspired me and this work with their stories of wisdom, courage, hope, and transcendence in one form or another. These include, but are not limited to, Jeannie Aschkenasy, Heidi Bailey, June Brought, Sharon Chuter, Linda F., Christine Blasey Ford, Carol Henriques, Susan Hyman, Paul Julian, Ellen K., Sandy Lerner, Kimberly Lloyd, Lori Lovens, Abby M., Kathleen Medina, Jacque Nelson, Renee P., Jennifer Farrell-Rottman, Vicky Tsai, Sr. Frances Ryan, Jian Sun, Greta Thunberg, Marcy W., Cookie Weber, Keith Westman, and Cassie Zheng.

I am so very grateful that my dear soul sister Kathy Bresler and her ALTAR empowerment community have been such a vital force in bringing internally referenced leadership to me and the world.

Thank you to my dear friends Terri and Greg Reisig, who took a joyous pilgrimage to the Royal Crescent and to Chawton House with me in search of Janes spirit, and now, Gregs spirit, too.

Finally, I must thank the most important beings in the world to me. My wonderful son, Josh, who teaches me about compassion, care, and curiosity, and what it means to be a truly loving human. My amazing daughter, Ariel, who teaches me about values, voice, and vocation, and what it means to be an authentic and powerful woman. My husband, Andy Mead, who teaches me that the sun, music, and Persuasion-style second-chance love come from the same divine place. And my Pride and Prejudoodle, Addy, who is as golden as they come.

Kicking Ass in a Corset

INTRODUCTION

What Would Jane Do?

I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

What can organizational leaders in business, education, government, and most any enterprise learn from an unemployed, unmarried woman who lived in patriarchal, misogynistic rural England more than two hundred years ago? As it turns out, a great deal. Ive witnessed this firsthand as a professor and director of the graduate leadership program in the College of Education at DePaul University. My professional life as a leadership expert has coincided with my lifelong interest (some might say obsession) with Jane Austens heroines and, specifically, with their internal fortitude, steadfast strength, and quiet command in the face of extremely confining and sometimes oppressive circumstances.

For more than twenty years, I have taught countless aspiring school principals and superintendents and educational leaders in higher education about using their limited resources to navigate the challenge of education law, the restriction of the politics of education, and the often-fraught relationships among educational stakeholders. As a leadership consultant I have worked with many education, government, corporate, and technology leaders and organizations to assist them in maximizing their efficacy, improving their efficiency, and enhancing their impact in spite of limiting constraints, diminishing resources, and overwhelmed systems. For the female graduate students and consulting clients I work with, there is often an added layer of constraint to overcome. The ubiquity of gender discrimination, gender inequity, and a sense of gendered powerlessness have created additional obstacles and burdens for women occupying or seeking leadership positions.

In the course of my work, I point to well-known role models in education, business, and government to illustrate the characteristics of internally referenced leadership and to show how particular women leaders have successfully navigated difficult work and gender dynamics. Surprisingly, however, it is the comparison not to modern-day examples but to Jane Austens heroines that makes the most impact on the participants Im addressingregardless of whether theyve read Jane Austen. My take on the Jane Austen role models has been presented to great effect at several national conferences, including the Women in Educational Leadership Conference at the University of Nebraska and the Jane Austen Society of North America General Meeting.

Jane Austens heroines are inspiring and useful because they provide a way of finding ones power and agency under great constraint and in trying times. The corset is an apt metaphor to describe the constrictions female leaders in many industries and organizations are facing these days. Women in the workplace may find it difficult to breathe as they are pushed, prodded, and squeezed by seemingly intractable forces beyond their control. The ubiquitous pressures on women leaders and aspiring leaders include insufficient credibility, disrespect, pressure to be likable, absence of mentors and sponsors, lack of confidence, inadequate visibility, office politics, limited negotiating experience, gender discrimination, financial inequity, gendered career paths, disproportionate family responsibility, limited access to networks, linguistic style, sexual harassment, and so much more. These external aggravating forces make it particularly challenging to succeed as a leader, to survive as a leader, or to get promoted to leadership in the first place.