Abstract
Increasingly, scholars are contesting the value of grand theories of leadership in favor of a social constructionist or “discursive” approach that posits the centrality of language for “doing” leadership. This article investigates whether the linguistic enactment of leadership varies according to the gender composition of the team, a feature that may have consequences for the career progression of women business leaders. Within the context of a U.K.-based study of three leadership teams (men only, women only, and mixed gender), I use an interactional sociolinguistic framework to analyze what leadership “looks and sounds like” as it emerges during the course of a competitive team task. My findings show that the linguistic construction of leadership varies considerably within each team, although not in conventionally gendered ways. The study also offers feminist linguistic insights on the business issue of why so few women progress from middle management to senior leadership roles.
Increasingly, scholars are contesting the value of grand theories of leadership in favor of a social constructionist or “discursive” approach that posits the centrality of language to constituting routine leadership practices (e.g., Clifton, 2012; Cunliffe, 2001; Fairhurst, 2007; Holmes, 2006; Mullany, 2011). Such authors propose that (verbal and nonverbal) language is a key constructive and iterative aspect of professional identity rather than simply a channel or medium by which messages are encoded and decoded. The social constructionist approach moves the locus of interest away from “being a leader” to “doing leadership,” which involves the judicious selection of linguistic resources for accomplishing particular leadership goals effectively. Stated simply, every time senior people open their mouths to speak, they are constructing and managing an impression of their profile as leaders (e.g., Clifton, 2012; Holmes & Stubbe, 2003). This article is a response to the call for more research that recognizes the social constructionist, “discursive turn” in leadership theory (e.g., Alvesson & Karreman, 2000; Clifton, 2012; Cunliffe, 2001). Such research aims to demonstrate that language does not simply reflect states of mind but actually is responsible for constructing attitudes, impressions, and behavior that ultimately constitute leadership practices and identities.
This article aims to show the significance of the constitutive power of leadership language within a particular context of interest to feminist linguistics. Talbot (2010) defines the latter discipline as “feminist interest . . . in the complex part language plays, alongside other social practices and institutions, in reflecting, creating and sustaining gender divisions in society” (p. 16). I have sought in my own work (e.g., Baxter, 2003, 2010, 2011, 2014) to provide feminist linguistic insights on the business and professional issue of why so few women in the United Kingdom, Europe, and internationally progress to senior leadership level. While this is in many ways “a hot topic” in business and public domains, and many disciplines have been mined in order to extricate possible reasons for the lack of women at senior level, the combined fields of business communication and feminist linguistics remain relatively untapped. If it is the case, as many authors (e.g., Alvesson & Karreman, 2000; Clifton, 2012; Cunliffe, 2001; Fairhurst, 2007; Holmes, 2006; Mullany, 2011; Schnurr, 2009) now contend, that language is a principal means of constructing individual professional identities, then it should be possible to learn whether or not language is gendered in leadership settings, and whether this might have career implications for women. Previous research certainly argues that language used for business leadership is gendered, but not necessarily in terms of simplistic, binary gender differences (e.g., Baxter, 2010; Cameron, 2006; Holmes, 2006; Koller, 2004; Mills, 2006; Mullany, 2007; Schnurr, 2009; Wodak, 1997). Rather, social constructionist research (e.g., Crawford, 1995) has shown that there are often clear, gendered expectations of how senior women and men should speak and interact, to which individuals often conform, but can resist. A social constructionist approach to linguistic identity has many principles in common with a “discursive” approach (e.g., Clifton, 2012), but in the interests of consistency, the former approach is principally referred to in this article. If language is seen as sets of “resources” or “strategies,” rather than simply a channel, medium, or tool by which we communicate our thoughts, it may be that certain individuals have greater access to these resources than others depending on social factors such as their gender, ethnicity, education, professional status, and so on.
The purpose of this article is to discover much more about “what a leader looks and sounds like” from a social constructionist perspective within the context of a research study. What exactly does a leader do with language to constitute herself or himself as the leader of a team, and does this vary according to gender? What constitutes leadership linguistic practices if they are distributed across a team, and are these practices gendered? The article explores the findings of a research study that investigated how women and men middle managers studying for a U.K.-based master’s degree in business administration (MBA) speak and interact to construct themselves as leaders in differently gendered teams while conducting a competitive team task. It is argued that the findings could provide a scholarly understanding of how leadership emerges as gendered. These findings could also provide insights for professionals in relation to the linguistic barriers facing women who are “heading for the top.”
Literature Review
This article adopts a social constructionist perspective on leadership and gender, which inevitably has its own values and meta-language. In line with Holmes (2006), I view the use of routine language as socially and discursively constitutive of leaders’ identities in that it involves “the dynamic aspects of interaction, and the constantly changing and developing nature of social identities, social categories and group boundaries, a process in which talk plays an essential part” (p. 12). My use of the phrase “discursively constructed” suggests that there is a network of norms, values, concepts, and beliefs that define what is perceived as reality on this subject, which is mostly enacted through verbal and nonverbal language. The terms discursive and linguistic are of course highly interconnected. However, I deploy the term discursive to denote the wider network of norms, values, and concepts that imbue discourse, and the term linguistic to denote the specific, lexico-grammatical, phonetic, prosodic, and pragmatic features of discourse (Cameron, 2001). A discursive approach links closely with Judith Butler’s (1990) work on the “performativity” of gender, in which she argues that gender identities are fluid and unstable, always discursively enacted and performed. The notion of discursively constructed identities also connects with the work of Ochs (1992), who suggests that “linguistic features may index social meanings (stances, social acts, social activities), which in turn help to constitute gender meanings” (p. 341). Ochs argues that very few linguistic forms directly “index” gender (such as terms of address or titles), but that there are linguistic norms that index, for example, gendered interactional styles and practices.
Clearly there is a considerable literature on leadership, which it is not within the scope of this article to review. My definitions of leadership are drawn from recent leadership research that has seen the emergence of discursive approaches drawn from such diverse fields as social psychology, discursive psychology, applied linguistics, business communication, gender and language, and organizational studies (e.g., Angouri & Marra, 2012; Baxter, 2010; Clifton, 2012; Fairhurst, 2007; Holmes, 2006; Nielsen, 2009; Olsson, 2006; Sealy, 2010; Still, 2006). Common to all these fields are the views that leadership is not necessarily the property of one person, that it can be distributed among a team, and that it is at all times open to challenge. Those people most likely to emerge as leaders are those best placed to “have access to more powerful discursive resources with which to influence the process of the negotiation of meaning” (Clifton, 2012, p. 150). For the purposes of this article, I define the term leadership flexibly: ranging from discursive practices that constitute a formal or informal role enacted by one person who may take some form of authority over others (e.g., Holmes & Stubbe, 2003), to socially situated sets of linguistic resources that are distributed and collaboratively enacted by members of a leadership team (e.g., Kets de Fries, Vrignaud, Agrawal, & Florent-Treacy, 2010). This broad definition of leadership may index a spectrum of differently gendered features (e.g., Olsson, 2006; Still, 2006).
This article presents a linguistic analysis of interactions in leadership meetings, which provides insights on why women still struggle to reach senior positions both in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The U.K.-government-sponsored annual “Female FTSE Board Report” (Vinnicombe & Sealy, 2013) found that just 17% of board directors in the top 100 British companies are women, a figure that has barely changed since the report’s inception in 1999. Clearly, a whole range of social, economic, and politically gendered practices contribute to the maintenance of the so-called glass ceiling, as testified by the considerable literature on gender and organizations (see Schein, 2007, for an overview). However, little attention has so far been devoted to possible linguistic explanations, despite the fact that linguistic (and paralinguistic) interactions are a principal means by which leadership is enacted and achieved (Baxter, 2010; Holmes, 2006; Mullany, 2007; Schnurr, 2009). For instance, leaders spend their lives engaging in various forms of linguistic interaction with their colleagues often within “real” or “virtual” business meetings (Handford, 2010; Richards, 2006). In my view, such linguistic interaction is a hugely underestimated factor in making sense of the experiences of the women and men who occupy the gendered space of business leadership.
Scholars argue that leadership is gendered because it continues to be perceived as an intrinsically masculine construct that concentrates power in the hands of men (e.g., Angouri & Marra, 2012; Fletcher, 1999; Ford, 2008; Koller, 2004; Mullany, 2007; Sealy, 2010; Sinclair, 1998; Wodak, 1997). Because leadership is strongly associated with masculinity, women in leadership positions are marked as “the other” in relation to the male norm and therefore judged to be less “fit” or competent for the role. The masculinized stereotype of leadership as assertive, adversarial, goal-orientated and competitive, was challenged by organizational behaviorists such as Bass (2006), who posited that “effective” leaders needed to combine the complementary styles of goal-orientated or “transactional” leadership with “change-orientated” or “transformational” leadership based on the development of individual and diverse talent. Feminist scholars such as Fletcher (1999), Helgesen (1990), and Rosener (1990) added the dimension of “relational” practices (such as the ability to listen, engage with and support others, create trust, and speak openly about feelings) to definitions of “transformational” leadership. However, Fletcher (1999) argued that these vital leadership resources were often undervalued because they were associated with women’s styles of leadership.
More positively, Vinnicombe and Singh (2002) argued that men and women could capitalize on their different leadership styles: While men tend to adopt a transactional style of leadership, women prefer to adopt a transformational and/or relational style. Helgesen (1990) proposed that women’s preference for relational styles should give them a leadership “advantage” in a business world that increasingly valued professional relationships. However, according to Eagly and Carli (2007), the view that women actually have a “female advantage” because “effective leadership is congruent with the ways in which women lead” (p. 810) has often not benefitted senior women in male-dominated environments, as men and women tend to be evaluated differently and unequally for using the same leadership skill set.
More recently, scholars in organizational studies as well as feminist linguistic research have tended to move away from expectations that biologically labeled “women” and “men” necessarily use linguistic strategies coded “feminine” or “masculine,” as this is viewed as “essentialist” (e.g., Billing, 2011). They have contested the view that women and men have differently gendered, linguistic “styles” (although this idea is still current in many management studies; see Sealy, 2010, for a review). Social constructionist theory also contends that there are mainstream discourses of “gender difference” circulating in Western culture (e.g., Baxter, 2010, 2014; Cameron, 2006; Sunderland, 2004), with the effect that the biological category of “men” are “subject positioned” to speak and behave in ways stereotypically coded as “masculine,” whereas “women” are positioned to speak and behave in ways coded as “feminine,” although individuals of different genders can and do resist such stereotypical positioning.
With this alternative perspective, Holmes (2006) has shown that effective female leaders are able to draw expertly on a repertoire of linguistic strategies stereotypically coded both “masculine” and “feminine,” but tend to be positioned by whether they work in a masculine or feminine “community of practice” (CofP). Indeed, Mullany (2007) found numerous examples in her studies of management meetings whereby males use cooperative strategies and females use competitive strategies, dependent on the CofP. She argues that theorists should take greater account of the norms and conventions of different CofPs, as well as institutional status, role, and corporate discourses, in order to achieve a more finely grained understanding of how business communities “do leadership.” Baxter (2010), among others, has theorized that whole institutions are gendered in terms of the corporate discourses that predominate, which in turn influences routine language use. Thus, micro-linguistic practices, contextual factors, and wider corporate discourses may contribute to positioning women differently and unequally within business leadership roles and discursive practices.
I am currently unaware of research that systematically compares the language use of leaders working within differently gendered teams, perhaps because the focus in past organizational or social psychological research on gender has tended to be on observable leadership behaviors rather than upon the linguistic practices of emerging leadership. This study aims to investigate whether leadership language varies according to the gender composition of the group, all male, all female, and mixed, and how this affects the success of the task, team dynamics, and the overall positioning of women as leaders.
Method
As it proved impracticable to find a company with senior or middle management teams that could provide a range of differently gendered teams of an equivalent status, I designed a comparative study involving business and management students at my own institution. The study involved 18 part-time MBA student volunteers, most of whom were in full-time work at middle management level. As the MBA program as a whole comprises well over 200 students, most of the volunteers did not know each other well prior to the study. Since I was participating in a TV series on the issue of women in leadership positions, 1 I designed a leadership team simulation that was filmed in its entirety by professional camera technicians and was later shown as part of the program.
My research objective was to simulate as closely as possible the goals, conditions, and practices of a leadership team competitive activity, which would require the students to speak and interact in order to plan creatively, solve problems, make decisions, and produce a “winning” outcome. On the basis of gender, the students were allocated to three differently gendered teams of six: a men-only team, a women-only team, and a mixed-gender team. All three teams were similarly composed of students from a mix of white British and third-generation British Asian backgrounds. The teams were set the task of building a paper tower that conformed to a number of technical criteria including height, the strength to support a glass tumbler holding water, and “aesthetic appeal” within a short time limit. Stated simply, the three teams had to compete to build the tallest, most attractive tower able to support a glass in 30 minutes planning time and 15 minutes building time. In order to do this, teams were supplied with a standard set of equipment and were asked to work around a small block of tables. 2 While height and strength are clearly measurable, aesthetic appeal is a subjective judgment. In order to simulate competitive business conditions, a judge (a senior professor at the university) was assigned to select the “best” tower according to the criteria and his professional view.
As the researcher, I was present as an observer-participant (Gold, 1958) throughout the activity. As an observer, I watched each team in sequence by sitting discreetly in a corner away from the action. I was a participant insofar as I presented the rules to each team at the start of the activity, and acted as timekeeper. Owing to the logistics of filming, the three teams conducted the activity in sequence, the men-only team first, the women-only team second, and the mixed team third. All the teams were kept in isolation from each other in separate rooms during the action so that there could be no prior knowledge of the task, nor of each team’s outcomes. But this did give each team an opportunity to get to know each other a little better. Each team’s task was filmed without a break, and the sequence of the task was not interrupted by the filming and production process at any point. The linguistic interactions of each team were later transcribed using conversation analysis (CA) transcription conventions (Jefferson, 2004). 3
Arguably this study was limited by the conditions that it was not based on naturally occurring data in a real business but was a simulated activity filmed by a television company, which would be viewed by a mass audience. Furthermore, there are relatively few corporate contexts “in real life” where there are women-only leadership teams, or even teams of equal gender composition (Vinnicombe & Sealy, 2012). However, in a number of ways the team task did simulate certain aspects of leadership team practice. By virtue of their place on the MBA program, the participants were middle-ranking managers with serious aspirations to be the next generation of business leaders. Furthermore, the activity was “real” in the sense that the task required the team to work together and to find a genuine solution to enable a team to win. In terms of the “observer’s paradox” (Labov, 1966), it was apparent that, in the heat and intensity of the competitive task, the participants quickly forgot the presence of the film crew in their determination to succeed. Typically, MBA students are used to working together in teams and also familiar with simulated leadership team activities. To this extent, the activity was “naturally occurring” within the higher education “knowledge frame” (Goffman, 1974) that enables students to learn their subject and gain a business degree.
In this activity, there was no requirement in the rules for any individual to take on the role of leader or any other appointed role. Indeed there was no specification at all about how the team should speak and interact in order to reach an outcome. Yet by virtue of both its team and competitive imperatives, the task was likely to produce leadership talk and linguistic practices according to my definition above, and also to reveal the gradual emergence of leadership practices where no single person is formally appointed to this status.
In order to explicate this “doing” of leadership—that is, what an emerging leader “looks and sounds like” within differently gendered teams—I adopt an interactional sociolinguistics (IS) analytical framework (Schiffrin, 1994). The rapidly expanding field of discourse analysis now offers a number of frameworks and tools with which to analyze the word-by-word process of spoken interaction, which include ethnography of communication, CA, pragmatics, and IS. My choice of IS is based on its widespread use by scholars within feminist linguistics and the field of gender, language, and workplace research, who have since combined it with social constructionist theory (e.g., Holmes & Stubbe, 2003; Mullany, 2007). IS is based on theories by the linguistic anthropologist John Gumperz (1982) and the sociologist Erving Goffman (1974) and was originally devised to study intercultural communication by means of “contextualization cues.”
4
However, Schiffrin (1994) further developed IS in order to demonstrate that the reason why someone says or does something is
not the construct of “motivation” but a “discourse strategy”: a wide range of expressions, features and so on—e.g., politeness and repetition—[which] are said to serve as strategies suited to the fulfilment of very broad interpersonal goals (e.g., face wants, involvement). (p. 132)
In my view, Schiffrin’s (1994) effort to theorize IS produced little in the way of a replicable method that later discourse analysts were able to pick up and use. In this respect, IS is at a disadvantage in comparison with CA, for example, where there has been a succession of scholars over the past four decades who have contributed to theorizing this method and produced a detailed meta-language (e.g., Clifton, 2012; Drew & Heritage, 2002; Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008; Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974). However, Holmes (2006) and her colleagues at the Wellington Language Workplace Project have been instrumental in combining IS with a social constructionist approach, which emphasizes the dynamic aspects of spoken interaction that constantly work to produce, maintain, or contest social identities, social categories, and group boundaries in different contexts. In this study, I interpret the principles of IS proposed by the scholars above as the use of
Inductive micro-analysis of short extracts or “chunks” of talk from a larger transcript.
Analysis of linguistic strategy: What does this word, phrase, or expression do or achieve?
“Contextualization cues” (Gumperz, 1982): What does each linguistic or prosodic feature at the micro-linguistic level index or signify at contextual and cultural levels?
Attention to turn taking and the effect of each turn upon the next interlocutor in terms of how their responses “orient” to the previous speaker (following CA principles).
Authorial use of epistemic, modal meta-comment (e.g., “it would seem that . . .”) in order to show that interpretations are reasoned from linguistic description and contextual evidence.
The value of the IS approach lies in its focus on producing a finely grained analysis of spoken interactions in relation to its “situated context”: that is, “contextual presuppositions” or cultural knowledge about the context that scholars may hold (Schiffrin, 1994, p. 105). Analysts thus compare their detailed analysis with their (and their participants’) contextual knowledge in order to formulate rich and multilayered insights about larger sociocultural meanings. This is unlike CA, for example, which discourages analysts from referring to their contextual knowledge (Sacks et al., 1974), although “institutional CA” does work with contextual parameters (e.g., Drew & Heritage, 2002). However, in support of the call for more research that demonstrates the “discursive turn” in leadership theory (e.g., Clifton, 2012; Cunliffe, 2001), scholars should, in my view, demonstrate the principles and merits of various approaches to discourse analysis such as IS, as I intend to do below.
Analysis
The analysis is divided into two parts, each comprising three extracts: the men-only team, the women-only team, and the mixed team. The first part analyzes the opening sequence of each team’s interaction in turn, which starts from the moment after the timekeeper asks the participants to begin the task. The value of analyzing the opening sequences is that they show which linguistic strategies index emerging leadership practices. They reveal how leadership is negotiated from the very start of the task: for example, whether a single individual emerges as a leader of the team or whether leadership is to be collectively shared or competed for. The second part analyzes a midpoint sequence in each team’s interaction approximately 25 minutes into the action. A midpoint analysis reveals whether the linguistic indices of emerging leadership identified in the first set of extracts have been affirmed or contested by the participants once they are in “the thick of the action.” From the linguistic indices, we can examine what range of leadership practices are displayed; whether any single individual establishes herself or himself as leader; whether, alternatively, leadership has been distributed among the members of the group; or whether there are signs of competition and contestation for leadership. Finally, do the three groups manifest any gendered patterns according to the research literature reviewed above? To answer these questions, the analysis is progressively comparative. The language used by the women-only team is compared with that of the men’s team, and the linguistic interaction in the mixed team is compared with the previous two.
Part 1: Opening Sequence
Extract 1: Men-Only Team
Key (pseudonyms are used here and in all transcripts): Ad = Adrian; Be = Benjamin; Ch = Chris; Da = Daniel; Ed = Edward; Fr = Frank; Vs = voices.
1. Ad: strongest would probably be a tripod sort of thing
2. Ch: yeah
3. Ad: but we haven’t got very big paper
4. Ch: (showing Adrian the paper) uhh so (.) like that? (starts
5. to roll paper)
6. Ad: yeah so the strongest way to do it is generally to roll
7. (.) to roll it into a tube
8. Vs: (others looking at Adrian) yeah yeah
9. Ad: cylindrical would be the strongest so you
10. triangle formation but a cylindrical out of each paper
11. Ed: so so like that (demonstrates with paper looking at
12. Adrian) like that
13. Vs: like that? like that?
14. Ed: to build it up? (starts to draw a plan on sheet of paper)
15. Ad: umm (1) yeah you
16. tripod of just having (demonstrates with hands) three
17. pieces of paper just around which would
18. save us some time (.) and then it could meet in the
19. middle (Ad points with his pen to the center of Chris’s paper) in a triangle formation
21. Ch: (looking at Adrian) so from this one how big would the tower
22. be?
23. Ad: oh you can build the[m up (demonstrates with hands)
Adrian is the first person to speak in this team task with an abbreviated categorical assertion in line 1, “strongest would probably be a tripod sort of thing,” indicating that he has some technical knowledge. This is slightly qualified by the modifiers “probably” and “sort of thing” as if to downplay his assumed position of technical expert. He gets immediate agreement from Chris, before evaluating the feasibility of his proposal (line 3). At this point, Chris immediately starts to back Adrian’s idea by rolling some paper and asking the abbreviated question “so (.) like that?” which has the effect of seeking Adrian’s approval. Adrian briefly gives his approval (“yeah”) and builds on his first point with two further categorical assertions in lines 6 to 7 (“so the strongest way to do it is generally to roll to roll it” and “cylindrical would be the strongest”) advising the best ways to construct the tower. This gives him a platform on which to position himself as a technical expert, which he quickly follows up in line 8 with a deontic modal statement telling other members of the team how to go about building the tower (“so you
In this opening sequence, Adrian appears to establish himself as informal leader of this all-male team. He speaks the most and controls the topic of discussion throughout this sequence. Chris emerges quickly as a sidekick and supporter of Adrian’s ideas, which might make it more difficult for others to counter Adrian’s early dominance. In fact, the interaction is very orderly, and there are no interruptions throughout the sequence except for general agreement noises from quieter members of the team. 5 This signifies that from the start Adrian is able to establish his authority in the positions of group technical expert and putative leader of the team.
Extract 2: Women-Only Team
Key: Ge = Georgina; Ha = Haleema; Ju = Julie; Ka = Katarina; Lu = Lucy; Mo = Mona.
Ge: right has [anyone done this task before? (leans right
across the center of the table)
Ha: [I’ve got an idea I’ve got an idea
Ge: what we
happy obviously to hear it (.) I’ve got an idea (starts
to roll paper) if we do it this way and then staple it
here here and in the middle and build quite a few of them like
this and then and then either tie them together or
er (looking at Haleema)
Ha: sellotape
Ge: sellotape it and on top of that (.) you put one of these
and on top of that you put more of these (.) like (.)
just literally (looking at Haleema)
Ha: yeah
Ge: just literally (. . .) like this
Ha: yeah
Ge: and then again you either tie it or you um:: (1) sellotape
it together and then again [you
Ha: [how many bases are you
thinking just =
Ge: = oh as many as [(indecipherable)
Ha: [I think (.) the more stable the bottom =
Ge: = yeah (gesture toward Haleema) and then the more stable
it will be (.) absolutely
Ha: yeah
In line 1 of this opening sequence, Georgina uses the discourse marker “right” followed by a question which invites her colleagues to participate in the task, rather than offering her own suggestion as Adrian has done above. Simultaneously, she stretches her whole body across the block of tables, which invades other people’s space, possibly indexing a desire to take a leading role in the group. But almost as soon as Georgina speaks, Haleema appears to anticipate her question by overlapping with the meta-pragmatic response (“I’ve got an idea (.) I’ve got an idea”). Rather than responding to this, Georgina appears to ignore her and instead offers her own idea. It would seem that her earlier move to elicit responses from her peers was actually serving a separate function as a “ground clearing” strategy by which to position her own design proposal. In line 4, Georgina initiates her own proposal (“what you can do . . .”), which she rapidly qualifies (“if you’ve got a better idea I’m happy obviously to hear it”) but without a pause for a response, offers her own idea. Her use of pronouns already indexes that she sees herself in a leading role in that she distinguishes her colleagues who will have to persuade her (“if
In both line 9 and line 13, Georgina looks pointedly at Haleema as she starts to draw her design as if to seek support for both her idea and her assumed leadership. Haleema appears to “take up the cue” by using collaborative talk—supplying the word “sellotape” to fill the gap in Georgina’s extended explanation of her idea. From line 11 to line 18, Georgina continues to develop the explanation and demonstration of her design with occasional minimal responses from Haleema who appears to be acting as a supporter and sidekick. By line 18, there is evidence of a jointly constructed thinking process between Georgina and Haleema indicated by the use of latching, simultaneous talk and prompt questions (“how many bases are you thinking?”). That this is a consensual exchange is indicated by the agreement noises at the end of the exchange in lines 24 and 25.
In many ways, the process of interaction in the women-only team appears not hugely different from that in the men-only team. A person asserts herself in the leading role and that leader gains an apparent supporter. However, there are a couple of key differences. First, throughout the all-male exchange, there is the sound of other team members’ voices agreeing with Adrian’s proposal. In the female team, the women other than Georgina and Haleema remain entirely silent, acting as onlookers. Second, while the turn taking in the male team is sequential and orderly, the turn taking between the two dominant speakers in the female team involves a number of interruptions, overlaps, and co-constructed talk (e.g., lines 17-25). This could mean that the two women are creatively co-constructing ideas as I propose above, but it could also mean that Haleema is starting to contest Georgina’s use of linguistic space as the leader in order that her own voice is also heard (Julé, 2004).
Extract 3: Mixed Group
Key: Na = Nazar; Ol = Oliver; Pe = Peter; Ra = Rachel; So = Sophie; Te = Tessa; Vs = voices.
1. Ol: any ideas on this side? (looking at Nazar; laughter from
2. others)
3. Na: umm::
4. Ra: he’s an enginee::r (laughs and looks coy)
5. Vs: right yeah (people start making shapes with their arms)
6. Ol: cylinders up (shows a shape)
7. Ra: can we draw this on something (.) have we got a crayon to
8. make it look pretty (laughs) it says so on there
9. Vs: yeah yeah (people move paper and equipment around; Sophie
10. has crouched down and has started to sketch; Oliver has
11. taken the paper and started to sketch)
12. Ol: always on a wider base (.) I’m just thinking of (.)
13. you’ve got a top you just a box of cylinders and
14. obviously you =
15. Na: = how strong’s the paper? =
16. Ol: = well you:: can double it up yep
18. Te: yeah like that you can double it up
19. Ol: you can make the paper stronger anyway (demonstrates with
20. a cylinder)
21. So: OK↑
22. Ol: and you can use two or three pieces at a time
23. Ra: so:: to make it look pretty you can do the base one
24. color (laughs)
25. Ol: yeah yeah (.) yeah yeah so anyway
In line 1 of this opening sequence of the mixed-gender group, Oliver initiates the team task by inviting Nazar standing to his right to contribute by means of the open question, “any ideas on this side?” It is an apparently odd move to direct the question specifically to Nazar, but in line 4, Rachel makes the reason clear to the others by joking “he’s an enginee::r.” Arguably, gender is made relevant here, both in the way that a male student initiates the interaction and invites another male colleague to comment first, but more specifically in Rachel’s expectation that a male engineer would be the best person to propose the design. However, Nazar does not respond to this invitation, and Oliver offers his own design idea (“cylinders up”), which other team members mirror in their gestures, revealing a desire to connect with each other. In line 7, Rachel attempts to manage the process by making the suggestion that “we draw this on something,” her use of the “we” pronoun indexing that this is to be a team effort. Again there is a slightly gendered implication when she makes the humorous comment “can we draw something to make it look pretty (laughs).” Rachel’s body language is noteworthy throughout this exchange because she directs coy expressions and flirtatious smiles at both Nazar and Oliver while being quite directive. She appears ironically-knowing in her references to assumed gender differences in men and women’s roles in this activity: she conveys this as a joke that men are known to be engineers and women the designers with an eye to appearance and aesthetics.
By line 9, there is an unspoken agreement that all team members will start to experiment with drawings and models of the design suggested by Oliver, while Oliver himself continues to explain his design. From line 12, there is a collaborative exchange on the nature of the design between several members of the team: Nazar, Oliver, Tessa, Sophie, and Rachel. Only Peter has remained silent and fails to contribute to the discussion, although he is working with sheets of paper during this sequence. Oliver continues to maintain a leading role during this exchange with questions, prompts, and agreement from the others. The exchange remains orderly with one person speaking at a time, which indicates that people are listening to each other and respecting each other’s turns (Sacks et al., 1974). Returning to her possibly ironic view that there are gender differences and complementary strengths in the team, Rachel reiterates her comment from line 7 that “to make [the tower] look pretty you can do the base one color (laughs)” (lines 23-24).
This opening sequence is rather different from those in the men-only and women-only teams. Although one person apparently emerges in the leader role, and in this case, he is male, he appears less directive than Adrian and Georgina, and more solicitous of other people’s views. There is much greater linguistic and physical participation in the discussion than was apparent in the men-only and women-only teams, with every member apart from Peter having a voice. From the first utterance, there are also more jokes and laughter from people in the team, which palpably creates a sense of rapport.
Part 2: Midpoint Sequences
Extract 4: Men-Only Group
Fr: we need to think of the height as well because that’s one
of the things (.) if it is a er rectangular thing (.) we would
need a base to have a top
Ad: yep yep
Fr: (demonstrates with hands)
Ad: yep but we have a tower (impatiently)
Fr: no but then we would need a lot of paper so I think that
[I think that
Ad: [I don’t know that we need it (looking away from Frank
and at others for approval)
Vs: yeah yeah
Ad: because the legs are just pushing outwards (.) it’s like
the same principle as a tripod (looking at others but
away from Frank) which means you’ve got a secure floor:: =
Fr: = pushing on to what?
Ad: the
Fr: we need to hold it on to some sort of a (.) base
Ad: because that will just sort of er (demonstrates)
Fr: (huffs with annoyance)
At this point in the men-only team task, Frank is challenging Adrian’s proposed design (and possibly his assumed leadership of the team). While Adrian has previously proposed a tripod design (which would have won the task if the team had accepted this design), Frank has just proposed a rectangular tower design. This has gained the broad agreement of the team, with the effect that Adrian has had to relinquish his own design. However, it appears that he is not prepared to yield to Frank as team leader as the following extract reflects.
In line 1, Frank uses a deontic modal assertion “we need to think of the height . . .” to give a strong sense of conviction to his alternative design. His assertion implies that there are gaps in Adrian’s thinking which fail to meet the criteria of the task (“. . . as well because that’s one of the things”), and also conveys a confident positioning at this stage. In lines 2 and 3 Frank attempts to persuade the team further of the benefits of his design (“we won’t even need a base to have a top”). His combined use of a deontic modal verb and the inclusive pronoun “we” implies that he is speaking on behalf of the whole team. Adrian appears to agree with his proposal, but his response in line 4 is very clipped (“yep yep”), which makes his response sound more like a dismissive acknowledgement than an agreement. That this is so is confirmed in line 6 when Adrian replies with “yep but . . .” with the adversative conjunction indicating his disagreement, which he supplements with the explanation, “we already have a tower.” This “implicature” (Grice, 1975) serves to express Adrian’s criticism that Frank has inadequate technical knowledge to understand that a tripod design would not need a base.
From line 6 to the end of the sequence, Adrian repeatedly contests Frank’s proposed design and by implication, his attempt to take a leading role in the team. In line 6, Frank rejects Adrian’s challenge by giving a nontechnical reason for his proposal—that a tripod design would use up “a lot of paper.” In line 9, Adrian responds to the base idea with an indirect assertion: “I don’t know that we need it.” That Adrian feels the need to win back the support of the rest of the team is indicated by his body language (“looking away from Frank and at others for approval”). At this point, it seems the team start to gravitate back to Adrian’s point of view, as there are voices of approval. Adrian capitalizes on this by expanding on his view in lines 12 to 14. He excludes Frank from his gaze as he speaks and instead holds the gaze of the other team members. This has the effect of throwing Frank onto the defensive with a challenging question in line 15 (“pushing onto what?”). From this point on, the exchange between the two men is short, sharp, and quite confrontational. Adrian’s emphatic repetition of the word “floor” in line 16 suggests that Frank has failed to grasp the obvious. Frank then merely repeats his original point (“we need to hold it onto some sort of a base”). By line 19, there is a sense that Frank has lost this particular battle for the leading design as he looks away from the team (“huffs with annoyance”).
In this midpoint sequence, like in the opening extract, there are only a couple of vocal speakers and the rest of the team remain relatively silent and acquiescent. Adrian still retains a dominant position, but this has been contested by Frank. His early sidekick and supporter, Chris, does not speak during the sequence, implying perhaps that he, like the others, is waiting to see who will “win” this particular exchange and emerge in the leader role.
Extract 5: Women-Only Group
Ge: so guys how do you [how do you
Ju: [well spent
Ka: [you’re just going to accept one =
Ju:= it’s going to take you more than five seconds to try and
attach it =
Ge: = [yeah
Ka: [if you got the results it’s simple (continues to
sellotape) [that’s done
Ge: [yeah you should
put (.) shall we no [shall we
Mo: [but why don’t we make (. . .) =
Ha: = we’re not allowed to hang or tape or or =
Ge: = no we’re allowed to do it from the floor there was
nothing to to to talk about the floor just the walls and
the ceiling if you had listened carefully (.) um:: =
Ju: = so we can tape to the floor
Ge: [no I was thinking we could (. . .)
Ju: [so we could measure the floor then
Vs: (all talking at once and almost indecipherable)
At exactly the same midpoint in the activity as the men-only group above, the women’s team is deeply involved in planning their design. Georgina’s design was contested early on by Julie and later, Lucy, who had each offered different designs. Georgina did not fight these contestations, but as a consequence, no clear alternative design had emerged. At this point in the sequence, it is not at all clear to the observer which design has been accepted or discussed. Also, the discussion itself presents a significant challenge to IS analysis, as it was very difficult to decipher and transcribe. This was because there is very little in the way of orderly turn taking and instead considerable use of overlapping, co-constructed, and simultaneous conversation. Even after repeated replaying of the video file, it was challenging to capture all the utterances.
At this point, Georgina is still stretching across the table in a physically dominant position but Katarina has also assumed a central position by taking control of the model building with other members grouped around her trying to help. In line 1, Georgina attempts to make a “chairing” move by asking about the design that Katarina is modeling. However, no attempt is made by other members of the team to observe a “turn transition relevance point” (Sacks et al., 1974), as Georgina is “overlapped” midquestion by both Julie and Katarina. The conversational focus, if there is one, seems to be between Julie and Katarina who are working on the model, with Georgina making prompting comments. In line 4, Julie offers Katarina advice, to which Georgina agrees, but she is overlapped by Katarina who brushes off that advice (“if you got the results it’s simple”). In line 9, Georgina once again attempts to prompt the activity by offering advice, making three false starts (“[yeah you should put (.) shall we no [shall we”), to which no one obviously responds. This disfluency indicates that she may have lost the leadership position she had established quite quickly in the first extract. Instead, Mona makes a suggestion that is heard by Haleema but not picked up by the recording, and to which Haleema responds dismissively in line 12, which is then echoed by Georgina. The latter then makes a categorical assertion in which she refers to the rules of the task (“no we’re not allowed to do it from the floor . . .”) possibly as a means to reestablish her authority. She follows this up with an admonishing, qualifying statement to Haleema: “if you had listened carefully (.) um::.” That Georgina feels she can “tick off” Haleema indexes a return of her authority, which is possibly inappropriate within the more collaborative “floor” (Edelsky, 1981) established by the rest of the team. Certainly, this show of authority is ignored by the rest of the team. While in line 15 Julie attempts to build on Georgina’s advice (“so we can tape to the floor?”), she then ignores Georgina’s response by talking over it in line 18 and moving on to a new idea.
Unlike with the men-only team, there is no obvious sense here of two individuals competing for the best design or for the leadership position. However, it appears that Georgina is acting to maintain control as leader despite the lack of obvious support from her colleagues, as we see by the number of unsuccessful moves she makes to reestablish this. Another difference between the two teams is the way in which everyone on the women’s team speaks, even if no one is responding to them. Of the six members of the team, only Lucy says nothing (that I can hear) in this extract. While the interaction in the men-only team was largely orderly and sequential, the interaction here is more free-for-all, frenetic yet indicating a shared distribution of leadership linguistic practices.
Extract 6: Mixed Group
Na: so would that sit on top of that? (eyeing up the model
from table level) so that’s not centered but:: (.) what do
you think? (looking at Oliver)
So: roughly
Ol: no that’s enough
Na: that’s enough? (.) [so how many are we?
Ra: (looking at Peter) [so are we going to start tape (.)
sellotaping?
Pe: yeah yeah
Te: so how many do we need? two four six seven?
So: seven yeah
Na: so four seven (1) ten? twelve? (looking at Oliver) =
Ra: = then it would be ten then fifteen? (looking at Nazar)
Vs: (calculating sounds)
Na: (1) ten fifteen OK:: (.) hehheh
Ra: hehheh (indicating with hands in a praying motion and
laughing at Naz)
Na: fifteen so
Te: we’ve got eight haven’t we?
Na: so so you (.) we (.) the thing that we’ve got to be
conscious of is that if this is too narrow:: then the
whole structure is going to go like that (sways with his
body; laughter from others)
At exactly the same midpoint in the leadership team task as the men-only and women-only groups above, the mixed-gender group is working cooperatively but broadly in two subgroups to plan the task and to construct a model of the tower they intend to build. After playing a low-key role in the first extract, Nazar is now speaking more and directing others more, indexing a more dominant position in the group.
In line 1, Nazar is sizing up the model from table level, and he asks two questions that are apparently directed at Oliver, who, as I argued above, had taken a leading role in the opening sequence. However Nazar’s approach is consultative; he is looking for feedback from Oliver, which in the event both Sophie and Oliver give in lines 4 and 5. Nazar takes up Oliver’s response specifically but again in the form of a question and a follow-up question as if to seek reassurance (“that’s enough? So how many are we?). Rachel then asks a “process managing” question of Peter in line 7, indicating dual conversations at this point. The two conversations merge into one in line 10, when Tessa asks two further “process managing” questions, “so how many do we need? two four six seven?” Sophie, who has appointed herself as the “figures person” supplies the answer needed, and Nazar builds on her answer in line 12.
Throughout the sequence, the series of utterances are jointly constructed by the team as they aim to solve the task’s problem by thinking aloud. The overall pattern of the conversation is an orderly sequence of questions and answers to which all the team members contribute. The topic of conversation is the number of cylinders needed to build each level of the tower, which indexes a unified focus on the task in hand. There are co-constructed utterances about calculations until line 19. While the topic is mainly task-focused, and indicates the type of language needed to win a competitive team task of this type, there are also clear elements of “relational talk” (Holmes, 2006), indicating the linguistic work team members are carrying out to build harmonious relationships. In line 15, Nazar indicates he has reached a final solution with the words “ten fifteen OK:: (.) hehheh.” In line 16, Rachel echoes Nazar’s laugh of relief by laughing herself to show her solidarity with him. She then makes a mock praying action while continuing to laugh at/with Naz. This suggests that there is a relaxed and easy mood in the group, which is nonetheless business-like. Tessa’s comment in line 16 returns the focus of conversation to numerical calculations, and Nazar’s final comment here indexes once again that he is positioning himself as the group’s technical expert. However, his use of false starts, pauses and “self-repairs” (“so so you (.) we (.) the thing that . . .”) suggest that he is tentative about this positioning. His use of body language in lines 22 to 23 to illustrate his technical point, and the laugh it elicits, maintains the sense of good humor in this team activity.
Unlike the men-only and women-only teams, no single participant attempts to take up a leadership position or to defend it during the task process. While Nazar has taken on the role of technical expert, this is never assumed, and it is negotiated with his colleagues in a cautious way through the use of questions, pauses, and rewordings. Nevertheless, Nazar is the dominant speaker (in terms of number of words and turns taken as well as assertions made), and it is to a male colleague, Oliver, that he turns for support on two occasions in the sequence (lines 3 and 12). However both Rachel and Tessa play significant roles in managing the process of the task, which seems to empower them as team players. Rachel asks a key steering question in line 7 and Tessa asks similarly task-focused questions in lines 10 and 19. Both Nazar and Rachel are responsible for maintaining solidarity and good humor in the team with each switching between joker and audience positions. This sequence potentially has much to tell us about how effective interaction in a leadership team is/can be carried out.
Discussion
The use of IS can provide synchronous “snapshots” from the sequence of interaction within the three teams. Such analyses can produce rich, detailed, situated, micro-linguistic assessments of how leadership emerges and develops in the case of these three differently gendered teams. Such analyses can show exactly what leadership “looks and sounds like” at particular moments within a competitive team task. This comparative study demonstrates how the elusive organizational phenomenon of (gendered) leadership can, almost literally, be talked into being. In order to elucidate this claim further, I first briefly discuss how the leadership team task was judged from a business perspective and, second, discuss what we can learn about the enactment of gendered leadership from a social constructionist (SC) perspective.
In terms of the task outcome, the mixed-gender team was judged by the professor of social sciences to have met the criteria (height, strength and functionality, aesthetics) the most effectively, and therefore to have won the task. This team produced by far the tallest tower (a triangular structure two meters in height), which supported a glass comfortably without falling over, and was deemed to be the most aesthetically pleasing using differently colored levels. The women’s team was ranked second. While it built by far the smallest tower (a mere 45 centimeters from the ground), the tower was able to support a glass for a short while before it collapsed, and was judged to have used colors in an attractive way. The men’s team came a close third; their tower was the second highest (about 1 meter) and was deemed aesthetically pleasing, but crucially it failed to support a glass. In fact the tower fell over in a matter of seconds. In a real business setting, the mixed-gender team would have decisively won the contract and beat the opposition!
From a SC perspective, the opening sequence transcripts show some similarities between the men and women-only teams in terms of the construction of emerging leadership. In both teams a single individual assumes the leadership subject position early on, although in the men-only team, Adrian leads by his apparent technical expertise, whereas in the women-only team, Georgina uses dominance strategies which initially silence the voices around her. Both individuals seek approval for their putative leadership from the next most vocal member of their team: Adrian is quickly supported by Chris, and Georgina converts Haleema’s contestation for the “best” idea into support for her own idea. One notable difference is that while there is plenty of vocal support for Adrian’s leadership from male colleagues, there is an eerie silence from Georgina’s colleagues in response to her ideas, which might indicate that they feel excluded from the conversation by the “center stage” interaction of Georgina and Haleema.
Any similarities between the men and women-only teams have evaporated by the midpoint sequences. These show that the men-only team has maintained its hierarchical structure with Adrian as the dominant voice still asserting his technical expertise and leadership over the team. However, there is now a keen, competitive dynamic between two of the team members with Frank contesting Adrian’s leadership by means of an alternative design, for which he wins colleagues’ support. In contrast, the women-only team constructs a much more egalitarian ethic. Although Georgina maintains an authoritative voice in this extract, she is now one of many voices vying to be heard. Indeed so evenly distributed is the positioning of speakers and so cacophonous the discussion that no design decisions are reached. With no single speaker being listened to, it is hardly surprising that the team fail to agree on or to collaborate successfully on producing a final, winning design.
In contrast, the mixed team are far more consultative in their linguistic practices than the men- and women-only teams, which may have been the key to their success. They listen to each other carefully (as constructed, for example, by the more orderly style of turn taking), they are more solicitous of each other’s opinions, yet this is balanced by a greater degree of “managing the process,” with the consequence that the task is organized and conducted efficiently. Gender as an identity categorization (Kitzinger, 2007) is made directly relevant to the task by participants’ repeated references to the complementary strengths of the team. This is also reflected in the gendered division of roles and responsibilities with men taking on the more technical and “engineering” aspects, and women assuming roles for task organization and aesthetic design.
How does a SC perspective account for this evidence of gender differences across the three teams? As stated above, SC does not explain gender differences in terms of the essentialist notion of differently gendered linguistic styles, but rather in terms of dominant discourses of gender difference that circulate historically, and have become reified in Western cultures and beyond (Crawford, 1995). However, rather than being confined by discourses of gender difference, individuals can conform to, negotiate, or resist these conventional discourses in multiple ways. Women and men are therefore never bound by “gendered discourses” (Sunderland, 2004). Indeed, we can see evidence of this multiplicity of discursive practices within the women’s team and the mixed teams in particular.
With respect to the women’s team, participants’ linguistic interactions supported discourses of gender difference in some ways, but contested them in other ways. I have shown how the women produced linguistic practices that were egalitarian, free-for-all, and highly vocal compared to the more hierarchical, orderly talk of the men. The women also enacted leadership in a more distributed, co-constructed way so that everyone had a voice (e.g., Edelsky, 1981). But there were various ways in which the women also contested conventions of gender difference in their leadership language. While the team was apparently egalitarian, they furiously competed for linguistic space by talking over each other, refusing to listen to each other’s design ideas, failing to achieve a consensus, and so on. It was apparent that every woman participant wanted to be heard, not simply to claim a share of the business of enacting leadership, but to be the most persuasive or dominant voice. Ironically this competition to be vocally dominant did not serve their team well in terms of achieving a successful business outcome.
With respect to the mixed team, their linguistic interaction also appeared to support discourses of gender difference in some ways yet to challenge these in other ways. In terms of conforming to gendered norms, there was evidence of women and men displaying complementary strengths (Tannen, 1995). While male participants in the team spent more time on the business of design and development, female participants offered a “support service” of agreeing with and building on men’s ideas, checking information, and clarifying decisions. It was also the women, who tended stereotypically to offer proposals about the use of color and aesthetics—if with ironic self-awareness. One of the reasons for the mixed team’s success might have been that, as a team, they implicitly accepted the gendered principle of complementary strengths rather than feeling compelled to prove themselves to be effective in all possible roles and tasks as the women-only and men-only teams had to do. But the women in the mixed team also managed to resist gender-stereotyped positioning as they were able to be authoritative in their ways of managing their colleagues and processes during the task. Both Rachel and Tessa in particular went “against the gendered grain” by taking charge of the task process, which empowered them as team players. They frequently told men what to do. Indeed Tessa emerged as the dominant player toward the end of the task. Having volunteered to be timekeeper, she effectively managed the task and people’s roles to its highly successful conclusion.
Conclusion
This study indicates that emerging leadership does vary according to the linguistic practices of differently gendered teams, although not in stereotypical ways. In my view, the findings also offer feminist linguistic insights to explain the issue of why so few women in the business world manage to progress to senior leadership level. These findings are conceptualized within a SC framework that disputes the commonsense, essentialist view that there are fundamental differences between women and men, either as a result of biological diversity or a consequence of sex-role socialization processes. Rather scholars such as Sunderland (2004) have suggested that mainstream “gendered discourses” such as “gender difference” are responsible for partially shaping women and men’s language and behavior, in that they create dominant cultural expectations about how different genders should speak and routinely interact.
From this study of middle-ranking managers, I have learned that women do resist gendered discourses that assume that women prefer to utilize a “relational” or cooperative linguistic style. The women in both the all-female and the mixed teams demonstrated that they could be authoritative and managing with peers when required. They were also prepared to compete with each other in order to put their ideas forward, persuade each other and influence team decisions. Furthermore, the women in the all-female team spoke and interacted in competitive rather than cooperative ways in order that no single person would be positioned permanently as leader—although this did construct an egalitarian team ethic. Within the mixed team, there was some evidence of a gender difference discourse in the form of complementary strengths. While this form of the discourse signifies the danger, in feminist terms, that both women and men might regress to more restrictive, gendered practices (“men are engineers, women make things pretty”), the participants were also prepared to challenge and cross conventional gender boundaries as stated above. At times, the men spoke in ways that were consultative and considerate, and the women spoke in ways that were assertive in order to accomplish the task process.
From the evidence of this study, I suggest that there are two linguistic insights that might help to explain why women still struggle to reach top positions in the business world. The first is that the women-only team interacted in ways that are both egalitarian yet competitive with each other, an ethic that would not be compatible with the ways in which the men-only team interacted. As we saw in the all-male team, the men spoke and interacted in ways that tended to construct a hierarchical yet competitive team ethic. There was a division between those men who used authoritative, competitive talk like Adrian and Frank, and those men who listened, used more supportive language, and followed the leaders. Men also appeared to have longer, more orderly turns, which allowed them to produce more fully formed ideas, whereas the women’s turns were shorter, producing numerous embryonic ideas that were never realized into fully fledged solutions. If this study has found a difference in the ways in which middle managers customarily interact in all-male and all-female teams, it may provide a potential reason why some women struggle to “fit in” to male-dominated boardrooms (Sealy, 2010).
The second, linked insight from the study is that the women-only team tried to block the emergence of one of their number in a leadership role. The team gave very little support to Georgina’s attempt to take up the leadership position, but the team might have been more successful in the task if it had. When Georgina did speak and interact in a “leaderly” way, either team members fell silent and refused to participate, or competed with each other by taking part in intensive “jamming” sessions of chaotic, multilayered, and simultaneous talk. While this talk was creative in that many different ideas were proposed and maintained a sense of equality between team members, the disadvantage was that no single idea received a fair hearing or achieved the support of the whole team. Could it be the case that women themselves do not always enable other women to become leaders? While an egalitarian leadership team structure produced through talk may have professionally creative and relational advantages, it may not always serve the best interests of aspiring career women.
In sum, this article builds on previous work that demonstrates the significance of language for “doing” business leadership (e.g., Clifton, 2012; Cunliffe, 2001; Fairhurst, 2007; Holmes, 2006) and for performing leadership in gendered ways (e.g., Angouri & Marra, 2012; Clifton, 2012; Fairhurst, 2007; Holmes, 2006; Nielsen, 2009; Olsson, 2006; Sealy, 2010; Still, 2006). An IS approach is well suited to analyzing the situated, multifaceted, culturally bound, and gendered aspects of leadership enactment and interaction, but the quest to theorize IS to the level of complexity required by scholars of feminist linguistics and business communication will continue to evolve. Finally, this study supports Kanter’s (1993) classic view that gender balance and diversity within a leadership team enables its members to utilize a wider linguistic and business communication repertoire, leading to more supportive working relationships and the successful accomplishment of business leadership goals.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.