Broadening the umbrella of women’s leadership and public relations: an ethnographic case study of a women’s political leadership development program

ABSTRACT This study offers a rare ethnographic lens into a political training program’s efforts to develop women’s leadership communication as a public relations process. Drawing from participant observation, interviews, and documents, findings indicate the importance of developing a leadership mind-set and authentic leadership communication rooted in intersecting identities, tensions surrounding authentic relational communication and the importance of building cohort-based supportive communities for women leaders. By broadening the umbrella of who counts as women leaders in public relations, the study opens additional contexts (political training programs) and concepts (vulnerability) for the field.