The Language of Female Leadership

This scene takes place in a boardroom of a large multi-national company in the centre of London, UK:

I doubt that any business today would openly describe itself as a Male-Dominated corporation, and many senior people might say ‘that’s ancient history and we’re not like that!’ Over 30 years of equal opportunities and laws against sex discrimination have ensured that most businesses in the 21^st century would say they openly support and encourage women’s careers.

You may initially feel that the Gender-Divided corporation, based on the principle of gender difference, is barely a step forward from the Male-Dominated corporation described in the last chapter. Once again, many organisations today might deny that gender difference affects the distribution of jobs, individual career progress, conditions of work or pay — especially in light of legislation and professional codes of practice that seek to guarantee gender equality. Yet in my research experience, many companies in the western world have elements within them of gender difference, even if these are usually experienced quite subtly through attitudes, terms of address, speech styles, behaviour, appearance, dress and ‘representations’ of people in internal communications. Traditional as it still may be, the Gender-Divided corporation is definitely a better place to work for senior women than the Male-Dominated version in the sense that women are generally valued and supported rather than marginalised or disparaged.

This chapter proposes that the Gender-Multiple corporation can offer female leaders a more hospitable linguistic environment in which to succeed than the Male-Dominated or Gender-Divided Corporations. Early research evidence suggests that this type of corporation is emergent, it exists sporadically in many organisations today, and that it is part of the change agenda of more forward-looking organisations that seek to enhance the talents of people of different genders, ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds. The chapter provides evidence that not only are individual senior women initiating more powerful and influential ways of using language in order to enable their own effectiveness as leaders, but organisations are developing inclusive, female-friendly practices with which to support this quest.

This chapter and the next explore some of the linguistic strategies female leaders have evolved to succeed in different types of corporation. I argue that senior women have developed a special kind of linguistic expertise or ‘work’ that they must do in order to be viewed by their peers and subordinates as effective leaders. It is likely that their male colleagues are entirely unaware of the extra linguistic work women do, as generally, they do not have to make this effort themselves. My research experience shows that women leaders demonstrate a much greater concern with the impact of their language on others than male leaders do (Baxter 2008). This is because male leaders do not need to have the same concern with the impact of their gender, particularly in male-dominated contexts. In many ways senior women have learnt to hone the ways in which they interact with colleagues on different levels and grades. However, this use of a special kind of linguistic expertise did not seem to affect relationships with clients to the same extent, where differences in role and relationship were more clearly contrasted and defined (ibid). In both Male-Dominated and Gender-Divided corporations, I argue that the need for linguistic expertise for senior women is essential for their survival but may well prove self-defeating in some contexts as we shall see. In the case study that follows, I consider the range of linguistic strategies that senior women from a number of top UK multinational companies say they use, and the perceived impact of this on their roles and performance as leaders. Based on this research evidence, I suggest that developing such linguistic expertise could support women performing senior management roles, especially in the Gender-Multiple corporation.

This case study seeks to address the two principal aims in this book. The first is to find out whether there is a language of leadership that is exclusive to women, and the second is to explore how female leaders can utilise language as effectively as possible to achieve their business goals, and in certain contexts, to counter negative evaluations made against them because they are women.

In this chapter, I draw upon emerging practice from the key research studies I have reviewed so far to suggest the strategies and contexts which might enable individual senior women to use language as effectively as possible to achieve their business goals. I further consider strategies which corporations can use to counter negative evaluations made against senior women.

In this final chapter, I shall give my response to the driving question of this book, ‘Is language a reason why female leaders continue to be under-represented at senior level?’ This book has shown how a senior woman’s use of language has constructed a leadership style that at times contrasts uncomfortably with the masculinised norms of the business world (Vinnicombe and Singh 2002). A contrast in leadership style can create serious problems for senior women in terms of how their roles, practices and relationships with others are enacted, received and represented. However, a female leader’s language is also strongly shaped by the contexts and communities of practice in which she works. Depending on this context, the gendered nature of leadership language may become a ‘problem’ for senior women, or alternatively be celebrated as a valuable and distinctive ‘asset’.