The Language of Female Leadership »

JUDITH BAXTER is Lecturer in the Department of Applied Linguistics at the University of Reading, UK.

Could language be a reason why women are under-represented at senior level in the business world? The Language of Female Leadership investigates how female leaders actually use language to achieve their business and relational goals. The author proposes that the language of women leaders is shaped by the type of corporation they work for. Based on the latest research, three types of 'gendered corporation' appear to affect the way women interact with colleagues: the male-dominated, the gender-divided and the gender-multiple. This book shows that senior women have to carry out extra 'linguistic work' to make their mark in the boardroom. In male-dominated and gender-divided corporations, women must develop an extraordinary linguistic expertise just to survive. In gender-multiple corporations, this linguistic expertise helps them to be highly regarded and effective leaders.

1 Leading talk 1

2 Speaking in the male-dominated corporation 23

3 Speaking in the gender-divided corporation 51

4 Speaking in the gender-multiple corporation 76

5 Case study 1 : linguistic work in the corporation 101

6 Case study 2 : language of female leadership in action 116

7 How to achieve an effective language of leadership 147

8 The linguistic landscape of female leadership 164

Appendices 176

References 179

Index 188