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This report presents research into how leaders with a wide range of characteristics can be integrated productively into the leadership of the further education sector; that is in a way which cherishes rather than deletes difference, fully utilises the potential benefits of a more diverse leadership and allows all to contribute to leadership and value the process. Diversity is a central concept in this work, defined as encompassing the full range of characteristics found in further education staff. The research constructed five cases using interviews with individual leaders in numerous roles, and observation of leadership groups at work in meetings. The research found that: there is a gap between the publicly stated commitment to equality and inclusion and the experience of individual leaders. There is also a gulf between the progress which senior leaders hope has been made and how others assess it; both formal and informal hierarchies open or close pathways to leadership and lend or deny power to those in leadership roles. The informal hierarchy is created by the complex judgment staff make about the status of an individual based on the interplay of their identities. Some aspects of identity, such as gender or ethnicity, may be assessed in such a way as to result in considerable disadvantage; formal procedures in group meetings, largely dominated by the chair, are intended to increase efficiency. A secondary effect is to create barriers to inclusion; how people are heard within meetings and decision making is influenced by their place in the formal and informal hierarchy; there is some wariness and inhibition in discussing issues of diversity and equality; individual staff have complex and multiple identities which they adjust to gain access to and to survive or thrive in leadership. This may involve spotlighting or suppressing aspects of their identity. The report makes a number of recommendations for changes in policy and practice at national and organisational level.

This paper is one of several drawn from the findings of a research project entitled ‘Integrating Leadership and Diversity in Leadership in Further Education’. Understanding how people identify themselves and their relations with others, especially through leadership at work, is a crucial element of this study with its interests in identifying how individuals assess their inclusion in leadership, and its impact upon their engagement with, and effectiveness of leadership. It is the core theme of this paper. Recognising leadership as an intellectual, ethical, and emotional activity, the study explored leadership from the perspectives of self-identity and group membership identity, considering their impact upon group participation; the explicit and implicit rules of working in leadership groups, and how these were agreed or evolved; and the extent to which individual staff felt able to communicate as they intended. Such questions led us to consider the extent to which identities might be viewed as static or fluid, single or multiple over time and according to contingency, and how and why different aspects of identities might be highlighted (or ignored) as the basis of power and influence at work (Goffman, 1986; Gurin & Nagda, 2006; Stone & Colella, 1996). The paper aims to stimulate reflection on action to support the ability of all staff to contribute to leadership in a way which they value and which is productive.