Troubling the Niceness of Social Change in Leadership Education

Abstract

This article troubles a culture of niceness that upholds racism, whiteness, and other forms of oppression, as well as challenges the simplistic application of social change in leadership education. Leadership educators have several responsibilities for challenging ideologies, practices, and discourses that secure whiteness when teaching about leadership for social change. The current article begins with situating the relationship of whiteness and niceness, then offers liberatory considerations for troubling niceness in leadership education. Considerations for why leadership educators and students, based on their social identities and lived experiences, might resist addressing social inequality, power, inclusion, and equity in leadership are discussed. Pedagogical considerations for responding to resistance and disrupting systems of oppression are described, drawn from liberatory pedagogical frameworks.