In this introductory chapter, the editors offer an overview of the volume, Elder Women’s Wisdom: A Reclaimed Paradigm of Leadership , and provide a rationale for its framework. An examination of historical precedents, qualitative research methodologies, and seven leadership threads will be undertaken within a framework designed to bridge academic research and practices of aging and wisdom. The years 2021–2030 have been identified by the United Nations (UN) as the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing ( ). The World Health Organization (WHO) classified four areas for action and identified four ‘enablers’ to support the effort. Leadership and capacity building, as one of the identified enablers, builds agency. The editors suggest in this introductory chapter that giving voice to leadership strengths embodied by elders contributes to the collaborative goals endorsed by the UN and WHO. The qualitative research methodology, bricolage, ( ) will be examined in this chapter and introduced as a tool to construct new meanings of women’s wisdom supported by the concept of conscious aging ( ; ). The researcher who utilizes this methodology is assigned the descriptor bricoleur ( ). As bricoleurs, the editors intend to showcase seven leadership threads – to include the intersectionality of women and leadership – ultimately weaving those threads into a new paradigm that encourages leaders of all genders to address internalized ageism and embrace aging as a generative stage of life.
