Women Leaders in Central and Eastern Europe

Women Leaders in Central and Eastern Europe: Organizing, Politics, and the Path to Change is a groundbreaking edited volume that redefines leadership through the lens of women's experiences across a historically and culturally unique region. Drawing on rich, qualitative narratives, the book explores how women have led transformation in politics, public institutions, and organizational life in Central and Eastern Europe. This concise and compelling volume features case studies of individual women leaders, each situated within their country's socio-political context. Highlighting leadership as a practice of meaning-making and collective action, the book challenges dominant Western models centered on hierarchy and individualism. Instead, it offers inspiring accounts of resilience, cooperation, and visionary organizing. Each chapter includes analysis and reflections that bridge personal stories with wider themes in organization and gender studies. Ideal for researchers, scholars, students, and practitioners in organization studies, management, leadership, gender studies, and Central and Eastern European studies, this book is a vital contribution to the global conversation on inclusive and alternative leadership models. It also serves as an invaluable resource for educators and professionals seeking diverse perspectives on organizing and governance.

Anna M. Górska, Ph.D., a Senior Lecturer at Kozminski University and Director of the Women and Diversity in Organizations Research Center. She is a member of the Young Academy of the Polish Academy of Sciences, member of General Council for Science and Higher Education, and an Associate Member of the Centre for Work, Organization and Society at the University of Essex. She studies gender in organizations and higher education institutions. She is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Tamara: Journal for Critical Organization Inquiry, and Co-Associate Editor (Provocations) at Management Learning, Associate Editor at Culture & Organization and Frontiers in Education, and sits on the editorial boards of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, Feminism & Organization, and Humanities & Social Sciences Communications. Monika Kostera is Titular Professor in economics and humanities. She works as Professor in Management at Warsaw University. She is a visiting professor at Södertörn University, Sweden, Rennes Université, France, as well as L'Université Paris Nanterre, and Elected Member of the Sociology Committee of the Polish Academy of Science. She writes and publishes texts on organization theory as well as poetry. She is Co-Editor-in-Chief at Tamara: Journal for Critical Organization Inquiry as well as Associate Editor at Management Learning, the Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion, and Culture and Organization. Her current research interests include organizational imagination, disalienated work, and organizational ethnography. She is a member of Erbacce Poets' Cooperative.

Introduction: Inscribing new meanings into leadership - Central and East European women Chapter 2: Against destruction: Cultivating human decency through entrepreneurship Chapter 3: Viktorija Cmilyte-Nielsen: From the Chessboard to the Parliamentary Hemicycle Chapter 4: Bulgaria: Maria Spirova's Career Path: from Post-Socialist Margins to Transnational Influence Chapter 5: Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: Leadership in Exile and the Belarusian Democratic Resistance Chapter 6: Zofia Daszynska-Golinska: A scholar and organiser with a pro-social vision Chapter 7: Coda