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JOBXXX10.1177/2329488415598429International Journal of Business CommunicationWalker and Aritz
Article
Women Doing Leadership:
Leadership Styles and
Organizational Culture
International Journal of
Business Communication
2015, Vol. 52(4) 452–478
© The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/2329488415598429
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Robyn C. Walker1 and Jolanta Aritz1
Abstract
Although women in the United States make up about half of the workforce, only 14.6%
of executive officer positions in the Fortune 500 and 16.9% of Fortune 500 board
of director seats in 2013 were held by women, numbers that have remained flat for
the past decade. Decades after the so-called “feminist revolution,” women are still
struggling to be seen as leaders within organizations even though many have put in place
hiring and recruitment policies to help eliminate this problem. Our study examines this
disparity by observing how leadership emerges and is negotiated in discourse among
male and female participants in decision-making groups in a masculine organizational
culture. First, it identifies whether female participants randomly assigned to mixedgender groups emerge as leaders. Second, it analyzes the discourse of those competing
for leadership positions in mixed groups to identify the effects of leadership style on
leader attribution by others. Of the 22 mixed-gender groups (N = 110) that took
part in our study, no woman emerged as the unanimously chosen leader, even though
women were identified as leaders by transcript coders. This article uses a case study
approach to analyze leadership emergence in two mixed groups in which women were
recognized by some members as demonstrating leadership. It then looks at a third
case that demonstrates how some discourse behaviors that have been recognized as
leadership may not be viewed as such in a masculine organizational culture. Study results
illustrate how organizational culture can define accepted ways of “doing” leadership and
affect who is and who is not recognized as a leader, particularly in terms of gender.
Keywords
turn-taking, leadership communication, gender and leadership, discourse analysis,
interaction analysis
1University
of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Robyn C. Walker, University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business, Trousdale Parkway,
ACC 400, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
Email: robyn.walker@marshall.usc.edu
Walker and Aritz
453
Although women in the United States make up about half of the workforce, only
14.6% of executive officer positions in the Fortune 500 companies in 2013 were held
by women, a number that has remained flat for the past decade (Soares, Bartkiewicz,
& Mulligan-Ferry, 2013). That year, women held only 16.9% of Fortune 500 board of
director seats, the same level as 2012 (Soares et al., 2013). Much has happened since
the women’s movement that arose in the 1960s to better integrate women into the
public sphere, but even after more than 50 years, they still lag behind men in leadership positions. This problem has been tackled by many organizations at the policy
level, by putting in place programs to recruit and promote women, but as the numbers
indicate, this approach has been far from successful.
Our study attempts to better understand this phenomenon by observing how leadership emerges and is negotiated in discourse among male and female participants in
decision-making groups in a masculine organizational culture. It first identifies whether
female participants randomly assigned to mixed-gender groups emerge as leaders.
Second, it analyzes the discourse of those competing for leadership positions in mixedgender groups to identify the effects of leadership style on leader attribution by others.
This study attempts to bring together research from two approaches to the study of
leadership: what has been called the “psychological” approach and the discursive
approach. It does so by first asking participants to identify the leaders of their group by
identifying specific communicative traits they observed; we then look at the talk that is
exhibited in the group interaction and how it creates certain leadership styles (Aritz &
Walker, 2014). Ultimately, we are interested in looking at whether and how organizational culture affects the type of leadership that is recognized in mixed groups of men
and women and how leadership is negotiated within a masculine organizational culture.
Discourse Studies in Leadership and Gender
An increasing body of research is studying leadership by looking at language and
approaching the phenomenon as an act of social constructionism (Alvesson &
Kärreman, 2000; Fairhurst, 2007, 2009). From this perspective, leadership is viewed
in the context of what leaders do and is thus discursive in nature. According to
Robinson (2001), “leadership is exercised when ideas expressed in talk or actions are
recognized by others as capable of progressing tasks or problems which are important
to them” (p. 93). According to Fairhurst (2008), this definition enables us to understand leadership as a process of influence and meaning management that advances a
talk or goal, an attribution made by followers or observers, and a process, in which
influence may shift and distribute itself among several organizational members. “To
wit, leadership is co-constructed, a product of sociohistorical and collective meaningmaking, and negotiated on an ongoing basis through a complex interplay among leadership actors, be they designated or emergent leaders, managers, followers, or both”
(Fairhurst & Grant, 2010, p. 210).
This perspective contrasts with the psychological approach to leadership, which is
prevalent in management studies, particularly in the United States, where a psychological lens and traditional empiricist methods still dominate (Alvesson & Sveningsson,
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International Journal of Business Communication 52(4)
2003; Conger, 1998; Fairhurst, 2007; Knights & Wilmott, 1992). The concern of this
approach is with the cognitive or social-cognitive origins of leadership and the perceptions they generate with weight given to the mental over the behavioral (Fairhurst,
2007). From this perspective, leadership is seen as residing within the individual and
is often associated with certain personality traits divorced from the organizational
culture.
More and more researchers, though, are treating language as a methodological question and a window into cultural meanings. A linguistic focus is also enabling scholars to
rethink traditional approaches to business issues and in doing so, to reveal more nuanced
details about how such issues as leadership are “brought off” (Fairhurst, 2007).
Like leadership, gender is a social construct. Gender is different from biological sex.
It is a social patterning that has been created over time and that has been passed down
from generation to generation within a culture. It is learned behavior that we enact each
day to “create” our gendered selves. We do so through our clothing and accessory
choices, our mannerisms, our vocal qualities, the way we walk, and talk, and the things
we say and do, all activities that can be broadly thought of as communication if we
understand that communication is a symbol system that conveys meaning to others
through the process of perception. The meanings associated with specific communication displays over time have become coded as “male” or “female” and have thus created
stereotypes that we rely on in order to make meaning of our environment.
Social constructionist theory contends that there are mainstream discourses of
“gender difference” circulating in Western culture (e.g., Cameron, 2006; Sunderland,
2004), with the effect that the biological category of “men” is positioned to speak and
behave in ways stereotypically coded as “masculine,” while “women” are positioned
to speak and behave in ways coded as “feminine,” even though individuals can and do
resist such stereotypical positioning.
Elements of Talk: Latching, Overlaps, and Questions
Discourse studies have thus focused on how features of talk are coded as feminine or
masculine. For example, Coates (1996) found that women tend to construct talk jointly
and that the group takes priority over the individual as women’s voices combine to
construct a shared text. Utterances are often jointly constructed; in other words, speakers often cooperate to produce a chunk of talk. In addition, Coates observed that women
friends often combine as speakers so that two or more voices may contribute to talk at
the same time. This kind of overlapping speech is not seen as competitive, as a way of
grabbing a turn, because the various contributions to talk are on the same theme.
Women’s talk is also characterized by the frequent use of questions whose main
function is interactive rather than information seeking (i.e., the question, “there are
limits aren’t there?” checks that a shared perspective obtains and does not expect an
answer except perhaps for “yeah” or “mhm”; Coates, 1996).
While women’s voices combine and overlap, men take turns to hold court. Male
friends prefer a one-at-a-time pattern of talking, with one speaker holding the floor for
an extended period at any one time; overlapping speech is avoided and is viewed as
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Walker and Aritz
Table 1. Widely Cited Characteristics of “Feminine” and “Masculine” Styles.
Feminine
Indirect
Conciliatory
Facilitative
Collaborative
Minor contribution (in public)
Supportive feedback
Person/process-oriented
Affectively oriented
Masculine
Direct
Confrontational
Competitive
Autonomous
Dominates speaking time publicly
Aggressive interruptions
Task/outcome-oriented
Referentially oriented
Source. Adapted from Holmes and Stubbe (2003).
contentious for seeking the floor. In terms of questions, men use them to seek information from each other, taking it in turns to play the expert. Table 1 below identifies
widely cited characteristics of “male” and “female” talk.
Elements of Talk: Amount of Talk
In more formal situations, the majority of studies find that men talk more than women.
This outcome has been attributed to status characteristics theory, which focuses on
how status differences organize interaction (Capella, 1985; Slater, 1966; Stein &
Heller, 1979). According to this theory, individuals involved in social interactions
evaluate themselves relative to the other individuals involved and come to hold expectations as to how and how well they will perform in relation to every other participant
in the interaction (Capella, 1985; Slater, 1966; Stein & Heller, 1979). These “self-other
performance expectations” provide the structure of the interaction, which then determines the subsequent interaction.
Research has shown that those with higher status participate more in task-oriented
dyads or groups than those with lower status (Capella, 1985; Slater, 1966; Stein &
Heller, 1979). Since men have traditionally held higher status than have women, one
would expect men to talk more in task-oriented or instrumental situations.
Elements of Talk and Leadership Style
In our research on leadership styles (Aritz & Walker, 2014), we found that overlaps
and questions were also used differently by different types of leaders (see Table 1). A
directive leader uses questions to direct agreement on interaction participants, does not
link his or her comments to the previous speaker’s statement, and makes abrupt topic
shifts as well as uses minimal active listening techniques and tends to interrupt other
speakers. Our research has indicated that those using the directive style often talk significantly more than others participating in the interaction. As such, the directive leadership style shares many of the common elements of what Coates has identified in
masculine gendered talk.
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International Journal of Business Communication 52(4)
In contrast, a cooperative leader uses questions to solicit information or participation from others, acknowledges the position or statement of previous speakers, avoids
abrupt topic shifts, uses active listening techniques, and uses cooperative overlaps to
show her support of other’s ideas. Our research indicates that those using a cooperative leadership style significantly reduce the imbalance of talk between leader and
followers. Because of this as well as the use of questions and cooperative overlaps of
this type of leader, this style is more in line with Coates’s description of feminine talk.
A third leadership style, collaborative, is also known as “distributed leadership,”
which is defined as a property that emerges in team situations in which influence is
distributed across multiple team members (Carson, Tesluk, & Marrone, 2007). In this
style, participants use questions to frame the interaction and to check for agreement
among members, acknowledge some of the contribution of others but more commonly
build on other’s statements producing smooth topic shifts, even though these contributions may overlap with those of others.
Organizational Culture and Communities of Practice
Workplace settings play a critical role in the construction and enactment of members’
social identities. Organizations are “minicultures” that provide “sources and sites of
identification for individuals” (Aaltio & Mills, 2002; Jenkins, 1996). More specifically, organizations contribute to the construction of member identities in at least two
ways: They classify members into roles that have particular meanings and they develop
discursive norms from which members draw to interact with others (Schnurr, 2009).
Through these processes, organizations create leaders and subordinates.
Each organizational culture is different in the norms they provide to individuals to
construct their roles. Hofstede (1980, 1998) describes masculine and feminine national
cultures as representing the sex role pattern that is dominant in a given society and
further suggests the masculinity-femininity dimension of a nation’s culture is reflected
by organizations within that culture. Masculine cultures, such as Japan and Italy,
emphasize the need for men to be successful breadwinners or be viewed as failures,
and relatively few women occupy higher paying executive and top management positions. In Hofstede’s typology, American culture is considered moderately high in
masculinity.
In feminine cultures, such as Sweden and the Netherlands, it is the norm for both
men and women to pursue higher paying careers, and both males and females receive
cultural support for prioritizing family time over time spent on the job. The women in
higher level positions in these cultures are not necessarily expected to be assertive or
to display the qualities and behaviors that are considered traditionally masculine
(Hofstede 1980). Lyness and Kropf (2005) found that nations characterized as having
feminine cultures tend to have organizational cultures that support work and family
balance.
American organizations typically are characterized by a competitive, masculine
organizational culture, which aligns with our “masculine” national culture. This organizational culture values respect for authority, competition, individualism, independence, and task orientation (Loden, 1985; Maier, 1999). Authoritarian management
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457
practices, respect for hierarchical structures, and adherence to chain-of-command are
emphasized. Other values associated with a competitive organizational culture are
assertive and aggressive behavior toward external or internal competitors and emphasis on individual, extrinsic rewards.
Supportive, feminine organizational cultures value and respect participation, collaboration, egalitarianism, and interpersonal relationships (Maier, 1999). There is less
emphasis on hierarchical control; the supportive organizational culture focuses on
group rather than individual rewards and places less emphasis on extrinsic rewards
relative to intrinsic rewards (Loden, 1985). The cultural values associated with a supportive culture promote a balance of career and family roles, while competitive organizational cultures value commitment to the organization and the expectation that an
employee’s career should be given priority over other roles (Maier, 1999).
In contrast to organizational culture, discourse researchers have used the concept of
communities of practice as a means of identifying the linguistic strategies members
use to negotiate organizational identity. A community of practice is an aggregate of
people who come together around mutual engagement in some common endeavor.
Ways of doing things, ways of talking, beliefs, values, power relations—in short, practices—emerge in the course of their joint activity around that endeavor (Eckert &
McConnell-Ginet, 1992). A community of practice is different as a social construct
from the traditional notion of community, primarily because it is defined simultaneously by its membership and by the practice in which that membership engages. It is
the practices of the community and members’ differentiated participation in them that
structures the community.
Speakers develop linguistic patterns as they engage in activity in the various communities in which they participate. In actual practice, social meaning, social identity,
community membership, forms of participation, the full range of community practices, and the symbolic value of linguistic form are being constantly and mutually
constructed (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 1992). The linguistic practices of any given
community of practice are continually changing as a result of the many features that
come into play through the interaction of its multiple members. In particular, organizations “provide a repertoire of procedures, contracts, rules, processes, and policies” that
are then incorporated by the various communities of practice “into their own practices
in order to decide in specific situations what they mean in practice, when to comply
with them and when to ignore them” (Wenger, 1998, p. 245). Leaders and other organizational actors draw on this linguistic repertoire as well as the norms and values of
their workplace culture to produce their discursive behaviors.
Workplace culture is thus a “communicative construction” that is “created and recreated as people interact over time” (Modaff & DeWine, 2002, p. 88). It is a system of
shared meanings and values as reflected in the discursive and behavioral norms typically displayed by members that distinguishes the group or organization from others.
It should be noted that organizations may be made up of multiple subcultures that may
“co-exist in harmony, conflict, or indifference to each other” (Frost, Moore, Louis,
Lundberg, & Martin, 1991, p. 8). Workplace culture contributes significantly to the
establishment of norms and expectations about leadership by defining what competent
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and effective leadership means (Hickman, 1998; Schein, 1992). The relationship
between workplace culture and leadership, though, is complex in that leaders themselves also play an important role in the creation, maintenance, and change of workplace culture (Neuhauser, Bender, & Stromberg, 2000; Parry & Proctor-Thomson,
2003; Schein, 1992).
Gender is also produced and reproduced in differential forms of participation in
particular communities of practice. Women tend to be subordinate to men in the workplace; for example, women in the military have not traditionally engaged in combat,
and in the academy, most theoretical disciplines are overwhelmingly male with women
concentrated in descriptive and applied disciplines that “support” theorizing. The relations among communities of practice when they come together in overarching communities of practice also produce gender arrangements.
Holmes (2006) has shown that effective leaders are able to draw expertly on a repertoire of linguistic strategies stereotypically coded as masculine and feminine. The
critical component, though, in determining their overall effectiveness is how actors are
positioned by their community of practice. Like linguistic strategies, a community of
practice can be either feminine, that is, supportive and team oriented, or masculine,
competitive, and individualistic.
Mullany (2007) found numerous examples in her studies of management meetings
whereby males use cooperative strategies and females use competitive strategies,
depending on the community of practice in which they were situated. She argues that
theorists should take greater account of the norms and conventions of different communities of practice, as well as institutional status, role, and corporate discourses, in
order to achieve a more finely grained understanding of how different business communities “do leadership.”
This study thus takes up Mullany’s call by using a discursive lens to analyze the
different communication patterns used in mixed-gender groups to negotiate leadership. It will identify the main leadership communication styles that emerged in small
groups of business professionals and will then focus on the community of business
professionals to see which styles were recognized as leadership attempts and which
participants were identified as leaders by team members of these mixed groups.
Participants and Data Collection
All participants (N = 110) involved in the study were business professionals enrolled
in an MBA program at a private university in Southern California with an average of
10 years of work experience. Participants were randomly assigned to groups of four to
six persons each. This random division resulted in 22 mixed-gender teams.
The simulation used in the study, Subarctic Survival, asked each group to take the
role of airplane crash survivors. Groups were then asked to discuss and ultimately
agree on the ranking of items salvaged from the aircraft in terms of their critical function for survival. Although some may argue that this simulation will more likely call
men to a leadership role because it involves an outdoor survival situation, we did not
deem this a problem since the situation matches the masculine organizational culture
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in which the participants were involved, an MBA program located within a business
school where both male faculty and students dominate, and aggressive, individualistic
behaviors are encouraged and rewarded. The meetings were 20 minutes in length and
were held and videotaped in an experiential learning laboratory equipped with professional facilities and technicians. The meetings were held in English, and the videotapes were then transcribed.
In order for participants to identify the leader of each group, we developed a communication style–oriented measure of leadership attribute preference using six global leader
behaviors identified by the GLOBE Research Program—Charismatic/Value-based leadership, Team-Oriented leadership, Participative leadership, Autonomous leadership,
Humane-Oriented leadership, and Self-Protective leadership (House et al., 2004).1 Based
on the definition of these six global leader behaviors (Dorfman, Hanges, & Brodbeck,
2004), we derived five communication styles that we used to measure leadership. We collapsed two separate GLOBE categories, Team-Oriented and Participative leadership, into
one category “Involved other in decision-making process” based on the communicative
moves that the leadership style would exhibit. The five communication styles that were
derived were (1) decisive and task oriented; (2) involved others in the decision-making
process; (3) modest, compassionate, and supportive; (4) independent and self-reliant; (5)
status conscious and procedural. Participants were asked to complete this measure after
participating in the simulation, since it was believed that a trait-oriented approach to leadership (as opposed to a discursive one) would be easier for them to apply. We used the
results to identify the perceived leader of each team.
We also reviewed the transcripts to identify the leaders using discourse methods
involving number of turns, turn length, and use of questions. Using these characteristics, three persons reviewed the transcripts and identified each member as a leader, a
nonleader, or a transitory leader. (A transitory leader exhibits leadership behaviors at
various times during an interaction and may share leadership with others. As such, this
style of leadership more generally conforms with our collaborative leadership style.)
The results were then compared to ensure intercoder reliability.
Methodology for Transcript Analysis
Two methods of analysis were used to interpret the transcript data: turn-taking patterns
and interaction analysis. Both methods focus on a turn as the main unit of analysis to
observe how contribution changes when multicultural groups involved in decision
making are subject to different leadership styles. Turn taking is defined as the ordering
of moves that involves the interchange of talking by speakers (Johnstone, 2002).
First, we used turn taking to analyze conversational interaction and to examine different leadership styles and group dynamics. Our specific method of analysis of turn
taking is based on a model developed by Coates (1993) to analyze the management of
naturally occurring interactions in which she describes cooperative and competitive
conversation styles in gendered talk.
As alluded to earlier, Coates’s (1993) model of analysis focuses on the following
areas: (1) The meaning of questions—are they direct in purpose or used indirectly to
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facilitate conversation? (2) Links between speaker turns—does the speaker acknowledge the contribution of the previous speaker or talk on the topic without acknowledging that contribution? (3) Topic shifts—are they abrupt or do speakers build on each
other’s contributions? (4) Listening—is the speaker using backchannels or latching?
and (5) Simultaneous speech—do the speakers overlap by elaborating on the previous
contribution or does the contribution of the second speaker contradict or disrupt that
of the first speaker?
These interactional elements are used to analyze how their combination affects the
emergence of leadership within groups of business professionals. We followed
Schiffrin (1994) and used her transcription conventions (Schiffrin, 1987; see the
appendix) based on an earlier version of transcript notations by Jefferson (1979) to
transcribe our data. Since we did not focus on gaze or vocal qualities in our analysis,
we felt that Schiffrin’s conventions better served our needs. We did not include nonverbal clues, such as gaze and gestures, in our analysis because our focus was on language and the unit of analysis was limited to a turn as a vehicle to construct leadership
in talk. Nonverbal elements may provide additional insights into our understanding of
leadership, but they fell beyond the scope of this study.
Second, we used an interaction analysis approach, which involves the categorization of discourse units according to a predefined set of codes (Bakeman & Gottman,
1986). It is a quantitative approach to discourse analysis that draws from message
functions and language structures to assess the frequency and types of verbal interaction. More specifically, we tracked member contribution by looking at three variables:
the number of turns taken, number of words spoken, and the average turn length. We
calculated the number of turns taken by looking at how many times a participant spoke
in any given meeting. Turn length was used as another variable to measure member
contribution. We measured an average turn length by dividing the total number of
words spoken by each speaker by the number of turns they took. We selected a quantitative approach as a secondary method so as to more fully illuminate the findings
from our qualitative analysis.
Findings and Analysis
In the 22 mixed-gender teams, no woman emerged as the unanimously chosen leader
by team members. However, in two teams, women were selected by group members
as showing leader attributes. This finding contrasts sharply with the results of the discourse analysis and the identification by three coders who identified eight women
emerging as leaders of their respective groups, while in another six groups, women
shared leadership with other women or men as transitory leaders. Of the remaining
eight groups that were involved in the study, male leaders were identified in five and
as sharing leadership in three by transcript coders.
The discussion that follows provides an analysis of leadership emergence in the two
teams where at least one participant identified a woman as leader as well as a third
situation in which a female unsuccessfully attempted to “do” leadership in her group
but was not identified as a leader by any of participants. The first case illustrates the
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Table 2. Contribution to Decision Making by Group Member, Case Study 1.
Speaker
S1 male, English
S2 male, English
S3 male, English
S4 female, English
S5 female, English
Total turns
Total words
Words per turn
126
120
79
101
130
1,077
970
680
1,398
1,220
8.6
8
8.6
13.8
9
emergence of a more collaborative leadership style in which the two female participants identified the same woman as the leader of the group, whereas three male participants did not identify the female member as a leader in their group. The second
case shows the interaction process of a group in which a majority of members were
female—four of five—and in which the leader designation was divided between two
women and the sole male. The third case illustrates an example of an unsuccessful
attempt by a female to assert a leadership role using a cooperative leadership approach
in a situation in which one male talks relatively infrequently but when he does, he uses
a more direct style of leadership talk.
In the first two cases, the discussion will start with the results of the survey data
showing leader attribution results. This discussion will be followed with the interactional analysis to reveal who talked the most and the discursive analysis of the leadership style used by each participant identified as a leader in the group.
Case Study 1
The first mixed-gender group was composed of five participants, two females and
three males. Speaker 4, a female (S4F), identified herself as the leader and also was
selected as the leader by the second female, S5F. Both participants marked the communication styles “decisive and task oriented” (#1) and “involved others in decisionmaking process” (#2) as helping them identify the leader. Speaker 1, S1M, a male
participant, was selected as the leader by another male, S2M, who identified him as a
leader because of the same qualities of being “decisive and task-oriented style” (#1)
and “involving others in decision-making process” (#2). Notably, in both of these
cases, the participants were looking for the same qualities in a leader but selected different persons, of different genders. S1M reported that there was no one leader and
said that it was “leadership by consensus,” and a third male S3M was unable to select
a clear leader, placing a question mark on the survey.
Table 2 displays the breakdown of the interaction analysis results by speaker in
terms of amount of talk and turns taken.
As can be seen in Table 2, S4F, a female participant identified as a leader by herself
and S5F, spoke the most words, while S5F, the second female, took the most turns.
S1M, who was selected as the leader by another male, came in as the third highest in
terms of both turns taken and words spoken, but was very close to another male
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participant S2M who identified S1M as a leader. The interaction analysis shows that
despite the fact that different people were identified as leaders, the talk distribution
among all participants in this group (number of turns taken and number of words spoken) was relatively comparable. The only person who was not contributing as much
was a male participant S3M, who was not able to identify the leader and was not identified as a leader himself by anyone else. Thus, his inability to identify a leader might
be caused by a relative lack of engagement with the group itself.
We will now look at the communication styles used in this group that led participants to identify the same leadership qualities and yet select different people as
leaders.
Use of Questions. In this group, the questions in the very beginning are used to establish the collaborative nature of interaction in the group. The first couple of questions
used by several members in the group are used to frame the type of discussion that will
follow. It frames the type of discussion as collaborative as the group members are
more actively engaged in coconstructing the rules and the process for discussion.
10. S2M: Do we wanna go around and just give like [our top 5? ]
11. S1M:
[ What’s the best], what’s the
[least]=
12. S5F:
[Sure.]
Links Between Turns. In this group, the recognition of previous contributions is minimal
but is present and positive. This can be seen in the “Okay” in Line 90 and the “Yeah”
of agreement by S4F in Lines 87 and 93 in this example:
87.
S4F: [Yeah, and I] figure if you can’t drink the streams, you can use the
mirror to help.
88.
you melt the water and then [you] just drink the snow.
89. S2M:
[Or ]
90. S1F: Okay.
91. S2F: Or I was gonna say, you can, you can melt the snow in the metal can
[from the 92. matches =
93. S4F:
[Yeah, that’s
Topic Shifts. Speakers in this group tend to acknowledge and build on the previous
speaker’s contribution and topic shifts are not abrupt but rather constructive. For
example, in the same excerpt (given above), in Line 91, S2M elaborates on S1M’s idea
and proposes a different variation that is introduced as an option by using a connector
“or” that does not sound like an abrupt topic shift but more like a productive exploration of different alternatives.
Listening. The collaborative nature of the meeting can be seen in multiple backchannels that signal listening and agreement, even though they tend to be minimal. S3M
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463
and S2M use minimal positive acknowledgements of others’ contribution in the form
of “Yeah” in Lines 110 and 113. S2M and S5F signal their agreement by using minimal responses, “true” in Line 118 and then “right” in Line 120. Lines 122 and 124
show multiple minimal responses, “right right” and then “okay,” that support the previous speaker and validate that the group is moving in the preferred direction in its
decision-making process.
108. S5F:
ell I put [as] my, my highest, uh the umm, the matches cause like
W
you’re, you’re
109.
wet =
110. S3M:
[Yeah].
111. S5F: = [to the] waist, you’re heavily perspiring. You’re going to freeze to
death
112.
because it’s =
113. S2M: [Yeah. ]
114. S5F: = it’s almost certainly below freezing at that point and so you need to
first, before
115. anything else get warm and dry.
116. S1M: I had [that,] I had that originally as matches. Actually I had, uh,
matches and
117. Bacardi =
118. S2M: [True].
119. S1M: = because you can use Bacardi as fuel.
120. S5F: Right.
121. S1M: As lighter fluid.
122. S5F: Right. Right.
123. S2M: Okay.
Simultaneous Speech. In this group, there are frequent overlaps, but they are cooperative in the sense that they build on, expand, or productively question the previous
speaker’s contribution. For example, S4F and S5F overlap in Lines 281 and 282 when
they both elaborate on the same point that there must be wood if they choose to keep
matches among their top-priority items. S1M and S2M overlap immediately following
S4F and S5F in Lines 283 and 284 reinforcing the need to validate the assumption that
there will be branches for them to use, “There’s gotta be . . . ” S4F uses an overlap in
Line 285 to question this assumption but not as an abrupt interruption. Rather, she
productively builds on the previous speakers’ contributions and introduces an element
of doubt that is put out there for the group to discuss as they move forward with their
decision making, “But will there be?”
277. S1M: You need . . .
278. S4F:
z You need fuel. But, [what ] are we gonna do? Are we
gonna burn a
279.
tree =
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International Journal of Business Communication 52(4)
280. S1M:
[XXX].
281. S4F: down? [Are we gonna hope that there’s branches, right, right . . . ]
282. S5F:
[There’s XXX dead wood on the ground ] [XXX XXX]
283. S1M:
[We’re gonna XXX but there’s gotta be]
284. S2M:
[There’s
gotta be . . . ]
285. S4F:
[But will
there ] be?
In summary, this group’s method of decision making might be characterized as collaborative in terms of leadership style in which participants use questions to frame the
interaction and to check for agreement among members. They acknowledge some of
the contribution of others but more commonly build on other’s statements producing
smooth topic shifts, even though these contributions may overlap with those of others.
Because of this fast-paced interaction aimed primarily at collaborating to produce a
solution, few active listening techniques are used. In this interaction, the women’s
approach to the discussion was very similar to that of the males in the group. Regardless
of this similarity, though, the collaborative leadership style used by both female and
male participants in this group resulted in a split identification of leadership among
group members. Obviously, something else is at work then that is affecting leadership
attribution.
Case Study 2
In this team, four participants were female and one was male. Two persons, a male and
a female participant, identified S3F as the leader, two females, including S5F herself,
identified S5F as the leader, and one participant S3F identified S1M, the male participant, as the leader.
Reviewing the characteristics that members selected in identifying a leader, S5F
was selected by herself for “involving others in decision making” and by another
member as being “decisive and task oriented.” S3F was selected as the leader by the
male member for being “status conscious and procedural”; the female who selected
S3F as a leader did not identify the main characteristic that she used to determine the
leader. S1M, the male team member, was identified as a leader by the fourth female for
“involving others in decision making.” As these indicators show, not every member is
looking for the same characteristic in a leader, and there is no pattern that emerges in
terms of gendered preferences (see Table 3).
Looking at the results of the interaction analysis, S5F and S3F had very similar turn
lengths (10.7 and 10.8 words per turn, respectively), but because S5F took more turns,
183 compared with 131 turns taken by S3F, she ended up with the largest number of
words spoken, 1,962 compared with 1,414 by S3F. We can say, then, that if we look at
the amount of talk as an indicator of leadership, S5F and S3F would likely be in the
running. What amount of talk does not explain, however, is the selection of S1M by
one participant as the group leader. He took only 82 turns and spoke only 740 words,
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Table 3. Contribution to Decision Making by Group Member, Case Study 2.
Speaker
S1 male, English
S2 female, English
S3 female, English
S4 female, English
S5 female, English
Total turns
Total words
Words per turn
82
61
131
42
183
740
460
1,414
287
1,962
9
7.5
10.8
6.8
10.7
half of what S3F and S5F did. This selection then may indicate a gender bias or that
S3F saw something in his speech or manner that seemed more “leader-like” to her.
This is particularly difficult to judge since she did not identify a specific leader
characteristic.
We will now look at the leadership styles used by the three persons selected as the
group leader to see whether this might influence leadership choice.
Use of Questions. S3F starts off by exhibiting the directive leadership style that corresponds to a masculine discourse style and is often marked by questions that are meant
to direct and challenge members. For example, in Line 53 she uses a tag question to
defend and reassert her decision.
53.
54.
55.
56.
S3F: Cause I would think, we gotta do something. Right? I mean we can’t
just sit here.
and die. But on the other hand the way that they’re making it seem is that if
we venture
out it’s almost sure death because you’ve got what ice, water that we can’t
cross
S5F: I don’t know [about that]
In what follows, S3F uses a tag question in Lines 79 and 80 to further advance her
decision to move rather than wait and in a way, challenges another option voiced by
other team members.
77.
78.
79.
80.
81.
82.
83.
S3F: That’s true. So they say that the streams and the lakes and all that stuff
are
innumerable strands, lakes so we would have to cross over some of
these really cold
wide rivers or whatever it is. So I think that we could die [doing that] I
really do. Don’t
you?
S2F:
[Oh, sorry]
S1M: Yeah
S4F: Want us to use the rope [or one another thing canvas]
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What is interesting about S3F is that her attempt at leadership is not accepted by other
team members but is contested by explicit disagreement, when S5F in Line 56 says, “I
don’t know about that,” or by continued discussion of the previously introduced topic
without acknowledging S3F (Lines 81-83).
After a few more unsuccessful attempts at leadership using a directive style, S3F
moderates and shifts to a more collaborative leadership style. Her questions become
more group oriented, checking for agreement, consolidating multiple contributions,
and framing interaction, as in Line 181, “So what have we so far? Compass, book,
alarm clock.” Her links between turns become collaborative rather than competitive
by acknowledging previous contributions as in Lines 158-159:
158.
159.
160.
161.
S3F: That’s fine, yeah, that’s fine. If we are going to stay, there are a couple
of things that
we don’t need. Northstar navigation I have as 15.
S1M: [Agree]
S2F: [I do too]
S3F shows active listening by using backchannels, such as “yeah,” “o.k.” in
Line 232:
231.
232.
244.
S5F: I was just saying seems like the things we’re keeping [so far]
S3F:
[Yeah] Um. Ok [so]
S4F: [It’s important] but we have other things that are more important.
S3F switches to using simultaneous speech not as an interruption but either as cooperative overlaps or as a productive way to express a disagreement with the previous
contribution as in Line 154; S3F questions the decision to rank the items without having agreed on the purpose of these items. This cooperative overlap prompts S5F to
revisit the premise of decision making. This exchange is representative of the features
of a collaborative leadership style.
151.
152.
153.
154.
S2F: Either way we have to rank them.
S1M: If we move we need more things basically because
S2F: But [we can’t
S3M:
[But I’m just] saying we can’t rank them and then say oh this
isn’t working
155.
Out. Let’s go back to go
157. S5F: Let’s go back to staying and see what you guys are thinking.
S5F, on the other hand, uses a relatively uniform leadership style that includes elements of the collaborative style but is also marked by significant contributions and that
does not rely exclusively on other team members’ contributions to the decision-making process, as seen in Case Study 1. S5F often times changes the direction of the
meeting but does so in a different way than the directive leadership style initially used
Walker and Aritz
467
by S3F. She is constructing her authority by offering significant contributions to the
discussion that are not driven by a more self-centered need to control the outcome of
the discussion by centering her claims in “I” statements, but instead, she offers solid
grounds for her claims, providing a logical basis for her arguments and ultimately
marking her as a leader in some participants’ eyes. For example, from Lines 60 to 65,
S5F questions the rationale of staying but in a less challenging and directive way than
S3F does at the beginning of the meeting, and, as a result of her assertiveness, keeps
the floor and has other members of the team seriously entertain her observation:
58. S5F: I don’t know [about that]
59. S3F:
[Can’t cross]
60. S5F: I’m not trying to be difficult. I’m just saying I don’t know about that. I
am concerned
61.
about you won’t die there is plenty of water, water purification there’s
maple syrup
62.
which is plenty of sugar to get you through the number of days we have
lots of
63.
navigation but what we don’t know is when will people come by. If
we’re just sitting 64. there you’re still going to have to use your syrup.
Still going to have to get water and
65.
use those other things
66. S4F: But you’ll use a lot less energy by just sitting there.
S5F uses questions to clarify statements made by other participants, as shown in
Line 7 in the following excerpt:
5.
6.
7.
8.
S4F: [We just] say what we do individually [but as a] group z
S3F: [Right]
S5F: Why do you say two different things we have to do?
S2F: Because we also gotta decide if we are going to stay at the site [or go]
Or to check for agreement as shown in Line 74 below:
71.
72.
73.
74.
75.
S3F: Ok.
S5F: I mean.
S3F: So you wanna vote?
S5F: Are you guys still all for staying?
S1M: Yeah
In all instances, the questions used by S5F are elicitations that help build an all-inclusive context for decision making. In contrast, S1M asked few questions; instead, his
part in the discussion consisted almost entirely of responses to questions, many of
which were aimed at the group as a whole. He often took the initiative to answer them
before others had a chance as if he used them rhetorically rather than as actual
questions to team members.
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International Journal of Business Communication 52(4)
Links Between Turns. S5F showed strategies for linking to previous speakers. The links
were acknowledging previous contribution and building on it, even if it means offering
an alternative view that the group does not agree with (e.g., S5F in Lines 24 below):
21.
22.
23.
24.
S1M: You need to know a lot more if you’re going to move.
S4F: That’s a lot.
S3F: So, one more time.
S5F: So I mean normally I would say staying is a good idea if you think that
people are coming by. What we don’t know is how often people are coming
by. Fifty miles
SF5 handles the disagreement in a constructive way, acknowledging previous contributions but not contesting or challenging them. Similarly, in Line 41 and then again
in Line 43, S5F disagrees with S3F, but does so in a way that moves the joint decision
making forward without directly challenging other participants:
40. S3F: Cause I would think, we gotta do something. Right? I mean we can’t
just sit here and die. But on the other hand the way that they’re making it
seem is that if we venture out it’s almost sure death because you’ve got what
ice, water that we can’t cross
41. S5F: I don’t know [about that]
42. S3F:
[Can’t cross]
43. S5F: I’m not trying to be difficult. I’m just saying I don’t know about that. I
am concerned about you won’t die there is plenty of water, water purification
there’s maple syrup which is plenty of sugar to get you through the number
of days we have lots of navigation but what we don’t know is when will
people come by. If we’re just sitting there you’re still going to have to use
your syrup. Still going to have to get water and use those other things.
This way, S5F demonstrates a leadership style that is different from the directive one.
We have labeled this style as assertive leadership. Rather than dominating the meeting, S5F stands strong for her position, finally conceding and becoming an active
participant in the discussion that follows. For her, the priority is to make sure that her
opinion is taken into full consideration before making the final decision. It is not about
the group simply accepting her point of view (directive leadership style); it is about
stating her point of view with supporting explanation as well as considering other
perspectives to reach the best decision given all available information.
In contrast, S1M did not link to other’s contributions, but primarily made assertions about
his preferences or opinion on the matter at hand, commonly in response to a question.
Topic Shifts. Topic shifts exhibited by both S3F and S5F are smooth and relevant to the
discussion at hand. For example, in Line 70, S5F introduces a new topic, which is her
concern over the group’s prioritized list items, but she does it in a way that enhanced
the decision-making process by opening a discussion on alternative scenarios that
were not previously considered by the group.
469
Walker and Aritz
67. S2F: And then also isn’t it going to be darker more because [of XXXX]
68. S5F:
[It’s October]
69. S1M: Yeah
70. S5F: Alright my biggest concern is that no planes are going to come by and
we’ll be just
sitting there and we don’t have food and things like that. If it’s a matter
of I mean, I
recognize the rest of the water and things like that. I don’t see 50 miles
or even 30 miles
as being that difficult of a walk. Even with the terrain I mean it’s several days it’s not
weeks and weeks.
In contrast, S1M changes the topic by directly and emphatically stating his disagreement as in the following statement:
S1M: I’m not, I’m not buying it. I’m not dying dehydrated. I’m putting my foot
down. I’m not dying dehydrated z
Listening. S3F uses a moderate amount of backchannels to signal listening and agreement, as show in Line 232 and Line 246 below:
231.
232.
244.
245.
246.
S5F: I was just saying seems like the things we’re keeping [so far]
S3F:
[Yeah] Um. Ok [so]
S4F: [It’s important] but we have other things that are more important.
S2F: [Yeah]
S5F: [Yeah] If you’re going to say that we have matches and an axe to get
more wood. How many different things do we need to burn? We’re in a place
that has abundant amounts of wood.
In contrast, S5F and to a much greater extent S1M use minimal backchannels in the
form of “yeah.”
Simultaneous Speech. In this group, participants use simultaneous speech either as
cooperative overlaps or productive way to express a disagreement with the previous
contribution, for example, in Line 154, S3F questions the decision to rank the items
without having agreed on the purpose of these items. This cooperative overlap prompts
S5F to revisit the premise of decision making. It is representative of the features of
cooperative leadership style.
151.
152.
S2F: Either way we have to rank them.
S1M: If we move we need more things basically because
153.
S2F:
z
But [we can’t
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154.
156.
157.
International Journal of Business Communication 52(4)
S3M:
S5F:
[But I’m just] saying we can’t rank them and then say oh this
isn’t working 155. Out. Let’s go back to go
z
Let’s go back to staying and see what you guys are thinking.
In summary, the group interaction shows some aspects of the collaborative leadership style, particularly as used by S3F in acknowledging previous contributions, using
smooth topic shifts, demonstrating active listening, and using cooperative overlaps. In
contrast, S1M uses elements that might be more characteristic of the directive leadership style. S5F, on the other hand, is more assertive than S3F but differs from S1M.
She uses elements of the directive style, which is characterized by minimal listening
acknowledgment and few links between turns. However, she is more collaborative,
especially in her use of questions. She uses them not to direct members (directive
style) but to check for agreement and frame interaction. As we mentioned earlier, for
her, the interaction is not about forcing her preferences on others but making sure her
opinion and expertise are taken into full consideration before a final decision is made.
We labeled this leadership style “assertive leader” and included this type in Table 4 to
represent an expanded list of leadership styles.
Case Study 3
This example illustrates how choosing a leadership style that is not recognized or preferred by the group may result in a failed attempt at leading. In the example below, S6,
a female participant, attempts to establish herself as an active participant in the decision-making process using discursive moves characteristic of the cooperative leadership style.
Simultaneous Speech. In the following example, S6F tries to take the floor by overlapping to acknowledge the contribution of the previous speaker and elaborating on the
topic initiated by S4M.
S4M: Alright. See the thing is, I, I think it’s more important to survive first before
you start moving, cause 50 miles, no matter how fast you walk will still take
you like about, um, if you’re with all that stuff maybe 5, 6 days. So you have
to make sure you can survive first cause no matter what you’re gonna have to
stop and rest.
[So] [I figured it would be more important to . . . ]
S3F: [XX]
S6F:
[Yeah, especially it’s, uh . . . ] close to arctic.
S4M: [Yeah.]
As can be seen in this interaction, the willingness to put forth an argument by S4M is
similar to the exchanges of S3F and S5F in Case Study 2. S4M acknowledges S6F’s
contribution with a brief “yeah” but does not apparently feel the need to build on it.
471
Directive leader
To direct members
Few
Abrupt
Minimal
Interruptions
Discourse elements
Meaning of questions
Links between turns
Topic shifts
Listening
Simultaneous speech
To frame the interaction and
check for agreement
Some acknowledgement of
contribution
Smooth
Moderate
Few overlaps
Assertive leader
Frequent acknowledgement
of contribution
Smooth
Active
Few overlaps
To solicit participation
Cooperative leader
Table 4. Differences and Similarities Exhibited in Discourse Styles by Leadership Types.
To frame the interaction and
check for agreement
Some acknowledgement of
contribution
Smooth
Minimal
Frequent cooperative overlaps
Collaborative leader
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International Journal of Business Communication 52(4)
Links Between Turns. S6F does not speak again until a few minutes later in the meeting,
when she talks on the topic directly connected to what has been said before: “[I think, ]
so it’s October, close to Arctic, cause I’ve been to Alaska in the August, uh, the, uh in
August the day, there, the day is really long . . . ”
Just as in her first attempt, S6F uses a cooperative overlap and contributes additional content by showing some expertise relevant to the situation with her statement,
“I’ve been to Alaska in August.”
30.
31.
S3M:
S6F:
z Yeah, that’s true. [I was thinking of that] too.
[You have to ] z take it into consideration.
In her next turn, S6F receives validation from S3M in Line 30 (given above), at which
point she overlaps again in Line 31.
Listening. S6F uses minimal responses in the form of yeah and mhm to signal
listening.
Later on in the discussion, S5F challenges S6F by noting, “September is the fall,
um, is the end of September is the equinox. So you’re getting about a 12 to 12 at, by
October 5th.” S6F attempts to defend her statement “October, the day should be much
longer than the night,” but after S5F continues to pursue her point, S6F finally concedes, “Oh, right.” At this point, S3M changes the topic, “Maybe, maybe we should
determine what is most useless before what’s most important” and S6F overlaps again
in agreement, “right.” She makes no further attempt to contribute in the meeting.
As shown, S6F uses some of discursive moves that are more characteristic of a
cooperative leadership style. She acknowledges the contribution of the previous
speaker and connects to and builds on the previous speaker’s topic on all occasions.
But she did not use some of the more assertive methods of talk, such as questioning
and changing the topic of discussion. This more stereotypically feminine style of leadership as enacted by S6F does not gain much traction in this particular group. The
more directive style exhibited by S5M and S3M essentially serves to eventually silence
S6F, even though she has demonstrated some expertise relevant to the discussion.
Discussion
As this analysis shows, the results of our survey provide little evidence that men and
women are looking for different characteristics in their choice of a leader; both tend to
prefer task-oriented leaders and those that involve others, to varying degrees. Regardless,
our survey results indicate that both genders tend to select males as the leader, even
though both genders may exhibit these characteristics during group interactions. This
finding indicates there is likely a gender bias in leadership perception, and this is supported by our use of discourse analysis techniques to identify the leader in which our
coders found that women were using some discourse techniques typically associated
with a masculine style. Specifically, these involved taking more turns, producing more
words, and using questions to move the task forward or illicit involvement from others.
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473
The results of this analysis found that women were leaders in the majority of groups,
even though they were not generally recognized as such by their members, regardless
of member gender.
In the three case studies that have been reviewed here, there does seem to be a preference for a more aggressive style of leadership, the directive style, exhibited by the
male participants. The two females in Case Study 1 tended to be more assertive and
direct and less supportive in terms of recognizing others’ contributions. This led to a
more collaborative approach to leadership within that group, even though only one
member noted this style—consensus or collaboration—on his survey. In the second
case study, a fourth style of leadership emerged, one in which a female member used
some aspects of the cooperative style to recognize others but also put forth sustained
arguments to support her position, while a second female began by using a more directive style but then changed to a collaborative approach. The male in this group tended
to favor the directive approach, even though he contributed much less than the two
previously mentioned women. In this case, we can see at least two women adapting
their discourse behaviors to better suit the group’s decision-making process. The
women appeared to be more responsive to the group dynamic, or context, and thus at
least intuitively recognized that leadership is coconstructed by other group members
in the sense that they must accept or adapt to the discourse that is being produced. This
observation illustrates how a trait approach to leadership oversimplifies the process of
leadership production in the sense that it does not necessarily reside in a single individual but is negotiated among participants, depending on contextual factors.
The third case study shows a female using a cooperative style without success in a
group in which two males are using the directive approach. Clearly in this case, the
female participant did not adapt her preferred leadership style to that of the group. Her
style of leadership, the cooperative one, apparently was not recognized as such, at least
in this case, by members of this particular community of practice.
Conclusion and Implications
As this study shows, women participants were not generally recognized as leaders in
decision-making groups, at least not in the traditionally masculine cultural setting of
an MBA program in a business school where only 20% to 30% of the students are
female.2 This study attempts to illuminate one possible cause of this stereotyping: The
type of leadership style that women tend to exhibit may not be recognized by others as
“doing” leadership by members of this particular type of organizational culture or
community of practice. No women were unanimously selected as “the leader” by any
group, but in the few groups in which some women were recognized as demonstrating
leadership characteristics, the females used either a collaborative or assertive style of
leadership talk. These results also suggest that regardless of whether women know
how to demonstrate expected leadership behaviors, they may still be ignored or not
recognized by others as a leader. The results of our survey show a clear bias toward
men as leaders, regardless of whether women demonstrated leadership skills, at least
in a masculine organizational culture.
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International Journal of Business Communication 52(4)
As such, it may do little good to teach or train women in leadership skills if they
work in an organizational culture that values masculine leadership traits over others.
As this study indicates, it is likely they will not be recognized as a leader regardless of
their ability to lead. If true, organizations need to devote more resources to proactively
developing organizational cultures that are more supportive and collaborative, that is,
more feminine, if they hope to create environments where bias against women is
reduced. In fact, a recent study by the Ketchum Leadership Communication Monitor
(2014) predicts that the new global workplace will require a new, more “feminine”
leadership communication archetype because, according to the study, female leaders
outperform male leaders on most important leader attributes. It predicts the end of the
traditional macho leadership style era, strong, silent, imperious, domineering, and
invariably arrogant—in favor of transparency, collaboration, genuine dialogue, clear
values, and the alignment of words and deeds.
Business schools thus need to do a much better job of educating and training students and employees about the importance of developing organizational cultures that
are more inclusive. In doing so, leadership needs to be treated, not simply as a collection of traits, but perhaps more accurately as a set of communication practices that can
be contested and that construct leadership jointly and temporally. This focus on communication makes the need to discuss organizational cultures using the framework of
community of practice obvious. That is, understanding how organizational culture is
created through talk means that business schools should educate students to better
understand this concept as well as the elements and value of ways of speaking in creating more inclusive organizations. To put this more bluntly, teaching women to enact
masculine leadership behaviors will likely not aid in improving their numbers in management. Instead, business schools need to focus on the value of changing organizational cultures to become more supportive and inclusive and to understand the value
of talk in creating those realities.
As this study indicates, discourse analysis can provide a more finer grained
approach to study both the production of organizational cultures and leadership. For
example, it is likely that students and employees hold unexamined stereotypes about
the type of talk that may be recognized as “leadership” in certain organizational settings. Education on the elements of talk and their use in creating different styles of
leadership may help open up the possibilities for what is considered leadership and in
turn, better enable women, and others who do not fall within a certain stereotypical
field, to be seen as leaders within organizations. Understanding that discourse also
provides the building blocks of culture can enable managers to more proactively and
confidently engage in creating more supportive, inclusive work environments.
A key step is to understand culture not as something an organization has but as
something an organization is. In this latter view, “an organization is an expressive
form, a manifestation of human consciousness. The social world is seen as constructed
by people and reproduced by the network of symbols and meanings that people share
and that make shared action possible” (Alvesson, 2013, p. 22). Exerting greater efforts
to identify the types of leadership communication behaviors that are recognized in
organizational cultures or particular communities of practice and then educating
Walker and Aritz
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members to be more aware of and more accepting of various leadership styles and
ways of talking “reality into being” may help resolve some of the “glass ceiling” issues
faced by women that have been well documented elsewhere.
This article provides educators and managers with the tools to begin looking at how
leadership manifests in discourse in very explicit and concrete ways and its reception
(or not) by others. The outcome may provide significant potential for improving organizational cultures and communities of practice in terms of the greater recognition that
women and others might receive with a broader view of what leadership is and a
resulting payoff in productivity and knowledge production and dissemination. But this
change will not come easily. As Gordon (2010) and Reardon and Reardon (1999) have
noted, efforts to change traditionally masculine cultures where masculine forms of
power are unquestioned and entrenched are difficult, at best. Even so, this knowledge
should be widely distributed so that women who strive to take leadership roles can
make more informed choices about the organizations they choose to join.
Appendix
Transcription Symbols Used From Schiffrin (1987)
. falling intonation followed by noticeable pause (as at end of
declarative sentence)
? rising intonation followed by noticeable pause (as at end of
interrogative sentence)
, continuing intonation: may be a slight rise or fall in contour (less
than “.” or “?”; may be followed by a pause (shorter than “.” or “?”)
! animated tone
. . .
noticeable pause or break in rhythm without falling intonation
-
self interruption with glottal stop
:
lengthened syllable
Italics
emphatic stress
CAPS
very emphatic stress
=
continuous speech
[ ] overlap; starting point of overlap is marked by a left-hand bracket,
and the ending point of overlap is marked by a right-hand bracket
z
symbol used when speech from B follows speech from A without
perceptible pause
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.
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International Journal of Business Communication 52(4)
Notes
1.
2.
The GLOBE research program would be characterized as a cognitive or psychological
approach to leadership.
Requests for actual numbers were ignored, so this number is based on observations in the
classroom.
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Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, D. (2003). The great disappearing act: Difficulties in doing
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Author Biographies
Robyn C. Walker is an associate professor of Clinical Management Communication at the
Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She teaches business communication courses and conducts research on small group communication, crosscultural issues, leadership, and business discourse.
Jolanta Aritz is a professor of Clinical Management Communication at the Marshall School of
Business, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She teaches business communication
courses in the Marshall undergraduate and graduate programs and conducts research on small
group communication, cross-cultural issues, leadership, and business discourse.
Psychological Reports, 2006,99,67 1-674. O Psychological Reports 2006
PRELIMINARY ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
SCALE FOCUSED O N ARTIFACTS '
TOMAS BONAVIA
University of Valencia
Summary.-In this preliminary study, an Organizational Culture Scale was developed to assess cultural artifacts according to Schein's typology (1985). It includes a
set of cultural artifacts to measure the extent to which an organization is more or less
traditional. A total of 249 managers from a range of different companies responded to
the items. Preliminary analysis yielded a one-dimensional scale with 14 items with high
internal consistency and homogeneity.
The concept of organizational culture has attracted broad scholarly interest and a number of questionnaires have been developed to measure it.
For example, Ashkanasy, Broadfoot, and Falkus (2000) reviewed 18 scales
published between 1975 and 1992. Interestingly, only three of these focused
on measuring "patterns of behavior," according to Schein's typology (1985).
The others considered a deeper level, that is, values and beliefs. However,
none focus on artifacts, which are the first level of Schein's typology. This
paper was intended to be an initial inquiry into this gap since, as Rousseau
(1990) affirmed, the most visible leveIs of organizational culture can be appropriately studied quantitatively.
Schein (1985) distinguished three levels of culture: artifacts and creations, values, and basic assumptions. H e treated basic assumptions as the essence of culture and values and behaviors as observed manifestations of the
cultural essence. As Schein affirmed (1999, p. 15) "The easiest level to observe when you go into an organization is that of artifacts: what you see,
hear, and feel as you hang around." Therefore, the definition of artifacts
includes directly observable elements, e.g., dress codes, physical space, technology, as well as other more subtle components, such as the way status is
demonstrated by members, how decisions are made, communications, disagreements and conflicts, balance between work and family, etc. The essential difference between values and basic assumptions is that both inform observers of the meaning the artifacts have, understanding "why" people do
what they do in an organization. For this reason, "survey responses can be
viewed as cultural artifacts and as reflections of the organization's climate,
but they do not say anything about the deeper values or shared assumptions
'Address correspondence to Professor Tomas Bonavia, Facultad de Psicologia, Departimento
de Psicologia Social, Av. Blasco Ibaiiez, 21, 46010 Valencia, Spain or e-mail (Tomas.Bonavia@
uv.es).
672
T. BONAVIA
that are operating" (Schein, 1999, p. 86). However, this does not mean that
Schein found no utility in evaluating artifacts. In fact, after defining the business problem, they are the first necessary step toward deciphering the company's culture.
To measure the most visible level of any organization culture, a scale
was developed. It included a set of cultural artifacts to measure the extent to
which an organization is traditional. The scale was conceived with the goal of
obtaining two poles of the same continuum. Higher scores on the scale
mean that the organization is traditional, while lower scores mean the inverse (half the items are reverse-scored). With this purpose, a study of cultural artifacts deemed most relevant was undertaken: strategy; human relationships; selection schemes; promotion and dismissal; training programs;
motivation, evaluation, and incentives; absenteeism and rotation; communication processes and conflict resolution; type of structure, rules, and technology; climate and environment.
Although the definition might be criticized, the most characteristic traits
of any traditional culture are (see Table 1) short term perspectives; overestimating the economic goals; highly competitive and markedly individualistic;
promotion based on personal friendships and family ties; creativeness and
capacity for innovation by the employee unvalued; importance of customs
and traditions; evaluation schemes and controls based on failure and not on
success; avoidance of conflict at all costs; centralized, rigid, and bureaucratic
structure; new technologies not encouraged; minimum use of marketing strategies; and no importance given to environmental conservation.
METHOD
The sample was obtained using a variety of procedures, including company and management listings, personal contacts within organizations and
institutions as well as key people such as consultants, executives, or managers. The collection of information took four months. Four hundred and fifty
questionnaires were given to a broad range of Spanish companies, 249 of
which were returned from approximately 120 organizations, together with
nine incomplete questionnaires that were eliminated from analysis. The return
rate was between 55 % and 57 %. Of the respondents, 2 11 were men (84.7%
of the total sample) and 37 women (14.9%)) plus one individual who did
not specify sex. The average age was 38.3 yr. (SD=8.5, range=25 to 63).
The initial scale of 24 items was rated on a 6-point Likert scale anchored by 1: Totally disagree and 6: Totally agree. To develop a questionnaire measuring a relatively specific construct (DeVellis, 1991) only those
items with a corrected item-total correlation > .40 were retained for a preliminary analysis of item reliability, internal consistency, and factor structure (see
Table below). Ten items were eliminated from the analysis, so the final ver-
673
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE SCALE
sion included 14 items. Total scores ranged from 14 to 84 (M= 41.8, SD =
12.2) with higher scores reflecting more traditional culture. Cronbach alpha
was 26.
The intercorrelation matrix for 14 items was submitted to an exploratory factor analysis using principal axis analysis with a varimax rotation
(Boyle, Stankov, & Cattell, 1995). The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin ratio (KMO =
.86) was high. The Bartlett test of sphericity was significant ( p < .0001). The
exploratory factor analysis yielded three factors with eigenvalues greater than
1.0. The first factor accounted for 36.1 % of the variance whereas two other
factors accounted for 9.2 % and 7.4 % of the variance, respectively (eigenvalues of factors were 5.1, 1.3, and 1.0). An examination of the Scree plot
(Cattell, 1966) indicated that structure was appropriately described as having
one factor. Factor loadings and communalities for the one factor solution are
presented in Table 1. All items loaded strongly on the factor (all factor loadings > .45).
TABLE 1
(rTo,), AND FACTOR
STRUCTURE
FORFINAL
ITEMS,CORRECTED
ITEM-TOTAL
CORRELATIONS
CULTURE
SCALEOF ARTIFACTS
(ENGLISH
VERSION)
14 ITEMSOF ORGANIZATIONAL
In this company:
--
1. Generally, a long term vision of things is valued more."
2. The focus on problems takes into account mainly their effects on
economic factors, with little consideration of the impact on people.
3. Human relations are principally based on cooperation, consensus, and rou well-being (the contrary of competitiveness and
individuaf weg-being)."
4. The most important bases for promotion are personal friendships
and family ties.
5 . Creativeness and capacity for innovation are valued in employees."
6. In this com any, it is often heard "it has aly:ys been done like
that" or "tgis is the proper way of doing it.
7. The aims of systems of evaluation and control are to punish
more than to reward.
8. Conflict is treated as a normal aspect of company life, from
which valuable experience can be gained."
9. The structure is highly centralized, i.e., the majority of matters
have to pass through very few hands.
10. The structure is flexible, i.e., it ada ts quickly and successfully to
changes that may affect its survivah
11. The rules and regulations favor unnecessary bureaucracy that
must be rigorously respected.
12. There is a constant concern to keep the technology up to date."
13. Marketing strategies such as segmentation and market research
are used.*
14. My company is really concerned about the conservation of nature
and takes measures to this respect."
"Reverse-scored items.
r,,,
Factor
Loading
h2
674
T. BONAVIA
As a first approach, which needs to be confirmed with further research,
these preliminary findings indicate the scale may be further developed for
assessing traditional-culture artifacts. The common variance explained was
only 36.1% and this result is considered a limitation of the scale. Moreover,
construct validity must be examined and evidence presented for concurrent,
predictive, as well as content validity. Social desirability can also be subjected to empirical inquiry. These lines of research are required for application
of items in the real world. Such effort is clearly needed because "Culture
becomes a powerful influence on members' perceiving, thinking, and feeling;
and these predispositions, along with situational factors, will influence the
members' behavior" (Schein, 1985, p. 320). As a consequence, conceiving
organizations in a traditional way may be too narrow because culture influences strategy, structure, and procedures of any organization with major implications.
REFERENCES
ASHKANASY,
N. M., BROADFOOT,
L. E., &FALKUS,
S. (2000) Questionnaire measures of organizational culture. In N. M. Ashkanasy, C. P. M. Wilderon, & M. F. Peterson (Eds.), Handbook of organizational culture C climate. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Pp. 131-145.
B o n ~G.
, J., STANKOV,
L., &CATTELL,
B. (1995) Measurement and statistical models in the study
of ~ e r s o n a l i tand
~ intelligence. In D. H. Saklofske & M. Ziedner (Eds.), International
handbook of personality and intelligence. New York: Plenum. Pp. 417-446.
CATTELL,
R. B. (1966) The scree test for the number of factors. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 1, 245-276.
DEVELLIS,
R. F. (1991) Scale development: theory and applications. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
R o u s s ~ ~ D.
u , (1990) Assessing organizational culture: the case for multiple methods. In B.
Schneider (Ed.), Organizational climate and culture. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Pp.
153-192.
SCHEIN,E. H. (1985) Organizational culture and leadership. London: Jossey Bass.
SCHEIN,E. H. (1999) The colporate culture survival guide. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
Accepted September 26, 2006
ANN
THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN AC
EMYPOWER, INFLUENCE, AND DIVERSITY IN ORGANIZATIONS
Power,
Influence, and
Diversity in
Organizations
This article summarizes literatures on power, status,
and influence in sociology’s group processes tradition
and applies them to issues of diversity in organizations.
Power—defined as the ability to impose one’s will even
against resistance from others—results primarily from
position in a social structure. Influence—defined as
compelling behavior change without threat of punishment or promise of reward—results largely from the
respect and esteem in which one is held by others.
Research identifies status as a foundation of influence
differences in groups and indicates that members of
disadvantaged status groups, such as women and
minorities, will have decreased influence and face challenges in acquiring and using power. The literature also
suggests solutions to these challenges, including selfpresentation strategies of group motivation and institutional arrangements that support women and minority
group members in powerful leadership positions.
Keywords:
power; status; influence; leadership; management; diversity
By
Jeffrey W. Lucas
and
Amy R. Baxter
R
eflecting the changing demographics of
American society, organizations in the
United States are becoming increasingly diverse
places to work. Women, for the first time in history, make up half of the U.S. workforce, up
from about 35 percent of the workforce 40
years ago (U.S. Department of Labor 2009). If
demographic trends continue, nonwhites will
make up half the U.S. workforce by 2050 (Toossi
2006). At the same time, this increasing diversity is not extending to high-level management
positions. In fact, women and minority group
members lost ground overall in representation
in Fortune 500 corporate boards between 2004
Jeffrey W. Lucas is an associate professor of sociology at
the University of Maryland. He carries out basic experimental research on group processes, particularly status, power, and leadership.
Amy R. Baxter is a PhD candidate in the Department of
Sociology at the University of Maryland. Her current
research is experimental work focusing on factors that
contribute to the wage and promotion gap between
women and men.
DOI: 10.1177/0002716211420231
ANNALS, AAPSS, 639, January, 2012
49
50
THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
and 2010 (Lang et al. 2011). Despite composing only about one-third of the U.S.
workforce, white men hold more than 75 percent of board seats and 95 percent
of board chair positions in Fortune 500 corporations (Lang et al. 2011).
A consequence of inequalities in access to corporate leadership positions is
that it is harder for persons in certain social groups to exercise their will in organizations. In this way, the experiences of women, persons of color, and members of
other disadvantaged groups in organizations are shaped in significant ways by
processes of power and influence. This article summarizes bodies of theory and
research on power, status, and influence—particularly as the concepts are treated
in sociology’s group processes tradition—and discusses their relevance to issues
of management and diversity in organizations.
Power, status, and influence are concepts with multiple treatments, both colloquially and in academic literatures. Meanings and uses of the concept power,
for example, vary considerably across academic disciplines and subdisciplines.
The philosopher Bertrand Russell identified power as the most important element in the development of any society and its study as the central aim of all
social sciences (Russell 1938). Summarizing the literature on a concept of such
breadth presents obvious challenges. The concepts of status and influence have
similarly varied meanings and treatments. It would be impossible to survey the
full range of treatments of power, status, and influence, and we make no effort to
do so. Rather, we draw from basic research that has defined the concepts in narrow and consistent ways.
In colloquial language, power and influence are often viewed as more or less
the same thing: the ability to affect the behavior of others in some intended way.
Alternatively, power and influence are sometimes seen as two parts of the same
process—power as a capacity to change behavior and influence as the practice of
using power to effect behavior change (French and Raven 1959). According to
Wrong (1979), power and influence are used synonymously because of the
absence of a verb form for the term power. We do not argue that these treatments of the concepts are incorrect. Rather, we focus on research that identifies
the concepts more narrowly and as clearly distinct. Power, as defined in the group
processes perspective, is the ability to get what one wants even in the face of
resistance (Markovsky, Willer, and Patton 1987; Weber 1978). Influence is the
ability to get what one wants even in the absence of fear of punishment or promise of reward (Rashotte and Webster 2005). The theory and research we review
is consistent with these treatments of the concepts. For other treatments, see
Kelly (1994) on power and Manz (1986) on influence.
We first define and discuss the concept of influence. Group processes treatments of influence address it primarily as an outcome of status, another concept
narrowly defined in the tradition. We discuss theory and research on status in
groups, work that has clear relevance to issues of diversity in organizations. We
then discuss theory and research on power in networks. We close with a discussion of how the concepts relate to each other and what the power and influence
literatures together can tell us about managing diversity in work organizations.
POWER, INFLUENCE, AND DIVERSITY IN ORGANIZATIONS
51
Influence in Groups
Power, as typically conceived, is a capacity (Salancik and Pfeffer 1977). It is the
ability to get things done if one chooses. When power is used to get people to do
things, power is often defined as influence (Dahl 1957). Group processes
research, in contrast, treats influence as clearly distinct from power use. Influence
occurs when people perform actions because they have been convinced they are
the right actions to take, not because someone with power told them to do them
(Sell et al. 2004). Consider a supervisor who directs subordinates to fill boxes in
a factory. The subordinates do what the supervisor says because she has power
over them. In contrast, consider a minister who asks members of her congregation to volunteer to fill boxes for a charity drive. If the members of the congregation volunteer to fill the boxes, they have been influenced. The minister has little
or no power to direct the behavior of the members of the congregation, but they
do what she wants without promise of reward or fear of punishment. They have
been convinced that the activity is the right thing to do.
As we discuss, power is principally the result of a position in a social structure
(Emerson 1972). The factory supervisor has power because her position gives her
the ability to discipline subordinates who do not comply and reward subordinates
who are especially compliant. Influence results less from social structure than
from status (the respect and esteem in which a person is held by others) (Wagner
and Berger 1993). Below we discuss the most well-developed and widely studied
theoretical account of status processes in groups.
Expectation states and status characteristics theories
Status is a position in a group based on esteem or respect (Berger, Cohen, and
Zelditch 1972; Berger et al. 1977). Although status has a number of outcomes,
influence is perhaps its most fundamental. Those with higher status in groups have
more influence over group decisions than do those with lower status. Expectation
states and status characteristics theory, which resides in sociology’s group processes
tradition, explains the processes by which groups set up and maintain status hierarchies (Berger, Wagner, and Zelditch 1985; Berger and Webster 2006).
Dating to the 1950s, research currently finds that, initially, status-undifferentiated
task groups organize themselves into hierarchies of prestige (Bales 1950). The
most complete theoretical account of these processes is the expectation states
program of Berger and colleagues. Status characteristics theory (SCT) (Berger et
al. 1977; Berger, Wagner, and Zelditch 1985) links characteristics of an individual
such as gender and race to that person’s rank in a status hierarchy based on the
esteem in which the person is held by self and others. The theory proposes that
members of a task group form expectations about each other’s competence to
contribute to group goals based on each person’s status characteristics. Individuals
expected to contribute more are more highly valued by the group and held in
higher esteem (Webster and Driskell 1978).
52
THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
Two scope conditions limit the domain of SCT—task orientation and collective
orientation (Berger et al. 1977). Task orientation means that the group is formed
for the purpose of solving some problem. Collective orientation means that group
members consider it necessary to take into account the input of every group
member in solving the problem or performing the task. For all groups that meet
its scope conditions, the theory makes predictions about the process through
which observable status characteristics lead to behavioral inequalities. Many
groups in organizational settings satisfy these scope conditions—a group choosing which candidate to hire for an open position, a committee determining an
incentive system, a team deciding which direction to go on a project, and so on.
Additionally, research has extended the scope of the theory to include individual
performances when individuals anticipate that those performances will have
implications for future group interaction (Lovaglia et al. 1998).
Research on status processes in groups has produced several consistent findings. According to SCT, group members (often outside their conscious awareness) develop expectations for their own performances and those of other group
members. In the theory, these expectations develop based on status characteristics, which are characteristics around which expectations and beliefs come to be
organized (Berger et al. 1977). Examples of status characteristics include race,
gender, education, and task expertise (Webster and Hysom 1998). Individuals in
categories of status characteristics that produce higher expectations for performance than those of other group members are held in higher esteem and have
higher positions in the group’s status order (Bienenstock and Bianchi 2004). One
consequence of the status order is that high-status group members are expected
to make more competent contributions to the group. In this way, the status order
of the group becomes self-fulfilling, with the contributions of high-status members evaluated as more competent regardless of their objective merit (Walker and
Simpson 2000).
SCT specifies two types of status characteristics. For both, one category is
considered to be more socially desirable and highly valued than another (Simpson
and Walker 2002). A status characteristic is specific if it carries expectations for
competence in a narrow range of situations. Computer programming skills is a
specific characteristic because it leads to expectations for competence only in
limited settings. A characteristic is diffuse if it carries with it expectations for
competence in a wide variety of situations. Age, gender, race, and social class are
examples of diffuse characteristics. In the theory, both types of status characteristics contribute to determining group members’ relative status by altering expectations for competence that members hold for one another (Berger et al. 1977).
Diffuse status characteristics, however, have a distinct moral component, with
high status on the characteristics being viewed as broadly superior to low status
on the characteristics (Berger, Rosenholtz, and Zelditch 1980).
In SCT, status characteristics produce rank in a status hierarchy through a
chain of four logically connected assumptions (Webster and Foschi 1988). First,
the theory assumes that any characteristic will become salient (i.e., stand out) to
POWER, INFLUENCE, AND DIVERSITY IN ORGANIZATIONS
53
group members if it is known or believed to be related to the task or if it differentiates among the members of the group. Second, the burden-of-proof assumption states that all salient characteristics will be treated as relevant (i.e., used to
develop performance expectations) by group members unless specifically disassociated from the task. Therefore, in a mixed-sex group in which gender operates
as a status characteristic, the theory assumes that gender will be treated as relevant by group members unless it is specifically demonstrated that gender is not
indicative of ability to perform the group’s task. In other words, the burden of
proof lies with showing group members that a characteristic is not relevant to the
group’s task (Berger et al. 1977).
The theory’s third assumption is the formation of aggregated expectation
states. In simple terms, this assumption holds that when group members are
confronted with more than one relevant charact...