Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 4–19

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Journal of Pragmatics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma

‘Doing power’ at work: Responding to male and female management

styles in a global business corporation§
Hans J. Ladegaard *
The English Department, Hong Kong Baptist University, Ho Sin Hang Campus, Waterloo Road, Kowloon Tong, KLN, Hong Kong

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history: In the literature on professional management, it is argued that female leaders prefer a
Received 3 December 2008 more indirect, people-oriented, democratic management style, whereas male leaders are
Received in revised form 22 April 2010 more likely to favor a direct, task-oriented and authoritarian approach. This paper reports
Accepted 9 September 2010
on an empirical study of communication in business organizations, and the focus is on the
actual sociolinguistic behavio[1_TD$IF]ur of male and female leaders performing similar tasks.
Keywords:
Executive managers of both sexes in a large Danish corporation were asked to record
Male–female management styles
Organizational communication themselves during a typical day at work while performing a range of tasks, such as giving
Language and power directives to their staff and chairing meetings. The analyses show that both male and
Critical Discourse Analysis female leaders tend to prefer an indirect, normatively feminine management style. They
also show that male leaders are more likely to use a wide verbal repertoire style drawing
on elements in their speech that are both normatively male and normatively female.
However, the most significant difference is how male and female leaders’ management
styles are perceived and responded to by male and female employees. While the authority
of male leaders is never questioned, several examples in the data show that female leaders
are often challenged, and their authority questioned, by their male colleagues.
ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Adler (1993:[2_TD$IF]289) states that ‘the single most uncontroversial, incontrovertible statement to make about women in
management is that there are very few of them.’ Furthermore, the lack of significant numbers of women in leadership in
general, and in senior management positions in particular, irrespective of whether in the private or the public sector, appears
to be a worldwide phenomenon (cf. Alimo-Metcalfe, 1995). Numerous reasons have been suggested in the attempt to
account for the paucity of women in management positions, including cultural, social, and educational factors (see Davidson
and Burke, 1994), but obstacles within the organization, including the infamous ‘glass ceiling’, are often mentioned as one of
the main reasons why it is usually difficult for women to climb to the top of an organization (see, for example, Wajcman,
1998).
Leadership is a gendered concept, and until very recently, the predominant stereotype of a leader, a CEO, or a senior
manager – in society at large and in business organizations in particular – has been overwhelmingly male (see Holmes,

§
The research reported in the article is part of a large-scale study of Global Communication in Danish Business Organizations which was supported by a
grant from the Danish Research Council and two multinational corporations. The focus of this article is a sub-project on male and female management styles
which was supported by a Hong Kong Baptist University Humanities Faculty Research Grant (FRG/06-07/II-62).
* Tel.: +852 3411 7167; fax: +852 3411 7895.
E-mail address: hansla@hkbu.edu.hk.

0378-2166/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2010.09.006
 H.J. Ladegaard / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 4–19 5

2006). The reason for this, according to Tannen (1998:167), is that ‘the very notion of authority is associated with maleness’
simply because of appearance. Consequently, Holmes (2006) argues, normatively masculine ways of talking become
associated with roles of leadership and authority. Traditionally, ‘think manager, think male’ has been an unquestioned
formula, particularly in the world of business, and good leadership qualities have included characteristics such as
authoritative, strong-minded, decisive, aggressive, competitive, and goal-oriented (Holmes, 2006:34) – qualities which we
normally associate with men rather than women.
It is widely recognized in the research literature that men and women tend to show a preference for different
interactional styles (see, for example, Tannen, 1998; Coates, 2004). Some of the most widely cited features of male and
female interactional styles are summarized by Holmes (2006:6) and cited below:

Feminine interactional style Masculine interactional style

- Facilitative - Competitive
- Supportive feedback - Aggressive interruptions
- Conciliatory - Confrontational
- Indirect - Direct
- Collaborative - Autonomous
- Minor contribution (in public) - Dominates (public) talking time
- Person/process-oriented - Task/outcome-oriented
- Affectively oriented - Referentially oriented

Whil[5_TD$IF ]e the preference for different interactional styles for men and women is well documented in the last 30 years of
sociolinguistic research, it is self-evident that such a list will inevitably represent a crude simplification of a complex
reality. What is true for language and gender research in general – that findings are not absolute but relative, and gender
should always be considered in conjunction with other variables – is also true for men and women’s preference for
different interactional styles. Thus, Holmes and Stubbe (2003:574–575) warn us that the list above takes no account of
‘the many sources of diversity and variation (such as age, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and so on).’ It also ‘ignores
stylistic variation arising from contextual factors’, and ‘fundamental underlying issues such as the social distribution of
power and influence’ are also disregarded. However, as Holmes (2006:6) argues, ‘what this list does provide is a useful
summary of discursive strategies strongly associated with middle-class white men and women in the construction of
their normative and unmarked gender identity.’ Therefore, the list above gives us an idea what many people think the
appropriate behavior patterns for men and women may be, at least in Western societies such as the USA, New Zealand
and the UK.
However, if recent headlines in management journals and the business press are to be trusted, new leadership styles
appear to be required. It is still an undeniable fact that men dominate in positions of power in organizations, but good
management skills are no longer unequivocally associated with traditional masculine interactional styles. Kram and
Hampton (2003:211) argue that ‘practitioners and scholars alike are recognizing that organizations struggling to survive in
an increasingly complex and changing environment need leadership that is transformational, collaborative, and
relationship-oriented.’ If this were true, we would expect normatively feminine styles to be sought after. This is confirmed
by research findings reported in Rhode (2003). She refers to large-scale studies from the USA which found that, as far as
employees’ perceptions are concerned, female managers tend to outperform male leaders on all but a few measures (such as
coping with pressure and their own frustrations) (see Moskal, 1997). Several studies also confirm that employees tend to
perceive men and women’s management styles as fundamentally different (see, e.g. Wajcman, 1998), but most studies fail to
show significant gender differences in the perceived effectiveness of male and female leaders. However, Rhode’s (2003)
conclusion is that the findings from the abundance of studies on perceptions of male and female management styles in
organizational contexts are divergent, and sometimes conflicting.
It is regrettable, at least from a sociolinguistic point of view, that so much of the research on male and female
management styles is based self-reports and laboratory studies. Rhode (2003) argues that the problem with these studies is
that they may encourage participants to reproduce their conventional assumptions about appropriate, normative
behaviours for men and women and thus, the findings may end up reinforcing common gender stereotypes more than
anything. More recently, however, an increasing number of researchers in predominantly Sociolinguistics have ventured
into businesses and organizational contexts and recorded men and women’s actual behaviour when they give directives,
chair meetings, negotiate, do mentoring, or engage in small talk (see, for example, Holmes and Stubbe, 2003; Holmes, 2006;
see also Bargiela-Chiappini et al., 2007 for a recent overview). The strength of this research is the focus on interactants’ actual
rather than their presumed behaviour, and it is fair to argue, therefore, that Sociolinguistics has made a significant
contribution to research on organizational communication in general, and male and female management styles in particular.
Furthermore, some researchers in organizational communication and leadership studies have now also acknowledged that
the study of authentic discourse in organizational settings is crucial for an understanding of organizational processes, such as
leadership (see, for example, Fairhurst, 2007).
6 H.J. Ladegaard / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 4–19

This article reports on an empirical study of male and female management styles in a large entrepreneurial company in
Denmark. The study is part of large-scale study of communication in global business organizations (see Ladegaard, 2007).
The focus is on organizational communication and cross-cultural encounters (Ladegaard, 2008, forthcoming), and the idea
behind the project is that business corporations identify real problems in their communication, and researchers observe,
record and analyze these examples of real-life data in order to help solve specific communication problems, suggest
improvements for the development of the organization’s communication, and develop existing and new theoretical
perspectives on global and organizational communication. In the project reported in this article, male and female leaders at
the executive management level agreed to wear a digital recorder during a typical day at work, and the article analyzes what
these male and female business executives actually do, and, in particular, how they are responded to, when they are ‘doing
power’ at work. The aim of the analysis is twofold. First, we will briefly examine how male and female leaders exercise their
power when they are doing ‘being a leader’, in particular how they give directives. Second, and in more detail, we will analyze
how the employees react to their male and female leaders, particularly how responses from male employees suggest that
they have rather different perceptions of their male and female bosses. Before we turn to the analysis of discourse, the article
gives a brief overview of other studies which have analyzed male and female leaders’ discourse in organizations followed by
a brief account of the analytical framework which is used in the analysis, Critical Discourse Analysis (Kress, 1990; Fairclough,
1995, 2001; Van Dijk, 2001a,b).

2. Previous [7_TD$IF]research

Case (1988) recorded and analyzed the speech of 10 leaders (5 male[8_TD$IF] and 5 female) in authentic scenarios. She
hypothesized that she would find at least two diverse management styles: a female style characterized as personal,
relational and facilitative and preferred by the women, and a male style believed to be assertive, directive and commanding
and preferred by the men. The author did a cross-gender analysis of 34 speech traits and was able to identify not two but
three different speech styles: a predominantly feminine style and a predominantly male style to which the majority of men
and women conformed, and furthermore, what she calls a wide verbal repertoire style used by two men and one woman in
the group. This style was characterized as drawing on both feminine and masculine speech characteristics. Case found that,
in general, the men in her study used a more direct, action-oriented style which allowed them to establish dominance in the
group, and most of the women used a more accommodating style which emphasized interpersonal relationships. However,
she concludes that women’s speech style is different, not deficient, because both men and women were among the most
influential in the group and therefore, she argues, it is wrong to assume that if women in management want to be effective,
they must talk and act like a man.
Odgaard and Jørgensen (2003) asked a male and a female executive manager in a service organization to record
themselves for a day. On the day of the recording, two employees in the company had a serious accident on the job, so much
of what the two leaders were doing had to do with the accident. The analysis shows that there are many more similarities
than differences in the two leaders’ management styles. They both prefer an indirect, conciliatory, people-oriented approach
when they communicate with their staff (i.e. a normatively feminine management style), but there are also differences
between the two leaders. The male leader uses a more factual, to-the-point approach; he does not use small talk, and he takes
a rather unemotional approach to the accident. The female leader, on the other hand, uses plenty of small talk, and she also
takes a more emotional approach to the accident which she discusses with her staff in great detail. She says, for example, that
she almost panicked when she heard about the accident on the news, and she testifies: ‘When you hear something like that,
it’s just like it was your own family, right’ (p. 47).
Mullany (2007) collected data in two companies using participant observation, recordings of meetings, staff interviews,
and analysis of organizational documents. The data consists of almost 70 recorded examples of workplace talk,
supplemented with staff interviews, and the analyses show that although both men and women regularly draw on both
masculine and feminine speech styles, they generally favor feminine strategies when they are exercising power and
authority. They typically use a wide range of mitigation strategies when they give directives or provide criticism, and they
frequently use humor and small talk as a repressive strategy to minimize status differences. The analysis of actual talk is
supplemented with excerpts from staff interviews which provide insights into the gendered norms and expectations that
characterize the two workplaces and which, therefore, are believed to have an impact on the employees’ discursive
performance.
Probably more than any other large-scale research project focusing on actual communication in organizations, the New
Zealand Language in the Workplace Project (LWP) provides extensive evidence of the situated nature of talk at work (see
Holmes and Stubbe, 2003 for an overview). The data consist[9_TD$IF]s of recordings of naturally occurring talk in 22 New Zealand
workplaces, including small businesses, global corporations, and commercial and semi-public organizations. The database
comprises some 2[10_TD$IF]500 interactions involving more than 500 people from a diverse range of social backgrounds, and the
recordings include team meetings, briefings, one-to-one interactions in offices and on the factory floor, as well as social talk.
Several themes have been identified in the data, including the functions of story-telling (Holmes, 2005a), humor and small
talk (Holmes, 2000a,b), relational practice (Holmes and Marra, 2004), language, power and control (Holmes et al., 1999; Vine,
2004), and leadership talk, particularly in relation to gender (Holmes, 2005b, 2006; Marra et al., 2006; Schnurr, 2009).
Concerning gender and management style, LWP provides substantial evidence which questions some of the commonly held
assumptions we come across in the literature, such as Berryman-Fink’s (1997:[1_TD$IF]269) conclusion that ‘a woman’s leadership
 H.J. Ladegaard / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 4–19 7

style is transformational and interpersonal while a man’s style is based on command and control.’ Holmes (2006) concludes
that there is no evidence for such generalizations in the LWP-data. Rather, these data demonstrate that both male and female
leaders are flexible and contextually sensitive, and commonly engage in a wide range of verbal behavio[12_TD$IF]urs which make use of
elements from both normatively male and normatively female management styles to achieve their goals.
We will now look briefly at the theoretical framework which is applied to the data analysis.

3. Theoretical framework: Critical Discourse Analysis

Within the whole range of different approaches to discourse analysis (see Stubbe et al., 2003 for an overview), Critical
Discourse Analysis (CDA) is distinguished by its critical focus, broad scope and political agenda (Kress, 1990). It aims to
identify connections between language, power and ideology and discourse analysts favoring this approach are trying to
describe how power and dominance are produced and reproduced in social practice through the discourse structures of
everyday text and talk. The ultimate goal of such analyses is to raise people’s awareness of the intricate relationship between
language, manipulation and power. Another characteristic feature is that CDA facilitates the integration of micro-analysis of
discourse and macro-analysis of economic systems, institutions, ideologies[13_TD$IF], etc. (see Fairclough, 1995, 2006). This means
that CDA assumes a dialectal relationship between discursive events on the one hand, and the situations, institutions and
social structures in which they are embedded on the other (De Cillia et al., 1999). This also means that institutional contexts
shape and affect discourses and, at the same time, discourses influence our social reality. ‘In other words, discourse
constitutes social practice and is at the same time constituted by it’ (De Cillia et al., 1999, p. 157).
CDA is inspired by the works of Marx, Habermas and Foucault and consequently, at its core we find studies of the
enactment and abuse of power in everyday discourse. It is assumed, therefore, that this approach is particularly useful when
the contexts under investigation involve power asymmetry. We know this is likely to apply to any business corporation
where employees’ professional status, as well as other social variables such as ethnicity and gender, almost inevitably creates
a social environment characterized by power asymmetry. CDA often takes a top-down approach focusing on the strategies
used by superiors to manipulate and gain control, for example by referring to taken-for-granted assumptions about rights
and obligations.
The specific analytical techniques used in CDA vary considerably, from macro-level discourse strategies (e.g. rhetorical
patterns, lexical style, and coherence) to micro-level detailed analysis of linguistic features, such as interruptions, turn-
taking, and semantic choice. The present study takes a micro-level approach focusing on analyzing the function and meaning
of discourse features such as interruptions, pauses, mitigation, minimal response, hedging, exchange sequences, and
semantic choice (cf. Fairclough, 2003). The overall aim of the analyses is to explore the discursive realization of power and
control.
Finally, CDA is not a ready-made method or theory, but a broad, diverse, multidisciplinary and problem-oriented
approach which can be applied to the analysis of social and discursive practices (cf. Van Dijk, 2001b:[15_TD$IF]95–97). This means that
interdisciplinary approaches, as well as multiple readings of text and talk, are encouraged, and a variety of linguistic analyses
are embraced, as long as the overall aim is to understand the ‘permanent bottom-up and top-down linkage of discourse and
interaction with societal structures’ (Van Dijk, 2001b:[17_TD$IF]118; see also Wodak and Meyer, 2001; Wodak, 2007).
We will now turn to a brief introduction of the study from where the present discourse analyses are taken, followed by a
discourse analysis of selected excerpts from our four business executives.

4. The [18_TD$IF]study

Data for the present project was collected (under the auspices of the Global Communications Project) in a large
entrepreneurial company. The company provides equipment and services for the minerals industries, and it employs
some 9[19_TD$IF ]000 people in 21 countries across the world. The participants were leaders at the executive management level in
the company’s headquarters in Denmark. Several leaders were approached by the Research Group’s contact person in the
company and asked if they wanted to participate in the project, and four leaders (2 male and 2 female) volunteered and
agreed to wear a digital recorder during a typical day at work. Prior to data-collections, university and company lawyers
had negotiated the exact terms of the agreement between researchers, the company and the employees and specified
rules for anonymity, confidentiality, and publicizing the results. Before the recordings of the four leaders, all staff were
informed about the project, and they were requested to give their consent to participating in the project. In addition, the
four leaders were asked to fill in questionnaires about their personal particulars, including age, education, leadership
experience, job functions, and title. The leaders were asked to pick a day for the recording where they expected to be
engaged in a reasonable amount of talk with their staff. Two days were identified for recordings, and the employees in the
respective departments were informed about the dates of the recordings via the company’s intranet. The four leaders
recorded their interactions during the morning of that particular day (approximately 9–12), and they had planned their
day beforehand to make sure they were performing similar management-related tasks during the recording. Each of the
four participants was recorded while s/he (1) chaired a meeting; (2) gave directives to their staff; (3) discussed business
proposals or procedures with their colleagues; (4) talked to colleagues, clients and/or customers over the phone; and (5)
was engaged in small talk with their staff. All recordings were transcribed in their entirety using the CLAN transcription
conventions.
8 H.J. Ladegaard / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 4–19

The four participants are all General Managers at the executive level which includes Headship of one of the company’s
major Divisions. Their personal particulars – including name (pseudonym), age, education and title, years of experience in
their present job, and their day-to-day duties – are listed in the table below.

Name Age Title Experience Duties

Natalie 51 Civil engineer; 1 year In charge of project control; administration of resources;

Head of Sales & in charge of technical details of new projects; mentoring
Project Proposals & HRM in the department

Tanya 42 Civil engineer; 2 years In charge of all the financial aspects of new projects
Head of Global & risk calculations; in charge of investment;
Finance mentoring & HRM in the department

Ben 52 Civil engineer; 2 years In charge of project control & quality assurance;
Head of Project in charge of risk calculations; mentoring &
Controlling HRM in the department

Martin 55 Civil engineer; 3 years Overall coordination & planning of new projects;
Head of Proposal mentoring & HRM in the department
Preparation

The four participants were asked to do what they would normally do, and we have reason to believe this was
accomplished. Initially, we hear occasional comments about the recorder, but after a while, no reference is made to the
recorder. On two occasions, very intimate information about other colleagues is being recorded, and one of the male
managers even goes to the toilet without switching off the recorder. This suggests that the participants, and their staff, forget
about the recording after a while. Thus, the data is ‘naturalistic’ in the sense that the researcher did not directly influence, or
intervene in, the discourse processes that are being recorded and used for analysis.
We now turn to an analysis of excerpts from our four participants’ self-recordings. First, we will look briefly at the way
male and female leaders are ‘doing power’ at work, and second, we will analyze in more detail how the employees respond to
their male and female leaders.

5. Data [2_TD$IF]analysis

5.1. Leadership styles

Much of recent sociolinguistic research on gender and leadership discourse takes a social constructionist approach and
draws on analytical concepts developed by interactional sociolinguistics (see, for example, Holmes, 2006; Mullany, 2007;
Schnurr, 2009). A key concept in this work is that people in the workplace draw on a range of linguistic resources to present
themselves and thus to construct multiple identities[23_TD$IF].[24_TD$ IF]1 Identity construction is seen as an on-going process – a dynamic and
flexible concept which is shaped by contextual factors and constantly negotiated and renegotiated in workplace discourse
(see also Richards, 2006). So in this framework, people are regarded as constantly ‘doing’ gender, professionalism,
ethnicity, power, friendship[25_TD$IF], etc., and workplace settings are believed to contribute to the construction of their members’
identities in at least two ways. First, they classify their members into various roles, and second, they develop discursive
norms which members may draw on. In that way, organizations ‘create’ leaders and subordinates, for example (cf. Schnurr,
2009:[26_TD$IF ]12).
Another useful concept which evolved from the social constructionist framework, and which has been applied to several
studies of workplace discourse, is the notion of a community of practice (CoP). This framework focuses on how people
construct membership of certain groups through their language use, and because of its emphasis on shared practices, the CoP
framework has been considered particularly useful in sociolinguistic research in organizations. The CoP concept was
originally outlined by Lave and Wenger (1991), and based on their research, Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (1992) propose this
widely cited definition: ‘an aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in an endeavor. Ways of
doing things, ways of talking, beliefs, values, power relations – in short practices – emerge in the course of this mutual
endeavor’ (p. 464) (see also Wenger, 1998). In the next section, we shall examine one aspect of leadership identity in this
CoP: ‘doing power’, i.e. giving orders and directives.

1
This article does not dispute the interrelationship between language and identity, but the relationship may be less straightforward than the literature
sometimes suggests. A person may speak English with a pronounced Hong Kong accent, for example, but this may have more to do with cognitive factors, for
example, and little to do with the person’s desire to express a ‘Hong Kong identity’. Or a person may use many direct imperatives or unmitigated directives,
but this preferred discourse strategy could be caused by contextual factors, for example, and have little to do with a wish to portray a ‘masculine identity’
(see, for example, Benwell and Stokoe, 2006 for a discussion).
 H.J. Ladegaard / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 4–19 9

An important aspect of leadership discourse is how to be decisive and get things done – a key requirement of effective
leadership in any organization (cf. Holmes, 2006:[27_TD$IF]37). Leaders have to issue directives and give instructions, and, as we saw in
the beginning of this article, giving direct orders and instructions is assumed to be part of a normatively masculine way of
speaking, whereas a more indirect style is associated with a normatively feminine way of speaking. Consequently, if our male
leaders prefer a more masculine style, we might expect them to use more direct, unmitigated directives, for example direct
imperatives (examples a[29_TD$IF][8–c) and need statements (example d). There are examples of such preferences in the discourse of our
two male leaders:

(a) ‘Get a new passport[230_TD$IF] ’ (Ben, male leader to Lisa, a female IT supporter in his department who argues she cannot go to the
USA because she does not have a valid passport).
(b) ‘Give me your home number then’ (Martin, male leader to Ken, a male engineer in his department who is taking time off
right before an important project deadline).
(c) ‘Don’t put it like that ‘cause then we’ve lost even before we enter the competition’ (Martin, male leader to John, a male
engineer, who suggests they add a clause to cover their back in a project proposal he is working on).
(d) ‘We need procedures about how we do this’ (Ben to the project coordinators in a team meeting).

If, on the other hand, our female leaders prefer a more normatively feminine style, we would expect them to use more
indirect, mitigated directives, for example interrogatives and modal verbs (examples e[32_TD$IF][1–f) rather than imperatives; or
using hedges or other features of mitigation (examples g–h); or using the inclusive ‘we’-pronoun (meaning ‘you’) as a
softening device (examples i[35_TD$IF][4–j). Again, there are several examples of this preference in the discourse of our female
leaders:

(e) ‘Do you think you could call him?’ (Tanya, female leader to a colleague)
(f)‘Would you think about it?’ (Natalie, female leader to one the engineers on her team)
(g) ‘We might perhaps pass that on to one of our colleagues’ (Natalie, female leader in a team meeting).
(h) ‘Could we sort of pop by your office?’ (Tanya, female leader talking to a colleague from another department on the
phone).
(i) ‘Perhaps we could move that forward’ (Natalie, female leader discussing the agenda for a meeting with her secretary).
(j) ‘Maybe we could ask him straight away’ (Tanya, female leader to her secretary).

When we look through the transcripts, however, the assumptions about male and female leaders outlined above are only
partly true. It is evident that the female leaders prefer an indirect, mitigated style when they give directives, but this is also
true for the male leaders. In fact, the examples listed above of Ben and Martin giving direct, unmitigated directives were
among the few exceptions. On the whole, all four leaders, irrespective of gender, demonstrated a very clear preference for an
indirect, mitigated management style (see also Mullany, 2007). A particularly common indirect strategy among all four
leaders was the inclusive ‘we’, as in ‘Maybe we could draw it on the white board’ (Ben to a colleague in a meeting). Another
popular softening device used frequently by all leaders is the particle lige in Danish. It is a mitigating particle with no direct
English translation, but the meaning is close to hedges like ‘sort of’, ‘perhaps’, or ‘like’. Examples include ‘Let’s sort of ask him
straight away?’ (Lad os lige spørge ham med det samme) (Tanya to a colleague), and ‘Maybe we should sort of try and see if
we can pinpoint any of the advantages’ (Måske sku’ vi lige prøve at se om vi ku’ pinpointe nogle af de fordele) (Martin to a
colleague in a meeting). As these examples show, it is also common to use several mitigating strategies at the same time,
such as a question, inclusive ‘we’ and hedging (cf. the quote from Martin above), or modal verb + hedging as in ‘Would it be
possible for you (0.2) ah: to maybe put it in writing’ (Tanya talking to a customer over the phone).
Therefore, if we look at the way men and women give directives in this CoP, leaders of both sexes seem to prefer an indirect
normatively feminine style. However, the male leaders in our data also occasionally give unmitigated directives, although
these unmitigated forms are the exception, not the norm. This means that our male leaders use what Case (1988) and others
have referred to as a wide verbal repertoire style drawing on both normatively male and female discourse strategies. The
female leaders, on the other hand, are not using any normatively male discourse strategies at all. In fact, I was not able to
identify one single example of a female leader using a direct, unmitigated directive. However, I would not dare to claim that
this is a significant gender difference. First, the mitigated strategies are by far the most dominant in both sexes, and second,
the fact that the female leaders do not use any normatively male strategies could be due to contextual or situational factors. I
agree with Holmes (2006) that to study these issues comprehensively, a quantitative approach is perhaps not the most useful
(see also Bargiela-Chiappini and Harris, 1997 for a discussion). Instead, Holmes argues, we need to analyze ‘examples of
particular discursive processes involved in ‘doing leadership’ in some detail to illustrate that the complexities of gendered talk
are often evident only at the micro-level of interactional analysis’ (p. 54). Therefore, in the next part of the article, we will
analyze four examples of ‘doing power’ at work which demonstrate that important gender differences still seem to be in play.
However, these differences apply not so much to the four leaders’ preferred discourse strategies, but rather to the way male
and female leaders’ authority is perceived and responded to by male and female employees.

2
All translations are mine, but to ensure the accuracy of the translations, multiple translators have been involved, including native speakers of Danish
with complete mastery of English, and native speakers of English with complete mastery of Danish.
10 H.J. Ladegaard / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 4–19

5.2. ‘Doing power’ at work: [36_TD$IF]responding to male and female leaders

We will now turn to a more detailed analysis of four excerpts, one from each of our four leaders, which suggest that male
and female leaders are perceived differently by their staff when they exercise power in this CoP. However, before we look at
these excerpts, we need to point out that alternative analyses to the ones proposed in this article are of course possible.
Exchanges in the workplace, as argued by Cicourel (1992:[37_TD$IF]295), ‘carry considerable cultural and intercultural ‘‘baggage’’ for
participants because of long-term social relationships unknown to or unattended by the investigator.’ We will of course use
the contextual information available to us in the discourse as well as in the CoP in general, but what remains a dilemma for
any discourse analyst in any organization is ‘the extent to which the decision to tape or use particular materials includes or
excludes explicit and tacit knowledge about reported and unreported ethnographic conditions, participant attributes, and
patterns of social organization that can selectively shape subsequent analysis’ ([38_TD$IF]Cicourel, 1992, p. 294). Consequently, we
have to acknowledge that multiple readings are possible, particularly if the study does not involve extensive ethnographic
observations in the company.
The first example to be analyzed involves a meeting between Tanya and two of the male engineers in the Global Finance
Division she is Head of. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the financing and risk calculations of an overseas project the
company is going to bid for. The three of them have worked individually on the project for a while and they now meet to
discuss their progress. The project group is ad hoc, but both men have worked under Tanya’s leadership for at least two years.
The two male colleagues are already in the meeting room when Tanya arrives; the meeting begins with Tanya’s question in
line 1 (see transcription conventions in [39_TD$IF]Appendix A).

Excerpt 1
Participants: T: Tanya (female leader and chair); D: Dennis (male engineer); C: Christian (male engineer).

1. T: do you want me to try to present something or? (0.2)

2. D: yes but I think you need to explain something (0.8)
3. T: //about (0.6) how//
4. D: //you hadn’t mentioned//anything about a recording
5. T: but that’s because I have agreed (0.3) to record myself (1.5) it’s not because
6. you’re being monitored but it’s anonymous but it’s something about (0.4)
7. somebody from (1.0) what’s it called a university (0.3) in Odense they’re
8. doing an analysis of//how our behaviour
9. D: //yes but we have a customer who has insisted on
10. complete confidentiality about this
11. T: okay (0.3)
12. D: so I don’t think it’s the right case to record
13. C: that’s right
14. T: but it’s not a case I need to record it’s just how I ah how
15. D: ah your//communication
16. T: //I talk
17. C: okay
18. T: right (0.3) ah but that doesn’t mean I can’t work on this (1.9) and if there’s a
19. problem I’ll just turn it off//you know
20. D: //okay
21. C: //yes but it says here very clearly
22. D: because he says very clearly that we need to keep it confidential
23. T: sure (0.3) no problem
24. D: ah we’ve already broken our promise because we’ve told more people about
25. this than we should but I suppose that’s how it is in this house//it’s hard
26. T: //no it’s hard to
27. avoid
28. D: it’s hard to avoid (0.5)
29. C: yes but it’s very clear here (0.9) [reading from document] no publicity
30. officially allowed
 H.J. Ladegaard / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 4–19 11

31. D: yes
32. C: okay?
33. T: yeah but that’s how he’s always doing it

What this example shows is that Dennis and Christian are questioning the authority of their female leader. We assume they
knew about the recording before Tanya arrived (all staff had been informed about the dates of the recordings via email) because
they question the legitimacy of recording the meeting from the very beginning. Dennis’ remark in l. 2, ‘I think you need to
explain something’, suggests that he is claiming authority over his boss. He defines the situation in intergroup terms (you vs. us)
(Tajfel and Turner, 1979), and he and Christian manage to create a scenario where they are in the right and Tanya is in the wrong.
First, they suggest that she is disloyal (l. 4: ‘you hadn’t mentioned anything about a recording’). Tanya is justifying her actions by
explaining that this is about her behavio[u ]FDI$T0_4 r, that they are anonymous, and that their behavio[u
F]I$DT1_4 r is not being monitored, but the
somewhat disconnected utterances in Tanya’s reply (ll. 5–8) suggest that she is affected by these allegations. In l. 9, Dennis is
questioning Tanya’s authority further, and the legitimacy of her explanation. First, he uses a disruptive interruption (which he
does repeatedly throughout the meeting) to claim the floor, and he claims the authority of the company (‘we have a customer’)
to question Tanya’s right to record the meeting. He also claims to speak on behalf of the customer which further legitimizes his
objections. In l. 12, Dennis again claims authority for himself, ‘I don’t think it’s the right case to record’, and he thus defines the
situation as one where he has is entitled to decide what is right and what is wrong.
In l. 13, Christian provides support for his male colleague (‘that’s right’) and thus consolidates the allegations put forward
by Dennis. Tanya defends herself (ll. 14, 16 [42_TD$IF]and 18–19), and in l. 21 Christian takes over by repeating the exact same
complaints we heard from Dennis in ll. 9–10. The two male colleagues claim power in unity and through repetition (‘it says
here very clearly, he says very clearly, l. 21–22), and Dennis further elaborates on Tanya’s misdemeanor by stressing that
they have already broken their promise by telling more people than they should (l. 24). In ll. 29–30, Christian consolidates his
authority by reading from the contract, ‘no publicity officially allowed’, and he thus rejects the objections Tanya has been
trying to raise repeatedly: that this is not about the case, or about them being recorded, but about her language (ll. 14–16).
Christian’s objection in ll. 29–30 is again endorsed by Dennis voicing his agreement in l. 31. Christian’s final comment, ‘okay?’
(l. 32) with rising intonation is ambiguous, but the implication could be something like ‘do we have an understanding?’ The
point is that this final comment seems to consolidate Christian and Dennis’ position as winners of this competition for the
upper hand as it were. They have managed to manipulate the discourse to fit their own agenda and to construct a scenario
where they position themselves as ‘the boss’ at the expense of their female Division Head.
However, we also need to address Tanya’s role in this transfer of power from leader to employee because she is, ultimately,
also responsible for what happens. Discourse is mutually constructed in social interaction, so whil[e F]I$DT6_4 acknowledging that Dennis
and Christian take control of the discourse to empower themselves, it is equally true that Tanya allows this transfer of power and
authority. From the very beginning of the meeting, she appears indeterminate: ‘Do you want me to try to present something or?’
(l. 1). By doing this, Tanya paves the way for the two men to take charge and by doing so, she disempowers herself. She is Division
Head and chair of the meeting, but from the very beginning, she leaves it to her male staff to ultimately decide what she should
do. Although she is trying to defend her right to be in charge throughout the interaction, she also gives in to pressure in ll. 18–19:
‘if there’s a problem I’ll just turn it off’ and in this way, arguably, admits to being defeated. In a CDA framework, this is an example
of what Van Dijk (2001a:[3 F]I$DT8_4 00) calls jointly produced power abuse, i.e. when dominated groups or individuals are persuaded (by
whatever means) that dominance is natural and legitimate.
We now turn to another example of conflict of interests between leader and employee, but this time with reverse gender
roles. Ben, who is Head of Project Controlling, comes to Lisa’s office just before lunch. The two of them have worked together
for at least two years, and the informal style used throughout the exchange suggests they know each other well. He
apologizes for his lateness (‘Here I am right before lunch when your blood-sugar is obviously very low’), and then he moves
on to business straight away.

Excerpt 2
Participants: B: Ben (male leader); L: Lisa (female IT supporter) (‘Discover’ is a computer programme the company uses for
its sales proposals).

1. B: ah Ken (0.6) asked me (1.2) if we could assist the Americans (0.6)

2. completing their reports and show them (0.7) how we handle (1.6) the whole
3. Discover (0.3) concept (1.0) and he asked you know since you’d (0.3) sort of
4. like to go to the USA (0.2) to do some power shopping (0.7) and he asked if
5. ah (0.3) if you’d like to go (0.7) and if yes (0.3) when? (1.8) Tony will be
6. back (0.5) today Ken will talk to Tony this afternoon (0.4) and Tony will
7. bring back a specific list of things we need to do what (0.8) problems we
8. need to address and where they are not quite sure you know (0.9) but you
9. know how the whole system works and ah
12 H.J. Ladegaard / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 4–19

10. L: well I’m not completely//

11. B: //almost (0.5) and ah you know it’s no (0.5) no
12. shame to admit there are things you’re not quite sure about but (0.5)
13. L: but these reports (1.5) they haven’t been developed for the Americans yet or
14. what? (1.0)
15. B: well we’ll have to sort that out with Tony and Ken you know (0.6) but that’s
16. why (0.7) I’d rather hear from you if you’d commit yourself ah (0.5)
17. L: if I//
18. B: //if you can go//you know
19. L: //if I dare mm?//
20. B: of course you dare
21. L: well (0.3) don’t say that [xxx]
22. B: Betty is there (1.1) so there’s someone there this week
23. L: so it’s now like right now?
24. B: yes Ken said week 20 (3.6) that’s next week (3.0)
25. L: shit man (0.9) ah (1.7) when would I have to go then (1.7) I’ll go home on
26. what Friday? (2.0) but couldn’t Betty//
27: B: //but Betty can’t//
28: L: //no she can’t do
29. Discover but I can’t just go and tell them they have to do Discover (0.4)
30. ‘cause Andy did them for us or Tony did them (0.6) you know
31. [8 turns left out during which they discuss technical details about Discover
32. after which Ben returns to the question of Lisa’s departure]
33. B: the question is then if it would be possible [for you to go] (2.8) in week 20?
34. L: oh dear I don’t even have a bloody passport (0.7)
35. B: you don’t have a passport (1.2)
36. L: no
37. B: Lisa! (laughing)
38. L: (laughing)
39. B: but you can get that very quickly//I think
40. L: //well it expired just about now
41. B: yes ha (0.6) okay
42. L: ah so (2.2)
43. B: get a new passport (laughing) because sometime between now and 1 July
44. you’ll have to go anyway
45. L: yes okay

It is clear throughout the dialogue that Lisa is not keen about going to the USA, and it is equally clear that she has to go, no
matter how hard she argues that she is not the right person for the job. It is noticeable that in Ben’s long initial monologue,
there is no minimal response at all from Lisa. Minimal response is often used to keep the conversation going (Coates, 2004),
so this is the first hint we get that she is not keen to keep this conversation going. There are several relatively lengthy pauses
(e.g. ll. 2, 3, 5, 8) where we might have expected Lisa to provide some kind of verbal feedback to show that she is listening and
paying attention. This does not happen which suggests that she is not keen about having this conversation at all.
Ben’s first attempt to persuade Lisa is to give her the opportunity to do power shopping in the States (l. 4). It was probably
meant to be a joke, playing on a common stereotype of women as shopaholics, but there is no laughter, just a relatively long
pause after Ben’s remark, which suggests that Lisa does not think it is funny. It is noticeable that Ben’s first request for specific
feedback in l. 5 ‘if you’d like to go (0.7) and if yes (0.3) when? (1.8)’, is met with no response from Lisa. Ben’s next attempt to
elicit a response is by means of praise: ‘you know how the whole system works’ (l. 9) which makes Lisa present her first
objection which is to reject, or at least modify, Ben’s praise (l. 10). Second, she argues there are technical problems (l. 13), and
third, she confesses that she is not confident about going (l. 19). Ben’s second request for commitment (l. 16) is not met with a
favorable response either, so he gets more direct and his demands more unequivocal. He interrupts (ll. 18 [49_TD$IF]and 27) and he
rejects Lisa’s concerns in l. 20: ‘of course you dare’. Ben is now ‘doing power’ more explicitly and directly. He seems to have
 H.J. Ladegaard / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 4–19 13

realized that his initial indirect and careful attempts at persuading Lisa to go have failed so his leadership discourse becomes
more normatively masculine.
In l. 23, we sense that Lisa is beginning to give in. Ben refers to another person, Ken (the Head of IT Services), for
legitimization (l. 24) which suggests that even he thinks it is problematic to ask Lisa to go with such short notice. By referring
to Ken, he makes it sound as if it is not really his decision. In l. 25, Lisa finally seems to realize that she is losing ground. She
swears (l. 25), and suggests that somebody else could go instead, but all Lisa’s attempts to persuade her boss are ignored, and
Ben returns to the question of her commitment to go in l. 33. The question is probably rhetorical more than anything because
it is clear by now that Lisa has to go. However, her final trump card is that she does not have a valid passport. Her remark in l.
34, ‘oh dear I don’t even have a bloody passport’ (in Danish, ‘hovsa, jeg har sgu da ik’ engang et pas’) seems rehearsed and
somewhat unnatural which suggests that it is not the spontaneous exclamation of surprise that she is trying to make it sound
like. ‘Oh dear’ and ‘bloody passport’ represent two different stylistic levels, and it is possible that the ‘Oh dear’ (hovsa) may
not be an authentic exclamation of surprise at all, but something Lisa has been planning to say, as a last resort, for some time.
Ben’s response in l. 35, on the other hand, probably is a spontaneous exclamation of surprise. He raises his voice considerably,
and his exclamation is followed by a reproachful, patronizing ‘Lisa!’ in l. 37. Although he uses laughter, possibly to mitigate
the FTA, he seems genuinely surprised to find out that Lisa does not have a valid passport. Lisa’s ‘ah so’ in l. 42 suggests that
she may think she is off the hook, but Ben’s final remark (ll. 43–44) makes it clear that there is nothing more to discuss. She is
going to America no matter what, and Lisa finally accepts that she has lost the argument (l. 45).
Throughout the interaction, Ben uses various strategies – in the beginning, more indirect and mitigated strategies, after a
while, more direct and unmitigated – but the aim, it seems, is always to maintain control of the discourse. Although he
appears to want Lisa to give her consent (ll. 5, 16 [50_TD$IF]and 33), this strategy seems to be rhetorical more than anything because the
decision to send her to America was probably premeditated. Ben uses rational logic to legitimize his decision: Lisa knows
how the system works (l. 9), she has got what it takes (l. 20), other people cannot do it (l. 27), and she will have to go to the
States anyway (l. 44). Consequently, however hard she tries, Lisa’s objections are either ignored or rejected and thus, Ben’s
management strategy becomes an example of what Van Dijk (1999) refers to as discourse reproducing inequality. This
means that the power asymmetry, which is part of the organizational set-up, is reinforced in Ben’s language use. His repeated
use of disruptive interruptions (ll. 11, 18, 27) – a feature which has been identified as a manifestation of power and
dominance in organizational discourse (see Bargiela-Chiappini and Harris, 1996), and which is very typical in Ben’s
management style – his somewhat condescending tone (ll. 35 [51_TD$IF]and 37), his direct imperative (l. 43), and finally (something
which is not visible in the transcriptions), his high Copenhagen accent, which, in a Danish context, is associated with high
social status, power and prestige, as opposed to Lisa’s Jutland accent, which is associated with lower status and competence
(see Ladegaard, 2001).
We now turn to another example which suggests that the leader’s gender may influence perceptions of what is expected
and appropriate behaviour in this particular CoP. Natalie is Head of the Project Proposals Division, and she has called a
meeting with the Team Managers in her group, all engineers and all male. They small talk for about [52_TD$IF]5 min[53_TD$IF], most of the time
about a time-management course they all attended recently. Then Natalie says ‘Andy was supposed to be here too,’, and 16
turns later, ‘Maybe we should find out if Andy’s coming.’ She calls him and after his introduction she says:

Excerpt 3
Participants: N: Natalie (female leader and chair); A: Andy (male engineer); P: Peter (male engineer); Al: All (apart from
Peter, two other male employees are present in the meeting).

1. N: hi it’s Natalie (0.3) are you going to attend our meeting or//
2. A: //I have to skip it [xxx] I
3. really have to do here and now
4. N: okay (0.2) good
5. A: so ah I’m prioritizing (0.2)
6. N: well that’s okay (0.2)
7. A: okay that’s good
8. N: okay bye (hanging up) (1.2) he’s prioritizing Eddy Hansen had asked him to
9. do something here and now (1.6) but that’s okay
10. P: but that’s
11. N: (laughs) yes
12. Al: (laughing)
13. P: okay
14. N: okay (0.4)
15. P: well I suppose he’ll have to [prioritize] then (3.8) well (0.2) but ah: what are we ah:
16. what are we supposed to talk about sort of?
14 H.J. Ladegaard / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 4–19

17. N: well I’ve been//sort of thinking what might

18. P: //what are we what are we [xxx] is there an agenda or do we
19. just ah (0.8) or how do we (0.3)
20. N: well you know I’ve sort of been thinking that we might perhaps ah: there’s
21. no agenda but if you wanted to discuss something ah: a particular problem
22. then perhaps we might do that you know
23. Al: okay

What we see in this excerpt is a leader who seems to prefer an indirect mitigated management style. Apparently, Andy’s
absence is a bit of a surprise to all of them; he has not sent his apologies, and when Natalie (his boss) calls him to ask if he is
going to come, he still does not apologize. But Natalie readily accepts his explanation (l. 4). Andy’s remark in l. 5, ‘I’m
prioritizing’, refers to the time management course they all attended recently. The other team members were small talking
about this before this telephone conversation, and because the objective of the course was to help employees prioritize and
manage their time better, it might be difficult for Natalie to blame Andy when this is in fact what he is doing. Also, the
reference to Eddie Hansen, a senior colleague and project leader in the department, makes it difficult for Natalie not to accept
his no-show. So, she gives her blessing (l. 6) and explains to the rest of the group why he is not coming, and she even adds,
‘but that’s okay’ (l. 9). However, we sense that the group is not pleased. Peter’s unfinished objection, ‘but that’s’ in l. 10, to
which Natalie agrees (l. 11), followed by an ‘okay’ with a slow rising intonation from Peter (l. 13), and echoed by Natalie (l.
14), suggests the exact opposite, that they do not think it is okay. The implied meaning in Peter’s ‘okay’ is not a question-
mark, but a sceptical ‘okay’ (as in ‘really?’), and the fact that Natalie echoes Peter’s ‘okay’ with exactly the same intonation
and speed suggests that she shares his concerns. This interpretation is further supported by Peter’s remark, ‘well I suppose
he’ll have to then’ (i.e. prioritize) (l. 15), which is probably meant to be ironic.
In the next sequence of this interaction (ll. 15–22), we see a clash of expectations about the meeting. Peter is concerned
because he does not know what the meeting is about, so he asks what they are going to talk about and if there is an agenda (ll.
16 [5_TD$IF]and 18). He is very carefully hedging his criticism of the way Natalie chairs the meeting. He uses hesitation markers (ah:),
he has a false beginning (l. 15) and he hedges his question in l. 16. The hedge he uses in Danish (‘hvad skal vi snakke om havde
jeg nær sagt’) is an explicit mitigator (literally ‘what are we going to talk about, I nearly said’). The two incomplete utterances
in l. 19 support the same impression of a careful speaker who might be uncertain about what he is going to say. In Natalie’s
reply, we also sense a careful and possibly indecisive speaker who appears to be uncertain about the feasibility of her own
proposal. The first part of her reply, ‘well you know I’ve sort of been thinking that we might perhaps’ (l. 20), is so carefully
hedged that it appears vague and indecisive. Furthermore, it suggests that even Natalie is not sure what the meeting is about.
However, in subsequent turns not reported here, she says that she intended these meetings for ‘free discussions of ad hoc
problems’, and the fact that the meeting goes on for another 40 min[56_TD$IF] suggests that it was in fact reasonable to have a meeting
with plenty of discussion without a formal agenda.
From a CDA perspective, it is interesting to note how Peter is trying to take charge of the meeting. Although Natalie is
chairing the meeting, Peter interferes. It seems to bother him that the meeting has not been officially opened, that there is no
official agenda, and that nobody seems to know exactly what the meeting is about (presumably because it is the first of its
kind). Although Peter carefully hedges his criticism, his opposition clearly suggests that he is not happy with Natalie’s
approach. He wants to be informed exactly what they are going to talk about. In other words, he takes an autonomous, task/
outcome-oriented approach (which is typical of a masculine management style), whereas Natalie takes a more collaborative,
person/process-oriented approach (which is typical of a female management style). Peter’s way of ‘doing power’ in this
meeting is to imply that Natalie is not in control by questioning her authority as chair, and implicitly also her competence as
a leader. He is not happy about Natalie’s decision to let Andy prioritize, although his criticism is very implicit (ll. 10 [57_TD$IF]and 15),
and he steps in and tries to take charge of the meeting (ll. 15–16 [59_TD$IF]and 18–19). Van Dijk (2001b) points out that a common and
efficient way of enacting power is to control context, and this seems to be exactly what Peter is doing. Consequently, what we
see here is another example of the enactment of social control and power (cf. Excerpt 1), and again, the attempt to seize
control is done by a male employee.
The last example to be analyzed involves a male leader asking one of his staff to take on an urgent assignment. There are
some similarities between this scenario and the one we analyzed in Excerpt 2, but the outcome is very different. Martin is
Head of Proposal Preparation and he comes to Oliver’s office. They have worked together for at least three years.

Excerpt 4
Participants: M: Martin (male leader); O: Oliver (male engineer and project leader in the department).

1. M: Happy birthday or (0.2) whatever it is (laughing)

2. O: thank you (0.2) it’s actually a while ago
3. M: okay eh: Ollie//
4. O: //there’s Danish pastry over there if you’re interested (0.2)
 H.J. Ladegaard / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 4–19 15

5. M: thanks ah: (0.6) it’s ah: (0.3) I’m doing this recording it’s some kind of study
6. where they want to (0.7) find out how we communicate in the workplace
7. [9 turns left out where M and O discuss the value of these recordings]
8. M: okay well to cut a long story short Sam called (0.2) and I’m not sure how
9. busy you are or what you’re doing right now (0.4)
10. O: ah: we’re just about to launch the [name] project and ah:
11. M: okay
12. O: so this is where we are [xxx] quite busy (0.5) but Sam called you said
13. M: yes (0.2)
14. O: and he? (0.3)
15. M: he needs some help here and now (0.2) he needs someone to calculate the
16. price of rubber bands (0.3) for the [name] project in India
17. O: okay
18. M: they expect the customer to sign today (1.3)
19. O: okay (0.9)
20. [Martin explains all the technical details of the assignment; 7 turns left out]
21. M: so would it be possible for you to help him? (1.1)
22. O: yeah sure but it has to be today because I’m not here tomorrow and the day
23. after tomorrow
24. M: it’s today

A characteristic feature of Martin’s management style is that he small talks and jokes a lot with his staff. Several studies
have found that humor is used as an effective management strategy because it allows leaders to disguise less acceptable
messages, give directives or criticize their staff without being seen as ‘bossy’ (see, for example, Holmes, 2006; Ladegaard,
2008; Mullany, 2004, 2007; Schnurr, 2009). Martin uses small talk to initiate conversation in each and every one-to-one
encounter in the data, and this is also the case in Excerpt 4. He notices flags and Danish pastry when he comes into
Oliver’s office so he wishes him a happy birthday, and then they small talk about the equipment and the recording for a
while before Martin gets to the point. His initial request for help is very indirect, ‘I’m not sure how busy you are or what
you’re doing right now’ (ll. 8–9). Oliver is in fact very busy; he is just about to launch a new project, and he is off on a
business trip the day after this conversation so his ‘quite busy’ (l. 12) is probably an understatement. Nevertheless, he
still gives Martin an indirect opportunity to make a request by saying ‘Sam called you said’ (l. 12), followed by ‘and? (l.
14) with rising intonation which suggests it is an invitation to continue. Martin explains all the necessary details and
finally asks, ‘so would it be possible for you to help him?’ (l. 21). Oliver agrees to help (l. 22) despite his own busy
schedule.
If we compare this episode to the one in Excerpt 2 between Ben and Lisa, there are obvious similarities as well as differences.
In Excerpt 2, we also saw a boss coming to one of his team member’s office asking her to do something, and we saw a subordinate
who was busy and reluctant to comply. But there are noticeable differences in the way these two leaders present their request.
Ben in Excerpt 2 makes his request in l. 1: ‘Ken asked me if we could assist the Americans completing their reports’, and he asks
for Lisa’s commitment in ll. 4-5. Martin, on the other hand, takes a more indirect, person-oriented approach. First, he small talks
about Oliver’s birthday and the recordings. Second, he recognizes that Oliver may be too busy to help him; third, he explains all
the details of his request, and finally, he makes his request (l. 21). If we compare these two discourses, there is little doubt which
leadership style is the more effective in terms of achieving transactional objectives and, at the same time, retaining
interpersonal harmony. Martin and Oliver manage to negotiate a solution to an immediate problem which probably leaves both
of them happy. Ben, on the other hand, needs to work hard to get Lisa to cooperate, and although she eventually complies with
his request, she appears to be openly frustrated that her objections were so bluntly rejected.
We now turn to a more general discussion of our findings, and the possible implications they may have for this business
corporation.

6. Discussion

Holmes (2006:[62_TD$IF]209) argues that

At some level, we are always aware of the sex of those we are talking to, and we bring to every interaction our
familiarity with societal gender stereotypes and the gendered norms to which women and men are expected to
conform. Gender may move to the foreground or retreat to the background at different points in an interaction, but it
is an omnipresent influence, and always potentially relevant to the interpretation of the meaning of an interaction.
16 H.J. Ladegaard / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 4–19

What the analyses of these four excerpts have shown is that gender appears to be a salient variable in this CoP.
Whether it moves to the foreground, or retreats to the background, we sense that gender is relevant, particularly when it
comes to interpreting, and responding to, the discourse of male and female leaders. When we look at male and female
leaders’ actual management styles, there is generally no support in our data for the straight-forward dichotomies we
come across in parts of the literature, such as Rosener’s (1990) account of women’s leadership style as being
transformational, interactive and democratic as opposed to male leaders whose leadership style is said to be based on
command, power and control. Although we do see evidence of a masculine management style, particularly in one of the
male leaders (Ben), this study provides evidence that these leaders, irrespective of gender, prefer a management style
which can be characterized as facilitative, indirect, collaborative, person- and process-oriented (i.e. a normatively
feminine management style). When it comes to giving directives, an indirect, mitigated approach is preferred by both
male and female leaders, although the male leaders also occasionally use a more direct approach, i.e. they are more likely
to use a wide verbal repertoire style drawing on elements from both a normatively feminine and a normatively
masculine style (cf. Case, 1988).
However, the most significant difference found in this study is the way employees respond to their male and female
leaders. The male leaders do not seem to have any problems when it comes to ‘doing’ power, claiming authority, and
accomplishing their transactional goals, whereas the female leaders are often struggling – not only in the excerpts we
have analyzed but in many other situations as well[63_TD$IF ].[64_TD$IF]3 We do not know if the issue here is biological sex, interactional
style, gender stereotypes, or personality (or maybe a combination), but we do know that the authority of our two female
leaders, and the legitimacy of their decisions and priorities, are challenged on several occasions by some of the male
employees. We saw an example in Excerpt 3 where Peter indirectly criticized Natalie’s autonomy as a leader and the way
she was chairing the meeting, or in Excerpt 1 where two male employees consistently opposed their female leader’s right
to make decisions. These behaviour patterns do not only challenge Tanya and Natalie’s function as chair of a meeting but
compromise their integrity as leaders. CDA was a useful analytical tool in exposing the enactment, exploitation and abuse
of power in everyday interactions in the workplace. Such discourses bear evidence of social discrimination against
women in male-dominated CoPs and suggest that despite many attempts to create equal opportunities for men and
women in business organizations, the authority and legitimacy ascribed to male end female leaders in the workplace are
far from equal.
Our analyses have demonstrated that a normatively female management style may work well for a male leader but,
paradoxically, when used by a female leader, their authority and competence are more likely to be challenged, and their
professional integrity jeopardised, by their male staff. The problem for these female leaders may be what Tannen (1998:[65_TD$IF]203)
refers to as the double bind, a problem which is also reflected in Holmes’ (2006:[6_TD$IF]210) characterization of female leadership as
an oxymoron. These authors argue that when a female leader enhances her assertiveness or exerts her power explicitly in the
workplace, she risks undermining her femininity. On the other hand, when her behavio[67_TD$IF]ur fits the expectations of how a
woman should talk, she risks undermining her competence and authority and thus her status as a leader.
Wajcman (1998) paints a rather gloomy picture of women’s role in managerial positions in modern business
organizations. She argues that institutions of work are substantively gendered and in top-management positions, there is no
room for women to express a genuinely female identity. The essence of the problem, she continues, is that, despite years of
equal opportunity policies, management still incorporates a male standard which simply positions women as out of place.
This means that in order to succeed in managerial positions, women must accommodate themselves to the organization and
manage like a man. Getting more women into top positions is not going to change anything, according to Wajcman (1998),
because the norm for the managerial occupation remains exclusively male. Therefore, she concludes, ‘the individuals of
either sex who succeed are those who are prepared to be hard, those who can ‘‘take it like a man’’’ (p. 160). Holmes’ (2006)
conclusion is more optimistic. Based on the LWP-data, she argues that ‘reality is not as black and white as the leadership and
management literature often suggests’ (p. 211). By being contextually sensitive and stylistically flexible and by using a
combination of normatively male and normatively female discourse strategies, women in management positions have
managed to ‘de-gender and re-categorize’ traditionally male ways of talking into neutral tools of leadership discourse. Thus,
through their success, these female leaders ‘modify the concept of what it means to be an effective leader’ (Holmes,
2006:211). Through their own linguistic practices, these women demonstrate how ‘normatively feminine discourse in
workplace interaction can help erode associations of seniority with masculinity, and establish associations of effectiveness
with femininity’ (Holmes, 2006:[70_TD$IF]221). So basically what the women in the LWP-data are doing is to redefine what it means to
be a female leader.
However, if we reconsider the data we have analyzed for this article (as well as other parts of the recordings which could
not be included in this analysis), it is questionable whether that is an option for the female leaders in this CoP. It seems that
these women are trying to use, and thus legitimize, a normatively feminine management style, but are often met with fierce
opposition, possibly because this is a very male-dominated workplace. Men are the overwhelming majority, and they occupy
jobs which are traditionally part of an almost exclusively male domain (engineering). It is also noticeable that in the contexts

3
Other examples (which could not be analyzed in detail in this article) include Tanya struggling in a meeting to have her expertise on risk calculations
acknowledged by some of the male engineers in her department. They keep interrupting her, persistently arguing against the evidence she presents.
Another example includes Natalie being criticized (although disguised as a joke) in a meeting by one of the male engineers in the department for not giving
enough assignments to one of their female colleagues.
 H.J. Ladegaard / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 4–19 17

where these female leaders are seriously challenged, they are the only women in an otherwise all-male group. This means
that although they are officially in charge, they are still challenged by numerical factors and by the fact that it is presumably
immensely difficult to feminize a traditionally all-male occupation like engineering. Fletcher (1999), who also studied
women leaders in a company dominated by male engineers, concludes that when the female engineers in her data were
trying to enact mutual empowering, they were often misinterpreted as enacting mothering – in other words, ‘they were
responded to as women within a patriarchal system of power and entitlement, not as peers or coworkers in an organizational
hierarchy’ (p. 109). The female leaders in the LWP-data who were able to redefine leadership worked for organizations with a
more balanced gender-ratio, such as government organizations, so when they were feminizing leadership roles, we might
speculate that they had at least the support of their female colleagues. The female leaders in our data, on the other hand,
seem to be fighting against all odds.
Baxter (2003) also analyzes gender and communicative styles in a male-dominated organization. Her analyses focus on
boardroom talk – the language use of the senior management team of an all-male dotcom company – and she is particularly
interested in the achievements of a single woman, Sarah, who manages to not only survive but also communicate effectively
in an otherwise all-male environment. However, while acknowledging Sarah’s achievements on the one hand, Baxter (2003)
also criticizes her use of a stereotypically masculine speech style because, as the author argues, this contributes to ‘the
discourse of masculinization within the company culture’ (p. 150). However, it is possible to interpret Sarah’s discourse
strategies differently. We might argue that she uses a wide-verbal repertoire style because she is being strategic and she
realizes that only by including normatively male strategies in her speech will she get respect and attention from her male
colleagues (see also Holmes, 2006:[71_TD$IF]220).
Ladegaard (2004) studied groups of boys and girls playing in kindergarten and primary school settings. He found that,
contrary to expectations, the girls were likely to use an unmitigated, direct, and sometimes confrontational style in their
play, just like their male peers. The author sees this as evidence that these girls are contextually sensitive and have what he
calls a high degree of pragmatic competence. They are in a context where indirectness and other forms of verbally polite
behavior do not pay off; they have to compete with at least 20 other children for the attention of 2–3 adult caregivers, and
they realize that in order to get heard and exercise at least some degree of power, they have to be strategic and use a direct,
unmitigated speech style. We might argue that women (and men) in male-dominated CoPs also need to be contextually
sensitive. Power can be defined as ‘the ability to influence others, to be listened to, [and] to get your way’ (Tannen, 1998:[73_TD$IF]317),
and if women in all-male CoPs cannot get the attention and be listened to by those in power as well as by their peers, they
exclude themselves from influence and power. Because ‘discourse constitutes social practice and is at the same time
constituted by it’ (De Cillia et al., 1999:157), a feminized discourse, which we have seen is perceived as relatively powerless
in a male-dominated workplace when used by women, is likely to produce social practices which will marginalize and
exclude women, even when they are leaders. When Tanya’s first remark to her male staff in a meeting she chairs is ‘Do you
want me to try to present something or?’ (Ex. 1, l. 1), she employs a feminized discourse which may be a true expression of
her identity as a women, but employing such discourses also makes it more difficult for her to exercise the power and
influence she is supposed to enjoy as a leader.
This brings us back to the double bind dilemma and Wajcman’s claim that in order to be successful in a male-
dominated business environment, a woman must manage like a man. However, only women (and female leaders in
particular) can effectively change and redefine what it means to be an effective leader. It seems, therefore, that de-
gendering and re-categorizing normatively male leadership discourse and making it part of their own repertoire might
be the only tenable position for women in male-dominated CoPs (cf. Holmes, 2006:[75_TD$IF ]211). Schnurr (2009:[76_TD$ IF]110) argues that
women leaders faced with this dilemma may successfully draw on a variety of discourse strategies which would allow
them to hedge their display of normatively masculine behaviours and thus, protect themselves from negative judgement
by their colleagues. And, she continues, ‘humour – due to its ambiguous functions – seems to be one of the strategies
which enables them to employ stereotypically masculine behaviours while also considering feminine aspects’ (p. 110)
(see also Mullany, 2007).
Finally, if we compare the management styles of our four leaders, it is clear that they are not equally successful in terms of
achieving their transactional goals while, at the same time, preserving interpersonal harmony. One of our four leaders,
Martin, seems to be particularly successful, and this is arguably not just because of his sex. He seems to get on well with
everyone, he jokes with his staff and they joke with him, and in one-to-one encounters, he always uses small talk to break the
ice before he makes a request (cf. Odgaard and Jørgensen, 2003). He has a clear preference for an indirect, carefully mitigated
management style, but he can also occasionally be rather direct and very determined. In other words, Martin uses a wide-
verbal repertoire style, and he is constantly alternating between shoptalk and social talk. He is also the only leader who is
praised for his achievements on several occasions by the staff in his department[7_TD$IF],[78_TD$IF]4 male as well as female, and there is no
indication in the data that he is met with any opposition from his colleagues. Consequently, we have reason to believe that he
is seen as a particularly successful leader. Like some of the most successful leaders in the LWP-data (Holmes, 2006; Schnurr,
2009), Martin is contextually sensitive as well as stylistically flexible and this may be at least part of the reason why he is an
effective and apparently also very popular leader.

4
A couple of examples from the data to support this claim include a comment from John, a senior staff and a member of Martin’s team, to his colleagues in
a meeting about implementation strategies: ‘in my opinion, Martin has done some of the best work in this department that I have ever seen’; and Jake,
another senior staff in Martin’s department in a project proposal meeting: ‘and some people have done fantastic work here, Martin for example.’
18 H.J. Ladegaard / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 4–19

7. Conclusion[79_TD$IF]s

Whil[80_TD$IF]e this study acknowledges that there are serious obstacles for female leaders in the workplace, particularly in male-
dominated CoPs, it also concludes that using an exclusively male or exclusively female management style, for male and
female leaders alike, is not likely to lead to success. Successful leadership, it seems, depends on flexibility and pragmatic
competence. This study suggests that female leaders should not employ an exclusively feminine management style; it is
probably equally true, however, that they should also do their best to escape the Pit-Bull-Terrier image that some female
leaders seem to think is an asset for a female leader[81_TD$IF].5[82_TD$IF] Like Niels Bohr’s complementarity theory in Physics which argues that
phenomena can only be understood and appreciated if we look at them from two opposing points of view, we have to look at
male and female management styles as differing but complimentary styles (cf. Tannen, 1998:[83_TD$IF]317). However, a remaining
problem which this article has highlighted is the prejudice against female leaders, and against a female management style
when employed by women leaders, which exists in male-dominated organizations. Fairclough (2001:[84_TD$IF]71) points out that
‘ideology is most effective when its workings are least visible.’ When organizational ideologies (such as ‘engineer’ = ‘ma-
le’ = ‘powerful leader’) are represented in discourse, they are considered common sense, but if organizational members
become aware that a particular aspect of common sense is sustaining power inequalities at somebody’s expense, ‘it ceases to
be common sense, and may cease to have the capacity to sustain power inequalities, i.e. to function ideologically’ (Fairclough
(2001:71)). In other words, as long as the ‘think-leader-think-male’ ideology is not questioned in this CoP, it remains a
powerful force in favor of the status quo. Hopefully, this article has contributed to an increased awareness not only of
different management styles, but also of the negative stereotypes that exist in some business organizations against female
leaders. Because, as Tannen (1998:[86_TD$IF]309) points out, ‘understanding what goes on when people talk to each other is the best
way to improve communication – and get more work done – in the workplace as in all aspects of our lives.’

Appendix A. Transcription conventions

// = interruption
//nnn// = overlapping speech
Bold = loud speech
Underlining = pronounced with stress
[xxx] = incomprehensible
(1.8) = pause in seconds
ah: = long vowel sound

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Hans J. Ladegaard was educated at Odense University, Denmark and Cambridge University, England. Prior to his present post as Associate Professor in Linguistics
at the Hong Kong Baptist University, he was Associate Professor in Sociolinguistics at the University of Southern Denmark. He has previously taught at the
University of Cambridge, and he has been a Visiting Scholar at Cardiff University, and an Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London. His
research interests include language attitudes and stereotypes, global and intercultural communication, and language and gender, and he has published widely on
these issues in international journals and books.