The Duality of an Atypical Leader in Diversity Management: The Legitimization and Delegitimization of Diversity Beliefs in Organizations

Institutional field

An institutional field includes ‘a set of organisational populations and the relations that embed members of these populations into a social system or network with a purpose’ (Barley 2010, p. 780). The role of an institutional field is to maintain and develop the rules, norms, processes, structures and practices that grant legitimacy, status and professional identity to organizations and individuals (Clemens and Cook 1999; Lounsbury 2002; Oakes et al. 1998; Scott, 2008). Legitimacy is defined as ‘a generalised perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions’ (Suchman 1995, p. 574). Attitudes to, and perceptions of, atypicality vary across institutional fields, which explains why an atypical leader may have more opportunities in certain institutional fields, such as the artistic field in the UK (McRobbie 2016), which has more female leaders and leaders from unprivileged backgrounds, compared to the field of politics which is male-dominated (Özbilgin et al. 2016). Inequalities have institutional origins which can be traced in the formation of institutional fields, especially when power structures and control mechanisms are designed and controlled by privileged groups in order to ensure their dominance and to reinforce perceptions about their high status and authority (Ridgeway 2014).

The unearned privileges of dominant groups are often subject to opposition and pressure by social movements that advocate for institutional change. The Civil Rights Movement in the USA, for instance, campaigned for desegregation and equal rights between 1955 and 1965 (Hargrave and Van de Ven 2006). Over a period of time, this created pathways for atypical individuals to access leadership positions (Thomas and Gabarro 1999). More broadly, macro-level changes such as globalization, post-colonialism, neo-liberalism and cosmopolitanism have accelerated processes of cultural exchange and hybridity (Burke 2009; Nkomo 2011), shaping a rapidly changing environment in which products and people flow across national boundaries with various effects: creating challenges for organizations in managing a diverse workforce; identifying, promoting and developing global leaders so that they can coordinate multicultural teams (Lisak et al. 2016); and resolving tensions between diverse cultures (Baehr and Gordon 2017).

Perceptions of atypicality emerge between global ideals that celebrate co-existence and parity, and local practices, norms and regulations that exist within a national context. However, institutionalized practices towards diversity are mainly local. For instance, Norway has created and enforced a gender representation law that requires ‘public limited companies’ boards to have at least 40% representation of each sex by 2008’ (Seierstad and Opsahl 2011, p. 44). Even in more diverse and multi-ethnic societies, policies and norms towards the integration of difference may vary (Bourhis et al. 1997). For instance, Canada follows policies which revolve around multiculturalism, aiming to integrate diverse cultures while maintaining their identities within a cultural mosaic. This contrasts with the USA, which assimilates diverse cultures into a ‘melting pot’, with the aim of constructing a unified American identity (Berry and Sam 2013). The meaning and experience of atypicality differs across contexts, and these variations in turn account for the idiosyncratic ways in which an atypical leader can emerge within an organization.

The organizational logic of diversity

The decision to select an atypical individual as a leader is made in an organization which is embedded within an institutional, national and industrial context. As current research suggests (Baehr and Gordon 2017), organizations are now more likely to support diversity, and also more likely, therefore, to give opportunities to atypical individuals. Nevertheless, the ways in which organizations practise diversity are contested, varying between two organizational logics of diversity. On the one hand, an organization can deprive an atypical individual of the opportunity to achieve a leadership position, when they only support diversity discursively. On the other hand, an organization can create an environment which is more suitable for the emergence of an atypical leader, when diversity discourses are accompanied by inclusive practices.

A strand of literature in diversity management identifies a divergence between the rhetoric of diversity and ‘doing diversity’ in organizations (Baehr and Gordon 2017; Thomas and Gabarro 1999). Tokenism is a typical case in which the practice of diversity includes perfunctory or symbolic efforts which do not trigger normative and structural transformation within organizations (Yoder 1991). Bruna et al. (2017) further criticize the rhetoric of diversity as often only comprising marketing activities that aim to portray firms as champions of diversity, when these activities in fact represent illusory or superficial initiatives. In a similar vein, drawing on her study of three US corporations, Marques (2010) claims that organizations are keen to post diversity statements online and collect diversity-based awards without truly providing a supportive and inclusive environment. These organizations may acknowledge the importance of diversity practices, but fail ‘to consider how managers translate their understandings into specific diversity activities in practice’ (O'Leary and Sandberg 2017, p. 513).

In contrast, the logic of practising diversity is expected to have a positive effect on the emergence of an atypical leader. A prerequisite for this logic is the adoption of an inclusive culture (Gotsis and Grimani 2016) and the management of tension, conflict or mistrust between individuals who belong to marginalized groups and those who belong to dominant groups (Baehr and Gordon 2017). Recent research suggests that female (Glass and Cook 2018) and ethnic-minority (Cook and Glass 2015) CEOs within the largest US Fortune 500 companies can have a positive impact on business practices and diversity initiatives in comparison with homophilic boards. In addition, gender-diverse boards ‘are more likely than other firms to offer LGBT-friendly policies’ (Cook and Glass 2016, p. 1431), which can in turn attract talented atypical individuals who value a culture of inclusiveness within an organization (Özbilgin 2019).

However, diversity in the boardroom does not guarantee the success of diversity initiatives on its own, and is more effective when managers engage in ‘solving the problem, increase their on-the-job contact with female and minority workers, and promote social accountability – the desire to look fair-minded’ (Dobbin and Kalev 2016, p. 55). Organizations truly committed to diversity should invest in practices such as ‘targeted college recruitment, mentoring programs, self-managed teams, and task forces [which] have boosted diversity in businesses’ (Dobbin and Kalev 2016, p. 4). More broadly, organizations which are committed to diversity practices can enjoy benefits in terms of: organizational performance (Özbilgin et al. 2014a, 2014b, 2016); creativity and competitive advantage (Bassett-Jones 2005); job satisfaction and work-group performance (Pitts 2009); and reductions in employee absenteeism and turnover (Peretz et al. 2015).

Status beliefs

Key to the emergence of any atypical leader are the status beliefs held about them that ‘associate greater status and general competence with people in one social category than another, while granting those in each category some specialised skills’ (Ridgeway 2011, p. 60). As illustrated in the work of Reskin and Roos (2009) on gender queues and job queues, status beliefs that tend to value male leaders more than female ones, together with the greater likelihood of male leaders occupying positions of higher status, result in competitions which are unattainable and too risky for women or unprivileged minorities. However, as Özbilgin and Healy (2004) demonstrate, in a study of female academics in Turkey, the existence of transparent rules and regulations that set performance standards can dissipate the effects of gender and job queues.

Status beliefs include social categories, such as gender, sexual orientation, religion and race. For instance, the white male employee or leader in the USA is ‘raceless’ and is not classified within groups like the Asian, Latino or Black minorities. White privilege remains unidentified and implicit without a vocabulary with which to criticize it (Nkomo and Al Ariss 2014). Status beliefs about unprivileged minorities reinforce the construction of stereotypes about them. In addition, minorities should not be treated as a single category, as, in many cases, status beliefs within a cultural context may form a racial hierarchy. Bell et al. (2014, pp. 294–295) argue that Asians in the USA, being below whites in the racial hierarchy, but above Latinos and blacks, are ‘often stereotyped as “model minorities”, perceived as respecting authority, valuing collectivist ideals, being emotionally self-controlled and being dedicated to educational achievement’.

As a consequence, an atypical leader, unlike a typical one, becomes visible and salient within their organizational and institutional context. Therefore, the emergence of an atypical leader requires justification through diversity discourses (Tatli et al. 2012). That emergence will depend on both the institutional context and the logic with which an organization practises diversity. The emergence, acceptance and longevity of any atypical leader depend on their status, both in the minds of their followers within an organization and in the minds of people in society as a whole. An atypical leader is conceptualized as innovating from the margin, and the concept of status beliefs is particularly useful in understanding the margin as the product of socially constructed and context-specific discriminatory perceptions in people's minds. Eventually, the margin seems to shape the experiences of each atypical individual in unique ways according to their degrees of atypicality; as a result, the ways in which an atypical leader overcomes barriers to innovate, as they advocate for the removal of discriminatory status beliefs, are also expected to be idiosyncratic.

The disposition of an atypical leader

Leadership positions are essentially positions of power and authority (Robinson and Kerr 2009; Tatli 2017). It is therefore crucial to scrutinize the pathways to power of an atypical leader from the viewpoint of their social position. According to Bourdieu (1993), power inequalities and social hierarchies exist because economic, symbolic, cultural and social forms of capital are unequally distributed in society (see Table 2). This unequal distribution of capital resources maintains differences between social classes and class fractions, which are also manifested in ‘class-based manners and lifestyle’, as elites ‘signal their status superiority through sophisticated speech, clothing, and tastes in art’ (Ridgeway 2014, p. 4; emphasizing Bourdieu 1984). For instance, an atypical leader may combine high status and a minority background, as in the cases of minority-ethnic elites (Al Ariss et al. 2012) or expatriate executives who have a higher status than immigrant workers, due to their higher level of education and their accumulation of cultural, and often symbolic and social, capital (Berry and Bell 2012).

Less privileged individuals often face social barriers to leadership positions. For instance, Wall Street firms, and the financial sector in general, can constitute a particularly hostile field for an atypical leader, due to the patrimonial and masculine culture that limits the ability of unprivileged minorities to access resources and positions of leadership (Tobias Neely 2018). More specifically, ‘Wall Street firms recruit heavily from Ivy League … favouring students from upper-class or upper middle-class backgrounds’ (Tobias Neely 2018, p. 369), which illustrates the importance of elite education (cultural capital) and the social hierarchy (symbolic capital), respectively. The lack of social capital puts unprivileged minorities in a disadvantaged position: they struggle to create professional networks which would provide them with resources, such as mentorship and professional development, and would allow them to move to positions with higher status and pay (Tobias Neely 2018).

The importance of capital resources may also vary across countries and institutional fields. In France, the socio-economic elite relies on educational pedigree to secure positions of leadership (Hartmann 2000; Maclean et al. 2014), while in India, elite domination derives from inherited capital (Naudet et al. 2018). In the UK, social mobility, which would allow individuals from lower social classes to occupy positions of power, is possible in some professions, such as the IT sector, but not in others, like law, medicine and finance (Friedman et al. 2015). However, the IT, software and computer services sectors in the UK are still dominated by white male leaders, demonstrating that the social mobility which exists in these institutional fields may not produce more opportunities for the emergence of female, ethnic minority or LGBT+ leaders.

The social position of an atypical leader shapes their habitus, including their cognition, emotions and embodied behaviour within a social space (Bourdieu 1990). Bourdieu (1990, p. 76) defines ‘habitus’ as ‘a socially constructed system of cognitive and motivating structures’ composed of an objective disposition and a subjective selection that causes reproduction or change. As Robinson and Kerr (2009, p. 881, emphasizing Bourdieu, 1990, p. 117) explain: ‘the capital an individual possesses partly defines how well they are accepted and integrated into a particular field and how they are able to position themselves within it. Thus an agent whose habitus is perfectly adapted to the field possesses a sens pratique, defined as a “feel for the game”, to the extent that their habitus is “invisible”’ to themselves’.

Even if some aspects of the social identity of an atypical leader may be identified with the elite (e.g. elite education), their habitus can hardly be invisible, as other aspects of their identity will be salient (e.g. foreign accent). Class origins and class-specific habitus (Hartmann 2000) may influence the cognition, behaviour and motivation of an atypical leader, who may submit to the ‘rules of the game’ as determined by the managerial ideology of male domination that prioritizes profitability, patrimonialism and competition. Operating according to class-specific habitus, an atypical leader may succumb to what Bourdieu (1993) defines as illusio, recognizing that an anticipated stake or individual benefit takes priority over collectivism and equality in the workplace (Dillabough 2004). This is a situation of misrecognition, as an elite atypical leader may suppress a salient aspect of their identity, complying with dominant norms while anticipating acceptance from the dominant group. Misrecognition is broader in society, as less privileged individuals tend to interpret the ‘success’ of higher social classes mainly on the basis of meritocratic achievement in education and the workplace, dismissing the privileged access of higher social classes to resources such as social capital (Robinson and Kerr 2009).

The concept of habitus, and in particular its definition as a sens pratique, is often debated in terms of whether agents make calculative choices within a field or organization in order to maximize benefits (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992; Tatli and Özbilgin 2012); or, alternatively, if habitus, as a practical sense, is a tacit experience which can only be interrupted, as agents make sense of events or a crisis situation is interpreted retrospectively (Lahire 2011; Weick 1995). In the case of an atypical leader, class-specific habitus is likely to be interrupted by encounters of power inequality, opening up the possibility of ‘reflexive habitus’ (Sweetman 2003) as a process of questioning the status quo within organizations: the re-fashioning of their position to avoid discrimination, while building resistance to, and solidarity against, norms of male domination. The disposition of an atypical leader alone cannot predict an inclination towards class-specific or reflexive habitus. It is crucial to demystify the ways in which an atypical leader manifests atypicality in both their discourses and their performative actions at work.

The discourse of an atypical leader

For Bourdieu (1998), elite reproduction is revealed in discourses of taste, refinement and social classification. As such, if it is to make inroads into leadership positions, atypicality needs to adopt or invert the discourses of the elite. Discourses of atypicality can be instigated by an atypical leader and/or by others within an organization, in an attempt to form the identity of, and grant legitimacy to, an atypical leader. These discourses can be narratives, texts, speeches or images that circulate within and beyond organizations in order to celebrate the promotion of an atypical leader. Discourses of atypicality derive from the organizational logic of diversity, and therefore they are ‘products and producers of management practices structured along existing power relations’ within organizations (Zanoni and Janssens 2004, p. 70).

Discourses on atypicality echo current discourses on the constitution of a leader, such as the ‘interest in authenticity, ethics, corporate social responsibility and sustainability’ (Kelly 2014, p. 913). The discourse of atypicality can reinforce the material practices of organizations, such as affirmative action, which is legally sanctioned and frames difference as an additional value (Zanoni and Janssens 2015). These discourses can also shape status beliefs, norms, attitudes and behaviours which are morally governed and culturally supported by people in organizations, such as a holiday calendar that takes into account all religious groups (Ridgeway 2014; Zanoni and Janssens 2007). The discursive constitution of an atypical leader can be a powerful tool with which to support marginalized individuals, and can nurture a culture of inclusion (Bourdieu 1993; Özbilgin et al. 2014a).

Nevertheless, diversity discourses and discourses of atypicality can also be manipulated by the senior management of organizations in order to reaffirm management practices unrelated to diversity (Tatli 2011; Zanoni and Janssens 2004). Discourses of atypicality are political, as they involve the ‘construction of antagonisms and the drawing of political frontiers between “insiders” and “outsiders”’ (Howarth and Stavrakakis 2000, p. 4). These discourses can be used, for example, to devalue difference within organizations (Zanoni and Janssens 2004). This is illustrated by a study of minority employees in two Belgian organizations, in which the dominant group used discourses of atypicality to explain the disadvantage of unprivileged minorities, drawing on their ‘lack of skills, schooling, and right attitude’, while minority employees interpreted ‘these positions as the result of racism and discrimination’ (Zanoni and Janssens 2007, p. 1376). In these narratives, merit and capability are often positively charged qualities used for selection and promotion, which serve to privilege the dominant group.

Consequently, discourses of atypicality, particularly when they are mobilized by the dominant group, can construct material or symbolic boundaries that exclude less privileged employees. Overall, discourses of atypicality are important in promoting diversity, but are also contested, as they often stress ideology and difference in organizations. However, it is also important to examine what atypical leaders do (performativity), in order to fully appreciate what constitutes atypicality, something which cannot be reflected in discourses and dispositions alone.

The performativity of an atypical leader

Bourdieu's concept of habitus is often criticized as offering ‘an “overdetermined” view of subjectivity in which subjective dispositions are tightly tied to the social practices in which they are forged’ (Lovell 2000, p. 11). This version of habitus, which is aligned with class-specific habitus, appears to be an ‘iron cage’ that prescribes the behaviour of an atypical leader based on their social origins and practices. However, we approach the atypical leader as an individual who can potentially resist the status quo, as an innovator from the margins (Alter 2017). Although the notion of reflexive habitus provides an alternative to class-specific habitus, it is relatively silent about how an individual – an atypical leader in this case – can resist the structures and norms that reproduce the dominant ideology and culture within an organization. This gap is addressed by connecting performativity with reflexive habitus, to emphasize the discursive, embodied and material practices of an atypical leader, which can lead to political action and normative transformation within organizations (Czarniawska 2011; Ford et al. 2017).

For Butler (1990), performativity provides a powerful means of resistance to the hegemony of the dominant class through repetitive discursive acts of deconstructing norms (Nentwich et al. 2015). Performative acts can legitimize atypicality, as a process of constructing a self-identity that denies dominant norms within a social context (Butler 1993). For instance, the American artist Andy Warhol (1928–1987), a leading figure of the Pop Art Movement in New York (Bockris 2003), legitimized atypicality through his performative acts. Warhol was an insider in New York's art scene, as he was connected with prominent art dealers, like Leo Castelli, and many celebrities of the time; but also an outsider, who created The Factory, an art organization that promoted artistic experimentation, collectivism and tolerance of difference (Bockris 2003). The example of Warhol epitomizes the performative construction of atypicality though his artistic persona, which manifested his ‘elegance, awkwardness, comedy, or beauty’ (Ladkin 2008, p. 32). Warhol embodied performativity by introducing new images, narratives and myths to the social imaginary, while he experimented with the construction of an androgynous identity that contrasted with the dominant culture and masculine norms of the previous generation of artists in New York, the Abstract Expressionists (Hewer et al. 2013).

More broadly, feminism is regarded as a force that challenges male domination, not in the direct way associated with individual attributes, sex or race, but through iterative performative acts, such as speech acts, stances and utterances that attempt to break with the context of male domination, advocating a system of values that promote inclusion, parity and justice (Butler and Athanasiou 2013; Nentwich et al. 2015). Although Butler's (1990, 1993) approach to performativity has influenced thinking about the self-construction of identity, it has received criticism as it ‘reads at times like a voluntarist whose individuals freely don and doff their masks, to make themselves over at will through virtuoso performances of the chosen self’ (Lovell 2000, p. 15). Butler's performativity is a political act that differs from an intended ‘performance’, defined by Goffman (1959, p. 32) as ‘all the activity of an individual which occurs during a period marked by his continuous presence before a particular set of observers and which has some influence on the observers’. As performativity (Butler 1993) may not always be sharply distinguished from performances (Goffman 1959), more attention should be paid to the impact of an atypical leader's performative acts on diversity.

In line with Nentwich et al. (2015), we combine Bourdieu and Butler's conceptual universes in order to capture the multifaceted constitution of an atypical leader. The dispositional component exposes the source of the authority and power of an atypical leader in organizations, which are socially constructed according to the leader's access to symbolic, cultural and social capital, and is also embodied in their habitus (Bourdieu 1993; Robinson and Kerr 2009). The discursive component delineates the ways in which the salient identity of an atypical leader is manifested in organizational discourses. The performative component stresses the role of an atypical leader in constructing social identities, such as gender, race and sexuality, through their performative actions, which produce images, narratives and symbols beyond the limits of typical perceptions of leaders (Butler 2010; Fehr et al. 2015; Grint 2005; Kelly 2014). In this way, reading Bourdieu and Butler together (Nentwich et al. 2015) helps us to frame reflexive habitus, which fuels the performative acts of an atypical leader and their attempts to legitimize atypicality, not as an ‘iron cage’, but as ‘second nature’ for an atypical leader.

The role of an atypical leader in delegitimizing diversity

An atypical leader may not delegitimize diversity by working directly against diversity practices, but their actions, lack of action and other behaviour while in power may result in a loss of legitimacy for diversity. This is possible when an atypical leader operates according to class-specific habitus, either by perceiving themselves as part of the elite or by accepting power distance. This can also happen when an organization pseudo-legitimizes diversity by only giving rhetorical support to diversity and to an atypical leader. The lack of true commitment to diversity by an organization is likely to expose an atypical leader to precarity and, more specifically, to the ‘glass cliff effect’ (Haslam and Ryan 2008) or to increased psychological pressure associated with their gender, class and race when acquiring leadership positions (‘diversity on trial’). It can also prevent the selection of two successive atypical leaders with similar demographic backgrounds (in the ‘head-counting effect’) (Garcia et al. 2009).

An atypical leader, who operates based on class-specific habitus, may comply with the orthodox belief that operating like a typical leader is the only way to promote their self-interest and career. However, class-specific habitus is illusory for an atypical leader from a middle- or upper-class background, who may operate out of self-interest, having little desire to transform the power structure, as they may accept precarious leadership positions in exchange for acceptance by the dominant group. Class-specific habitus may also be illusory for a working-class atypical leader, who may tolerate psychological pressure and a working environment that is hostile to difference, believing that this is the only way to progress in their career.

An atypical leader is often promoted by a dominant group as they can serve the establishment in various ways, often in conditions of precarity. Defined as the ‘glass cliff effect’ (Haslam and Ryan 2008; Ryan and Haslam 2007), the dominant group within an organization may invoke the discourse of diversity, but only appoint an atypical leader for precarious positions, as more typical candidates may withdraw because they see particular competitions as less profitable or too risky. The appointment of an atypical leader to a precarious position is often accompanied by a tendency to put ‘diversity on trial’, in which these individuals are subjected to psychological pressure associated with their gender, class and race. If an atypical leader fails, the fact that they are female, minority ethnic or LGBT+ can be highlighted as a cause of that failure. A similar level of scrutiny is rarely directed at a typical leader who fails, as their gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation are not then called into question. It is not often stated that failure is due to the characteristics of the leader, such as being male, white, native or heterosexual.

An atypical leader may reproduce the existing power structures if, due to self-interest or hostility, they do not engage with the negotiation of dominant norms, anticipating instead that they will become part of the establishment (Jonsen et al. 2013). Unless the orthodoxy that reproduces inequalities within a social space is challenged, the existence of an atypical leader may indirectly delegitimize diversity, reducing the chances that a future atypical leader will emerge. The backlash in this case may take the form of statements such as ‘We have tried female leaders’, ‘We have enough black leaders’, or ‘We have too many gay leaders’. Head-counting practices of this kind prevent the appointment of more than one atypical individual to an elite leadership position (Garcia et al. 2009). More broadly, the glass-cliff and head-counting effects delegitimize diversity by putting it on trial and often by subjecting an atypical leader to impossible challenges, while reducing the chances of future leaders from atypical backgrounds. Unless atypical leaders and organizations both genuinely commit to inclusive practices, pressure from orthodoxy is likely to lead to the delegitimization of diversity.

The role of an atypical leader in legitimizing diversity

An atypical leader may also choose to challenge the dominant culture and homosocial norms in the workplace. Subscribing to a reflexive habitus, an atypical leader can stage a form of resistance to, and solidarity against, the power structures that support typicality in organizations. We agree with the view of Nentwich et al. (2015, p. 248), who claim that ‘although Bourdieu mainly deals with stability and persistence, and with the difficulties of change, he believes the potential for change is always present if the heterodoxic would gain voice over the orthodoxic through political action’. An atypical leader who operates based on reflexive habitus may lack the capital resources required to mobilize change (Lawrence 2008; Sweetman 2003). However, an atypical leader may comply with the orthodoxy in order to build capital resources (symbolic, social and cultural), which can then be reflexively mobilized to transform the status beliefs, norms and regulatory structures that impede or prevent diversity-driven change in organizations.

An example of a capital-building strategy that reflexively pivots habitus is illustrated by the case of Sheryl Kara Sandberg. Sandberg, a University of Harvard graduate and current Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Facebook, has gained legitimacy in the institutional field by working for Google and then Facebook. Through her ‘feminist manifesto’ Lean In (2013) (a New York Times best-seller) and the creation of the Lean In Foundation (2013), Sandberg has advocated institutional change, empowering women to pursue successful careers and happy family lives. Sandberg is a role model, as a successful female leader from a privileged background (Rottenberg 2014), who operates as both an institutional (Garud et al. 2007) and moral entrepreneur (Greenhalgh et al. 2019), mobilizing symbolic resources to trigger diversity-driven change at field level.

At a cognitive level, ‘people perceive those who belong to demographic categories different from their own’ to be outsiders (Hooijberg and DiTomaso 1996, p. 14), so an atypical leader may normalize new archetypes of leadership. For instance, Audrey Tang was invited in 2016 to join the Taiwan Executive Yuan as a minister without portfolio, becoming the youngest and first transgender official in that country's executive government. Tang, an online activist and former consultant for Apple, is tasked with increasing government transparency and bridging the gap in information literacy between older and younger generations of workers. It is thought that her success in this position may change status beliefs and perceptions about transgender people in power, as well as the perception that government positions should be filled by individuals with an elite education, because Tang is an autodidact, who left school at the age of 12 to become a programmer and later an entrepreneur (Chung 2016).

An atypical leader may help create a ‘new normality’ in organizations where the acceptance of cultural difference is the rule rather than the exception (Eriksen 2006; Fleming and Sturdy 2009). Social transformations and equality in the education system have resulted in an increase in white-collar jobs in society, upgrading the roles of women who develop competitive career paths (Hakim 2003). However, female leaders face subtle mechanisms of resistance. One strand of diversity research focuses on meritocracy in the selection and promotion of employees (Castilla and Benard 2010). Castilla and Benard (2010, p. 543) argue that ‘when an organisational culture promotes meritocracy (compared with when it does not), managers in that organisation may ironically show greater bias in favour of men over equally performing women in translating employee performance evaluations into rewards and other key career outcomes’. Even policies such as affirmative action may not lead to inclusion unless normative and diversity-driven transformation takes place within an organization. This point is also supported by Forstenlechner et al. (2012), who demonstrate that affirmative action and quotas have a locally specific, complex and multifaceted relationship with merit. As the authors argue, ‘in many Arab Gulf countries, quotas have become the method of choice to increase labour force participation of home nationals … [as] the unemployment of home nationals has been rising, even as many jobs are created because most positions are filled by foreign expatriate workers’ (Forstenlechner et al. 2012, p. 299).

The regulative pillar refers to legal pressures designed to force organizations to apply diversity policies and initiatives. Dobbin and Kalev (2016, pp. 53–54) interpret the recent moves of large corporations to embrace diversity as resulting from legal sanctions and previous dismissal of regulations: ‘In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Morgan Stanley shelled out $54 million – and Smith Barney and Merrill Lynch more than $100 million each – to settle sex discrimination claims. In 2007, Morgan was back at the table, facing a new class action, which cost the company $46 million. In 2013, Bank of America Merrill Lynch settled a race discrimination suit for $160 million.’ However, regulatory changes do not guarantee diversity-driven transformation unless they are accompanied by cognitive and normative changes. By emphasizing values, an atypical leader may foster an environment which is conducive to human rights at work and establishes workplace democracy, while nurturing a culture of caring and inclusion (Lewis and Simpson 2012). The promotion of diversity as best practice, with policies such as affirmative action and training programmes on diversity, may reduce regulatory uncertainty, but does not always constitute an egalitarian environment, as leadership positions are still dominated by white men.

The role of an atypical leader in legitimizing and delegitimizing diversity

A duality view allows us to scrutinize the actions and positions taken by an atypical leader within an organization in order to achieve gains for diversity. Potential gains for diversity require the interaction and negotiation of an atypical leader with the dominant group. Like a diversity professional, an atypical leader ‘might criticise the status quo for informally excluding women or minority ethnic people, but they might also be reluctant to employ radical equality measures for fear of provoking backlash among the white male majority, in particular their own sponsors’ (Kirton et al. 2007, pp. 1982–1983). Expectations to serve both the excluded and the majority may cause contradictory beliefs and psychological discomfort to an atypical leader, a situation known as cognitive dissonance (Festinger 1957), triggering reflexive habitus as a reaction to it. However, an individual from an atypical background is likely to comply with the orthodoxy in order to avoid a backlash from the dominant group when not in power, as well as manifest heterodoxy once they achieve power.

An atypical leader can exploit and explore complementarities using capital resources to access the core, while bringing the views, experiences and values acquired as an outsider to change it. For instance, Tim Cook (2014) decided to actively champion diversity after becoming the CEO of Apple in 2011, coming out in 2014 in an essay published by Bloomberg. Cook (2014) highlights in that essay how he has developed empathy for the marginalized and resilience to hostile dominant norms, which have shaped him as both an individual and a leader. According to Cook (2014): ‘If hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it's worth the trade-off with my own privacy.’ Therefore, the role of atypical leader may transcend the boundaries of an organization, becoming a champion for diversity in society. This role leads to dualities in disposition, as an atypical leader does not only have to overcome barriers, such as discriminatory status beliefs against LGBT+ leaders, but also has to pivot from the private realm to the public one, compromising individual privacy while being subjected to overexposure and increased scrutiny by the dominant group.

The project of diversity relies on the judgement of an atypical leader and their decisions about how to fight for diversity. An atypical leader should firstly be in a position to recognize and expose those discriminatory status beliefs, norms and regulations that reproduce doxa within the core, and then they should reflexively aim to change them in order to achieve gains for diversity. For instance, the Indian-born Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo (2006–2018), is widely recognized as a champion for diversity within organizations (Nooyi, 2016), encouraging female leaders both in her organization and in society as a whole by sponsoring education in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan and Myanmar (Toegel and Barsoux 2012). As an atypical corporate leader, parent and caregiver, Nooyi has been an inspiring voice for many female leaders who are still exposed to the glass-ceiling effect and experience difficulty in maintaining a work–life balance (Sorkin, 2018). In 2018, when Nooyi was replaced by Ramon Laguarta as CEO of PepsiCo, she made the following statement about the succession process: ‘I would have loved for the board to have had a woman to pick from. But at the end of the day, the board selects the C.E.O., and we just didn't have any women who were ready for the job.’ Although Sorkin (2018) interprets Nooyi's position as an attempt to tackle the glass ceiling, this statement also exposes dualities in diversity discourses. Indeed, the glass ceiling will only be eradicated when there are more leaders from an atypical background (e.g. female). However, it is contradictory when an atypical leader champions one aspect of diversity (e.g. gender diversity) more than others (e.g. ethnic, sexual orientation or social class diversity), creating an illusion that diversity is supported. Diversity discourses are filtered by the habitus of an atypical leader, which reflects their values and judgement.

Although the role of an atypical leader is pivotal in terms of legitimizing diversity beliefs, this might risk placing too much emphasis on the performances of an atypical leader, and giving less attention to the actual impact of their practices on diversity in organizations (Dobbin and Kalev 2016). For instance, Marissa Mayer, former President and CEO of Yahoo (2012–2018) – and only the second female CEO of Yahoo, after Carol Bartz – was among the few women appointed as a CEO within the male-dominated technology sector (Branson 2018). The Stanford University-educated executive, who started her career at Google, was celebrated by Yahoo and the press as an iconic female leader (Branson 2018). Her ‘star power’ was also fuelled by her engagement with the general audience via social media, which she used to construct an identity as a successful female corporate leader and mother (Gaines-Ross 2013). However, in 2013, Mayer abolished flexible employment at Yahoo, with a potentially negative effect on employees with caring responsibilities (Goel 2016). She justified her strategy by claiming that true innovation occurs when people work together. In addition, Mayer has said ‘she does not think the issue of gender in the workplace is relevant to the technology industry’ (Ferro 2016, n.p.). Performances of diversity can introduce new images, such as that of the successful female leader and mother, which can potentially transform status beliefs in society. However, contradictions can occur as the intentions of an atypical leader may not meet society's expectation that they will act as champions of diversity.