276 Part 3 Group and Organizational Communication
Consider the instructor for your course. He or she demonstrates legitimate
power as your teacher but may also exercise reward and expert power, provid-
ing you with some extra credit and offering valuable information, respectively.
As another example, Quint demonstrates legitimate power as captain of his own❶ How do these tactics
reflect the concept of
behavioral flexibility
discussed in Chapter 2?
❷ Which of these tactics
seems more ethical? If
adopting a masculine
style of leadership—for
example, being “bossy”—
has proven problematic for
women, is it fair for them
to rely on stereotypical,
gendered leadership roles
to communicate?
➌ Don’t men bear some
of the responsibility for
ensuring that they com-
municate competently and
ethically with their female
supervisors, colleagues,
and staff? Do workplaces
need to become, essen-
tially, more feminine?
➍ Sandberg’s work is
directed primarily at
women in leadership roles.
How does her advice
affect women with less
power? Is Williams’s
advice more or less salient
to women lower on the
organizational chart?Leaning In versus Gender Judo
Making up 50 percent of the population and 47 percent of the workforce (U.S.
Census Bureau, 2012), women are outperforming men in terms of earning
college and advanced degrees (Associated Press, 2011; Perry, 2013). But
when you look at the highest levels of corporate and public sector leadership,
it’s clearly still a man’s world: in January 2014, a mere 23 of the CEOs of
Fortune 500 companies were female and the United States Congress had
only 99 women (79 out of 435 in the House of Representatives). Leaving
aside the reasons for the underrepresentation of half the population in corner
offices, consider the communication challenges that women working in male-
dominated industries face. What’s it like to be the lone woman at the boy’s
club? And how do women overcome preconceived notions of masculine ver-
sus feminine leadership styles?
Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg struck a chord with women when she
suggested that females in leadership roles take a firmer stand in advocat-
ing for themselves—and, by extension, for all women. Her 2013 book Lean
In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead encouraged women to stop under-
estimating themselves and act like men, to stop worrying about appearing
“bossy,” and to simply be the boss. The phrase “lean in” took hold in the
public imagination as stylistic shorthand for women to push themselves
outside of their comfort zone and to make the same demands that men typi-
cally do. By “leaning in” instead of “pulling back,” Sandberg argued, women
would be playing by the same rules as men, allowing themselves to be as
ambitious—and successful and well compensated—as their male colleagues.
When outnumbered in the boardroom, Sandberg explained, it is even more
crucial for women to demand their seat at the table.
But other women in similar situations have noted that it may be easier—
and more effective—to use more traditional feminine communication tech-
niques when dealing with an entrenched masculine culture. Joan C. Williams
interviewed 127 highly successful women and found that adopting masculine
communication styles often backfired. “If you’re too feminine,” Williams ex-
plains, “you’re perceived as incompetent. But if you’re too masculine, you’re
seen as difficult to work with.” Williams suggests what she calls “gender
judo” (judo being the Japanese martial art of the “gentle way,” which involves
overcoming your opponent by using his own momentum to overpower him).
In practice, it means reminding men of traditional feminine roles (like that of
a mother, daughter, or teacher) with which they are comfortable and using
those roles to exert authority. “Be warm Ms. Mother 95 percent of the time,”
explained one executive “so that the 5 percent of the time when you need to
be tough, you can be” (quoted in Williams, 2014).THINK
ABOUT
THISCOMMUNICATIONACROSSCULTURES