r~Jfl~Mlb ~ 10 %(20081¥-) pp. 83-102© 2008 Sf

D *iltffl~"¥:~

Gender, Leadership and Discourse
in New Zealand Workplaces'

Janet Holmes
Victoria University of Wellington
Over the last fifteen years, social constructionist approaches have emphasised the dynamic nature of theprocess of creating meanings and negotiating the social order, including " the gender order", and increasing attention has been paid to the specific situational contexts in wh ich meanings are produced.
Language and gender research has benefited from the questioning of pre-determined social categories
which thi s has entailed. Social constructionist approaches are also beginning to impact on leadersh ip
research. Combining these different research threads, and drawing on matetial from the Wellington
Language in the Workplace Project, this paper describes some of the ways in which women and men
construct etiective leadership identities in workplace interaction.
Keywords:

gender, mascul in ity, leadership, workplace, discourse analysis

1. Introduction..... ..

.....

~

-

Over the last fifteen years, social constructionist approaches to the analysis of discourse have been increasingly adopted in research on language and gender (eg. Cameron
1995, Hall and Buchol tz 1995, Bergvall, Bing and Freed 1996, Eckert and McConneliGinet 2003, M ills 2005, Baxter 2006, Cameron and Kulick 2006, Mullany 2007). Social
constructionism questions the treatment of social categories and social roles as "given".
Rather than assigning a person to categories such as "elderly" or "lower class", or to roles
such as "mother" or "manager", this approach entails examining the way an individual
behaves in particular contexts, focussing on how they "perform" or enact different aspectsof their various social identities. The ways in which people enact age, social status, gender, professional role, and so on, are influenced by aspects of the social context, by cultural beliefs and values, and by individual consciousness (Butler 1990, Unger 1989) .
Thus a social constructionist approach encourages an emphasis on the dynamic processof creating meanings and negoti ating the social order, rather than treating meanings as

1

This paper draws on Holmes (2005, 2007) and Holmes (fca). I thank those who allowed their workplace interactions to be recorded and the Language in the Workplace Project team who assisted with collecting and transcribing the data. The research was supported by grants from the New ZealandFoundation for Research Science and Technology and the New Zealand Marsden fund. Special thanks
to Meredith Marra for careful editing.

83

84

pre-determined or pre-packaged. It encourages attention to the specific situational context in which meanings are produced.
Researchers involved in analysing the relationship between language and gender
have welcomed the dynamic emphasis of social constructionism. As Deborah Cameron(1995: 43) says,"one is never finished becoming a woman, or a man. Each individual subject must
constantly negotiate the norms, behaviours, di scourses, that define masculinity andfemininity for a particular community at a particular point in history .......".
However, while it is an on-going, dynamic process, the construction of gender identity isalso constrained by contextual factors: "Gender.... is a self-fulfilling prophecy... Each of us
behaves in gendered ways because we are placed in gendered social contexts. Womenencounter different social contexts than men" (Crawford 1995: 16). Focussing on leadership, in particular, the social expectations of the wider society often act as constraints
on the ways in which both women and men can appropriately enact a leadership role atwork. Current theories of leadership and management highlight the importance both ofassertiveness and authority, attributes normatively associated with masculine styles ofinteraction, as well as "well-honed relational skills" (Aheame, Matthieu and Rapp 2005),
attributes associated with feminine interactional styles. Thus both women and men mustnegotiate a complex path through the social expectations which surround the leadershiprole to construct a satisfactory identity in their specific communities of practice. In tllis
process, they can draw from a wide and varied discursive repertoire, selecti ng appropriate discursive strategies in response to particular interactional contexts. This paper
explores how New Zealand women and men demonstrate stylistic diversity and sensitivity to context in the ways in which they enact their leadership roles at work.
In order to illustrate this diversity, I first provide examples of how New Zealand men
face a doub le bind which demands that they provide vision and authoritative leadersllip
on the one hand, while also adopting an egalitarian approach, reflecting the highly valued
concept of " mateship", and refraining from appearing to be better than their colleagues.2
Faced with this double bind some New Zealand men enact the role of the hero leader insome contexts, whi le in others they adopt a more collegial, egalitarian approach to leadership. I then provide examples of how New Zealand women leaders manage a different
double bind, namely a conflict between the attributes associated with leadership and femininity: if women act authoritatively, they are typically regarded as unfeminine, while ifthey behave in normatively feminine ways, they are often dismissed as unfit to lead. I
will show how some women reso lve these conflicting demands by drawing on discourse
strategies associated with acceptable feminine leadership roles, such as "mother" and2

See Holmes (fca) for fu rther discussion and exemplification.

Gender, Leadership and Discourse in New Zealand Workplaces

85"queen", roles which licence women to behave in authoritative ways in the workplace. 3
First, however, I briefly desc1ibe the methodology used to collect the data on which thepaper draws.

Methodology and data base4

2.

The material discussed in this paper de1ives from the Wellington Language in the
Workplace (LWP) Project (www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/lwp). The basic methodology adopted by the LWP Project involves an ethnographic approach: following a pe1iod of participant observation, we ask volunteers to collect recordings of samples of their normal
everyday workplace interactions over a period of two to tlU'ee weeks. This is followed
by debriefing interviews to collect comments and reflections on this process. Some volunteers keep a recorder and microphone on their desks, others caJTy the equipment roundwith them in a small carry-case. Where possible we video-record meetings of groups,
using small video cameras which are fixed in place, switched on, and left running for thewhole meeting. As far as possible, our policy is to minimise our intrusion as researchers
into the work environment.
We have found that over the recording period, people increasingly ignore the microphones and the video cameras. The equipment simply comes to be regarded as a standard part of the furniture, and there are often comments on the tapes indicating people
have forgotten about the recording equipment. As a result, our database includes some
excellent examples of workplace interaction which are as close to 'natural' as one could
hope for.
The complete Language in the Workplace Project Corpus cun·ently comprises morethan 1500 interactions, involving 500 participants from 22 different workplaces which
include commercial organisations, government departments, small businesses, and factories. The interactions recorded include small, relatively informal work-related discussions
between two or tlu·ee participants, ranging in time between twenty seconds and two hours,
as well as more formal meetings varying in size from four to thirteen participants, andextending in time from twenty minutes to four or five hours. The corpus also includes
telephone calls and social talk as it occurred, for example, at the beginning of the day, at
tea/coffee-breaks, and at lunchtime. The data used for the analysis below draws on material recorded in meetings in professional white coll ar workplaces.

3

See Holmes and Marra (2004), Holmes (2005, 2006), Holmes and Schnun (2006) for further discussion and exemplification.
4 See Holmes and Stubbe (2003a, chapter 2) for a more detai led description.

·-

3.

Reconciling leadership and mateship at work

I begin by examining two ways in which men at work enact leadership in New
Zealand workplaces.
Although an increasing number of leaders are women, the reality is that men still
dominate senior positions in most areas of business in many countries. The 2006 New
Zealand census indicated that less than 4% of Directors of businesses are female. The
CEOs of 26 New Zealand government departments are men, while only nine are women.
As the Human Rights Commission Report (2005: 16) noted "the high profile of a selectgroup masks women's [low] overall participation in senior positions throughout the restof New Zealand". Overall, then, the most senior positions in most New Zealand professional white collar workplaces are filled by men.
This male dominance is reflected in the focus of many New Zealand leadership studies. In their book, The Hero Manager. Jackson and Parry (2001), for instance, profile
seven men and two women, Cheryll Sotheran and Margaret Bazley. Similarly Diamond's(2006) book on Maori leadership features five men and only one woman. Moreover, thefocus of these books is largely on relatively authoritarian and "masculine" approaches toleadership. Consistent with this view of how leadership is appropriately enacted, the two
women in Jackson and Parry (2001) are described by public commentators in very negative terms, such as ' the rottweiler chief executive', and ' the Grey Nurse', a species ofshark (Jackson and Parry 2001: 175, 42). There are a number of leaders in our data (bothmen and women) who adopt a tough approach to problem-solving and decision-making,who criticise others very explicitly, and who disagree very directly and 'on record'.
However, overall , men make use of these normatively masculine discourse strategies
much more frequently than the women in our data. In the next section, I illustrate how
a number of these men enact leadership in their different workplaces.

3.1. The leader as hero
The traditional leader is authoritative, decisive, inspirational, and charismatic, a conception of leadership whkh has been characterized as the "hero-leader" (Jackson andParry 2001). Perhaps the most archetypal expression of the hero leader persona is illustrated by those in commercial organisations who are 'self-made men', people like Richard
Branson and Bill Gates. In several cases in our data, men who could be characterized inthis way had narratives to recount which constructed them as heroes who had, against
considerable odds, and at substantial costs of vmi ous kinds, successfully established theircompanies (Holmes 2006; fca) . Example 1 is a brief excerpt from Victor's hero story inwhich he describes how he and a friend started the company of which (at the time of theinterview) he was the Managing Director. 5

5

See Holmes (2006) for further discussion of this excerpt.

Gender, Leadership and Discourse in New Zealand Workplaces

87

Example 16Context: Interview with the Managing Director of a steadily growing successful IT company.
1.
2.
3.
4.

Vic:

we went away and in our discussions said
actually there's an opportunity for someone else to go and do thatand why shouldn't it be us +so we spent a few months devoting most weekends

5.

to planning of whether it was feasible

6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

or how we should do it what we could do
and then decided it was worthwhile
and in the meantime during that period of planning er
we'd been saving franticallyso that come the day when we stepped out
er we didn't need to take anything out of the company
for a period of time ...

Victor here presents himself and his business partner as people with vision; they were theones who saw an opportunity to develop a new company why shouldn't it be us (line 3).
He describes the careful planning that they undertook to work out whether their vision
was feasible (lines 4-8), and the saving they undertook to provide the safety net theywould need to launch onto the market (line 9- 12). Their pro-active role is evident in therepeated use of the agentive we (lines I , 4, 6, 9, 10, II). Victor thus presents a hero story
in which he and his partner established what has now become a very successful IT company through their careful planning, hard work, involving most weekends (line 4), willingness to save hard, and also to do without any financial reward initially we didn't needto take anything out of the company for a period of time (lines 11 - 12). In other words,
this can be considered a typical masculine narrative of contest, where the heroes succeed
despite formidable hurdles (cf Coates 2003, Johnson 1997). And it clearly constructs
Victor as a visionary, decisive business leader.?
Hero leaders, typically make use of a very controlling interactional style. However
the way in which this is instantiated may vary. For some leaders such control was evident in the way they structured meetings. Kenneth, for instance, the Head of the IT
Department in a large organisation, always had a very explicit and carefully structured
agenda which he rigidly adhered to. Discussion of items followed a strict, linear structure (Hol mes and Stubbe 2003a); Kenneth introduced each new topic and then invitedspecific people to speak to it. He was also the one who decided when there had been suf-

6

See transcription conventions at end of chapter.
Moreover, Victor's senior management team contribute to this construction as evidenced in a rangeof ways, such as a humorous exchange in which they compare him to Harrison Ford in the Star Wars
films.
7

88

ficient discussion of a topic. He did not encourage digressions, being prepared to cut people off abruptly if they appeared to be developing the discussion in directions he judged
irrelevant (see Holmes, Schnurr and Marra 2007), Kenneth was also the person who asked
most clarifying questions, and who answered the questions of others. Thus throughexplicit and careful control of the way an interaction develops, a leader can assert theirauthority.
Another way in which leaders construct a heroic and authoritative identity is byadopting a challenging and confrontational discourse style. This feature is especially evident in meetings where the leader questions and contests statements and decisions madeby others. Example 2 is an excerpt from a meeting in a commercial company where theManaging Director and owner of the company, Seamus, generally attempts to play a backseat role duting meetings.8 In interview, he claimed to be just a participant in meetings,
and to leave his general manager to handle matters relating to the day-to-day running of
the business. Consistent with tllis stance, he sat not at the head of the table but along theside. Nonetheless, a discourse analysis of what is going on suggests that, despite the managing director's assertion, it is not the general manager in the chair but the managing
director-company owner who has most influence on proceedings. This is most evident
from the frequency and focus of the managing director's questions (see Holmes feb). So,for example, from a total of 76 questions in half an hour of meeting talk, Seamus, theManaging Director, asked 3 1, almost twice as many questions as Jaeson, the chair who
asked 16. No one else asked more than 7 questions.
Example 2 illustrates how this donlinance of the discourse is exercised throughSeamus's questions. Preceding this excerpt, Jaeson, the general manager, introduces the
topic of the selling off of old photocopiers and the purchase of new ones. After expressing surprise (is that all) at the price Jaeson is expecting for selling an old photocopier,Seamus begins asking about the purchase of a new one (his questions are in bold type).

Example 2Context: Meeting of ten people in a commercial organisation. Jaeson is the meeting chairand general manager. Seamus is the company's managing director. (Questions are in italics)
1. Sea:Tommy that's did you buy that photocopier2. Tom: no[voc]
3. XM:
4. Tom: oh the
5. Sea:we were talking about buying a photocopier down at
6. Tom: we are buying it () oh we have bought one
you have bought one?
7. Sea:8. Tom: yep

8This discussion is based on material in Holmes (feb).

Gender, Leadership and Discourse in New Zealand Workplaces

9.
10.
11.

12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.

Sea:
Evan:
Tom:
Evan:
Tom:
Sea:
Tom:
Sea:
Tom:
Sea:
Tom:
Sea:
Tom:
Sea:
Tom:

89

okay it's about fourteen wasn't it
and who's that are we buying it from xerox
yeah

are we leasing it or are we buying it
I don't know you and Deb sorted that out

has that deal been done
pretty much /( )\/okay so\ is it a programmable photocopier does it haveyeahokay so it's got a movable back gauge and all of that?
yeahokay how physically big is it
oh it wouldn't be more than a metre squareand how much did it costprobably abou l I thought I thought it was about twelve

In this excerpt, Seamus asks 8 of the 10 questions, and they progress from questions
requesting confirmation of information that he wants to check, to questions requesting
new information; in other words, Lhe questions become increasingly demanding of theaddressee. It is quite evident that even in this exchange about a routine matter, Seamus
controls the topic and the development of the discourse. ln later exchanges, his dominance is even more explicit. So, for example, commenting on something he disapprovesof (the use of a rusty and dented truck for deliveries), he is explicitly challenging who's
letting this happen . . . why wasn't it fixed initially. Such questions force others to be
explicit about complex issues, or aboul the thinking which has led to a deci sion. Suchcontestive and challenging questions are, then, another distinctive discursive feature of thenormatively masculine management style of authoritative hero leaders.9
This section has identified a number of discourse features which contribute to theconstruction of a powerful, authoritative persona typical of the hero-leader's interactional style. These features are available fo r both female and male leaders to draw on(Holmes 2006), but in our data, they are more frequentl y used by men in leadership positions, though of course, not even these men make use of such features all of Lhe time.
Playing the hero-leader is, like other aspects of professional identity, a context-dependent
activity, most often observed in relatively formal settings. The hero leader inspires
respect and provides followers with someone to admire (Jackson and Parry 2001). By
contrast, the stance illustrated in the next section plays down status differences andemphasises the equality of the leader and his "followers".

9

Schnurr (2005) illustrates how contesti ve humour can also contribute to the construction of an
authoritative leadership style.

90

The leader as a good mate
A second way in which leaders may 'do masculinity' at work is by constructing an
identity as a good mate, or a stereotypical Kiwi or New Zealand bloke, emphasising theegalitarian ethos which is so pervasive in New Zealand society. The ' tall poppy syndrome' is the Australasian label for a rather aggressive commitment to equality and thetendency to try to 'cut down to size' those who excel in any way-whether intellectually, in status or wealth. Jackson and PatTy (2001 : 27) comment that 'it would be difficult
to find a nation that has institutionalized and ritualized ... wealth and envy status' or 'lackof reverence for big business' to the extent that Australasians have. Consequently, thosein leadership positions are vulnerable to cti ticism for acting in ways which indicate thatthey consider themselves a cut above others, an unforgivable offence. This is the double
bind that male leaders face in many New Zealand communities of practice. In responseto this conflict between being authoritative and being egalitarian, leaders often seek waysof reducing status differences and emphasising equality wi th their colleagues. For men,one option is to adopt behaviours which indicate they are 'just one of the boys' , or to "domasculinity" in the form of mateship.
Donald, the leader of a small IT company (pseudonymed A&B Resolutionz) is aquintessential example of this approach to reconciling the demands of leadership, masculinity and the egalitarian Kiwi philosophy. Though decisive and direct, and the founderof the business, he only occasionally in our recordings enacted the role of authoritarian
hero-leader. Rather, in most of his interactions, he typified the good Kiwi bloke, emphasising what he shared with others in the team, and playing down differences. His typical
office-wear of shorts and sandals further contributed to this masculine identity of 'thegood joker'. 10 Example 3 makes overt reference to this while also illustrating his friendly relationship with his staff.

3.2.

Example 3 11
During a job interview Donald explains to Michael, a potential new employee, how A&B
Resolutionz works.
1. Don: things are looking like this year will probably be
2.
our best year ever3.
urn but it does come on the back of you know
4.
fairly tight fairly lean times we're just now
5.
there's four main shareholders urn so it's you know
it's however deep our pockets are and6.
you can see the quality of my suit /[laughs)\
7.

10'Joker' is a New Zealand term referring to a fiiendly person, usually male, who has a very relaxed
approach to interaction.
11 This example from our data is discussed in Schnurr (2005).

Gender, Leadership and Discourse in New Zealand Workplaces

8.
9.
10.

Mic:
Ann:
Don:

91

/[laughs]\
he's got shoes on so he must be having /a good day\/[laughs]\ oh yes we try and run a relaxed atmosphere

Donald outlines the current financial state of the company for Michael and ends his
description with a self-deprecating humoro us comment you can see the quality of mysuit (line 7). Donald's comment, which clearly serves as status-reducing, is further supported by Ann's teasing response in which Donald is the butt of her hu mour, he's got
shoes on so he must be having a good day (line 9), stressing that this degree of formality is abnormal for Donald (Schnurr and Chan 2007, Schnurr 2005) . Donald's final comment indicates he takes no offence at Ann's teasing, and also underlines the fact that informality and friendliness are important components of the egalitarian workplace culture that
he nurtures.
Collaborative humour and banter are common in this workplace and Donald is frequently the butt of his colleagues' teasing comments. Schnurr and Chan (2007) discussin some detail , for example, another excerpt in which Donald's stomach is the focus ofteasing remarks. As they comment ' Donald's reaction to this teasing humour is clearly
positive: he not only replies by laughing loudly, but he also plays along and produces
more humour' . In this way, Donald constructs his identity as a good bloke, indicating heis one of the team, and is not above being included in teasing and jocular insult.
In another organisatio n, Daniel, the CEO, also plays down his authority in formal
contexts. He manages meeti ngs with a light hand, and generally avoids being 'heavy' in
the way he operates as a leader. Interestingly, he uses a high number of explicit ling uistic devices to emphasise informality and mateship. In particular he m akes extensive useof the New Zealand pragmatic tag, eh, a feature associated with informality, masculinity
and Maori ethnicity (Stubbe and Holmes 2000, Meyerhoff 1994), and he uses swear
words much more frequently than others in professional white collar workplaces.
Daniel is Maori and he works in a Maori organisation so his use of the pragmaticparticle eh could be regarded as very appropriate. However, he is the CEO of the organisation, and one would therefore not expect him to use this particle so extensively in formal contexts such as staff m eetings. His usage is marked, even in a Maori workplace.

Example 4Context: Meeting of Senior Management Team of commercial organisation, three men
and two women senior staff present as well as CEO.
1.
2.
3.
4.

Dan:
Fra:
Fra:

okay just have it for wednesday /urn\ eh/yeah\... knowing how I feel about themmaking time to go and have the games and various

5.

other things but not doing the stuff that we'd

6.
7.

promised to do by thursday
oh well shout at them a bit eh +

Dan:

92

cos it's all fun it's great to have fun and get dressed up
but it's gotta fit in with everything else eh
9.
Daniel's frequent use of eh (lines 1, 7, 9) in this excerpt clearl y contJ.ibutes to the informal, egalitarian style that he cul tivates, even in formal meetings of senior staff.
8.

Swearing has a similar effect and is even more marked in workplace meetings since it isso rarely used by others in professional contexts. Daniel's utterances are peppered withstrong swear words, as illustrated in example 5 fro m a large formal meeting of the senior
management team.

Example 5Context: Meeting of the Senior Management Team of a commercial organisation. Threeme n and two women senior staff present as well as CEO
1. Fra: Company V got a new chairman they just got sick of him
2. Dan: oh yeah + fuck that's the sort of article
3.
we got to send out to keep on [company] eh
4.
so that they don' t think that fiddling around with the board
5.
won' t do that you know
Thus even in formal contexts, Daniel uses swear words to emphasise his points and thus
consu·ucts himself as a good Kiwi joker, or in American terms 'a regular guy'.
As Jennifer Coates notes, swearing pe1fo nns hegemonic masculinity. 'Swearing andtaboo language have historically been used by men in the company of other men as a signof their toughness and of their manhood' (2003: 46). Coates specifically quotes the New
Zealand historian, Jock Phillips concerning the function of swearing among earl y malesettlers, as a signal of 'the colonial man's readiness to live a hard and physical life, andhis unconcern for the genteel formalities of civilised life ... [and] contempt for the female
world of manners' (Phi11ips 1996: 32). Swearing still undoubtedly performs masculinity
in c urrent times, and in the professional workplace context it also caJTies shock value,suggesting this is a down-to-earth person who does not stand on ceremony or emphasise
status differences. Swea~i ng is thus an effective tool for attenuating the authoritarianassociations of leadership; it is a feature of the way that male mates talk in informal andegali tarian contexts.
This section has illustrated a number of discourse devices used by New Zealand maleleaders to construct an identity as a good Kiwi bloke, someone who values mateship andsupports the egalitarian ethos which is expected in many New Zealand workplaces. This
strategy is another solution to the often conflicting demands of leadership and solidarity,
enabling effective leaders to successfully integrate the demands of their leadership role inan organisation with the relational demands of collegiality. I tum now to consider the
strategies that women leaders in our data adopt in order to deal with a rather different
double bind, namely the confli ct between leadership and femini nity.

Gender, Leadership and Discourse in New Zealand Workplaces

4.

93

Reconciling leadership and feminine gender at work

Despite the fact that some women have succeeded in reaching senior management
positions in New Zealand, there is undoubted evidence in the everyday talk in many workplaces, and particularly more ' masculine' workplace cultures and communities of practice, that women continue to be marginalised in subtle and not-so-subtle ways at work
(Holmes and Stubbe 2003b, Holmes and Schnurr 2006, Holmes 2006). One way in which
effective women leaders in New Zealand workplaces respond to the challenges this offers
is to make use of both authoritarian, powerful discourse as well as more relationally-oriented normatively femjnine discourse as appropriate. 12 A number of leaders in our data
demonstrated great sociolinguistic skill in selecting from a range of strategies according
to features of the immediate context, as well as the type of workplace and workplace culture in which they were operating. One way in which women made this work was toadopt the socially powerful roles of " mother" and/or "queen"-roles which licensed themto "do power" in the workplace without arousing antagonism or condemnation for being" unfeminine".

4.1. Being 'mother'
In many societies, aspects of the stereotype of " mother" are not necessarily attractive (eg. overly fussy, interfering), but overall , in New Zealand society, the maternal roleis generally regarded positively and commands some respect. In our data, the aspects ofthe motherl y role which were employed included both authority and caring. The nurturer-caregiver role is an obvious one for people to aUocate to senior women and Koller
notes that in the business magazines she analysed, women managers were often 'conceptualised in terms of caregivers' (2004: 6). In example 6, Leila, the section manager, constructs herself as a motherl y figure, concerned about the welfare of her staff.

Example 6 13
Context: Regular team meeting in a government organization. The team is discussing thebest use of resources to address some staffing problems. Leila is the meeting chair.

1.
2. Lei:3.
4 . Em:5. XF:
6. Lei:7.
8.

[laughter throughout this section]
Emma you are part of the solution
in that I think that ( )1 only want to be part of the problem
reallyllaughs] [in fun growly tone] don' t you
dare be part of the problem
I'll keep on giving you vitamin c bananas-I
12

See MHier (1995) and Takano (2005) fo r a similar approach used by women managers in Japanese
workplace interaction.
13 This example from our data is discussed in Holmes and Stubbe (2003b).

94

9.

10.
11.
12.

13.
14.
15.
16.

\0

... I

·-

Em:
Lei:

[laughs] chocolate fish [laughs]
I gave I gave urn I you know everyone
had chocolate fish last week but Emma
had more chocolate fish than anybody
the only thing was she had holes in her teeth/[laughs]\/1 couldn't eat them\she couldn' t eat them [laughs]

In this excerpt, Emma establishes the humorous key by contesting Leila's statement that
she is part of the solution (line 2) to the staffing problem, joking that she only wants to
be part of the problem (line 4). Leila then playfully threatens to feed Emma with various goodies (line 8), points out that Emma had more chocolate fish than anybody (line12) when they were handed out the previous week, and then reveals information about theholes in Emma's teeth (line 13). The exchange concludes with a supportive comment
from Emma 1 couldn't eat them (line 15) which is echoed by Leila, she couldn't eat them(line 16). Listening to the recording confirms that this is extremely collaborative harmonious all-together-now talk. This good-humoured exchange, characterized by laughter
and a joking tone, clearly reinforces the supp01tive team culture of this close-knit andfeminine community of practice, but it also constructs Leila in a nurturing, motherly role.
She humorously plays the role of mother to offset the more decisive and authoritative
stance that her managerial role requires at other points in the meeting. Leila here uses
the maternal option to reconcile authority and gender identity.
Example 7 is from a different community of practice, an IT company, and a relatively masculine community of practice. Jill, the Board Chair, adopts a maternal role toresolve a potential problem in a way that the participants wiii find easy to accept.

Example 7 14
Context: Board meeting of six people including Donald and Tessa who are also husband
and wife. Tessa cannot find the mouse which she needs to take the minutes on the computer, as is normal in these meetings.
1. Tess: where's my mouse
2. Sam: [laughs]
3. Tess: /(er)\
4. Don: /(no well)\ you're sitting too far away
5.
from the /receiver\
6. Tess: /oh for\ goodness sakes how am I goi~g7.
to be able to do this
8. Don: eh? oh well I'll do it if you want [laughs)

14This example from our data is discussed in Holmes and Schnurr (2005).

Gender, Leadership and Discourse in New Zealand Workplaces

9.

Tess:

95

well f- just tell me from there

10.

Don:

no I can't do that

11.
12.

Jill:

okay well while while Tessa and Donald[laughs]: have a moment: [laughs] ...
um so I' ll go for a quick fli ck through the agenda

13.

Tessa and Donald engage in a little skirmish, with Tessa complaining about the placingof the computer (lines 1, 6-7) and Donald dishing out advice (lines 4-5) and offering tocome and help (line 8), which Tessa irritably rejects (line 9). Jill is about to start themeeting. Instead of ignming the skirmish, asserting her professional identity, and authoritatively taking the floor, Jill takes the opportunity to re-establish a pleasant tone and pouroil on the troubled marital waters by humorously adopting the role of 'mother' or at least'understanding older adult' rather than 'boss'. Her humour takes a very feminine form
too, in that she playfully and supportively constructs the distracting pair as lovers whoneed a moment's privacy.
Jill's teasing comment (lines 1 1-1 2) is an effective strategy for asserting her authority in a low key way in the face of this diversionary spat. Using humour as an integrative discursive strategy, she manages to have her cake and eat it too, using humour to skilfull y balance the need to be authoritative with attention to workplace relationships.
These b1ief examples illustrate, then, some of the ways in which effective womenleaders adopt on occasion a social role which acceptably integrates their authoritative
positions with their femininity, namely, that of "mother". By adopting a maternal styleof doing power, they effectively finesse the stylistic conflict which faces women in positions of authority. Another such authoritative role available to women leaders is that ofqueen.

4.2.

Playing the Queen

Like the role of mother, the role of "queen" is somewhat ambivalent in some contexts, carrying connotations of "putting on airs", for example. Acknowledging thisambivalence, it is nevertheless clear that women who attract such a term are behaving inauthoritative ways, and that others recognize that they expect to be treated with respectand deference.
One particular senior manager in our data who played the royal role very effectively was explicitly nicknamed "Queen Clara" by her team, a nickname that she was wellaware of and which she exploited to the full. Clara worked in a very hierarchical multinational company where roles and responsibilities were quite explicitly articulated, andpeople were clear about lines of accountability. While there was much friendly social talkaround the edges, meetings were run relatively formally, with authoritarian decision-making very evident (and treated as unmarked) at points of controversy. The adoption of aqueenly role was apparently Clara's solution to the double bind of the confli cting demandsof gender identity and professional identity. The slightly ironic but very functional

96'queenly' persona resolved the potential contradiction between the need to be commanding yet fem inine.
Clara's willingness to be explicitly authoritative when required is also well illustrated by our much-cited example 8, which demonstrates how she resolves a conflict whenteam members want to bend the rules established at the beginning of the project. The
team is discussing how best to provide instructions to other members of their organisation about a specialised computer process. The discussion revolves around a request toallow people to print off material from the computer screen (i.e. to "screendump").

Example 8 15
Context: Regular weekly meeting of project team in multinational white-collar commercial organisation.
1. Har: look's like there's been actually a request
2.
for screendumps
3.

I know it was outside of the scope
but people will be pretty worried about it

4.

Cla:
Matt:
Cia:
Peg:

no screendumps
weno screendumps[sarcastically]: thank you C lara:

10.
11.
12.

Cia:
Matt:

/no screendumps\/we know\ we know you didn' t want themCia:

and we urn er /we've\/that does not\ meet the criteria[several reasons provided why screendumps should be allowed]

13.

Cia:

14.
15.
16.

San:
Cla:
San:

5.
6.

.. .

7.
8.

9.

thanks for looking at that though
so that's a clear well maybe noit's a noit's a no a royal no

Clara here gives a very clear directive that under no circumstances will people be allowed
to print material from their screens. She states her position clearly and explicitly: i.e. noscreendumps. And she does so three times (lines 5, 7, 9) without any modification, thus
conveying her message in very strong terms indeed. Moreover, when Matt suggests thisis simply a matter of what she wants, we know you didn't want them (line 10), she follows up with an explicit reference to the previously agreed and ratified criteria (line 12).
In other words, this is a very clear instance of Clara doing leadership in an explicitly
authoritative way.

15

We have used this example many times in earlier publications because it is such a succinct illustration of such a w ide range of points.

Gender, Leadership and Discourse in New Zealand Workplaces

97

Clara's team have recourse to humour to manage the tensions created when a woman
behaves in such a peremptory and authoritati ve manner. Peggy's sarcastic thank you
Clara (line 8) provides an initial tension-breaker. Clara, however, then restates her position quite unequivocall y it's a no (line 15). A t this point Sandy makes an overt reference
to Clara's queenl y persona in another attempt to defuse the tension, it's a no a royal no(line 16). In this example, then, Clara draws maxi mall y on the authoritative aspects ofher queenly role, and, while they humorously appeal to that role to relieve tension, herteam also clearly recognise its authority.
At the beginning of a meeting when she has just returned from holiday, Clara
responds in a more playful way to her team's on-going joke about her royal identity. As
background, to this example, readers need to be aware that the British Queen Mother had
recently damaged her hip. Sandy is about to open the meeting but first addresses Clara
directly.

Example 9Context: Beginning of a regular project team meeting in multinational white-collar organisation.
1.

.-

San:
Cla:

2.
3. San:4. Cia:5. All :6. Cla:7. XF:
8. Dai:
9. Cia:10. All:
11. Cia:
12.
13. All:
14. Cia:
15. AU:

how's your mum
SOtTy?
she broke her hip didn 't she?

my mother?
[laugh]what are you talking about[laughs]: the queen mother:[laughs]: the queen mother:oh[laugh][using a hyperlectal accent and superior tone]:my husband and 1:[laughlare confident that she' ll pull through[laugh]While Clara is initially bemused by Sandy's questions (lines 1- 6), it is clear, once she
decodes the refere nce, that she is happy to play along with the charade and ham up herrole as Queen Clara with a parody of queenly style: my husband and 1 are confident that
she 'Ll pull through (lines 12, 14). Clara's queenly persona is exploited for entertainment
purposes in this light-hearted example of pre-meeting social talk. On other occasions,however, as illustrated above, it serves, with varying degrees of irony, to help resolve tensions generated at times by Clara's explicitly authoritative behaviour.
T he role of "Queen Clara" thus enables Clara to resolve the inherent conflict between
her role as manager and her feminine gender identity. This persona allows her to behave

98

in ways which are authoritative without causing discomfort to or attracting resentment
from her team members. It allows her to maintain a certain social distance, and contributes to the impression of dignified graciousness and status. But it also allows her toact in feminine ways, attending to interpersonal aspects of workplace interaction by participating fully in the team's high involvement interactional style, contributing to the general social talk and collaborative humour, giving generous praise and approval, andencouraging thorough discussion and exploration of problematic issues. In this way,
Clara successfully creates a satisfactory space for herself as a woman leader in a masculine workspace, adopting a way of doing leadership that does not negate her feminine gender identity. We could describe Clara, then, as a manager who creates her own myth, and
who then effectively exploits it to maintain her feminine gender identity while also 'doing
power' to achieve the transactional objectives of her organisation.
These two different roles, then, mother and queen represent two rather different
strategies for resolving the tension between constructing an authoritative professional
identity as a leader, and maintaining one's feminine gender identity in the workplace. The
resolutions adopted by different women on different occasions tend to reflect the demandsof the specific social contexts they encounter in their very different communities of practice.

5. Conclusion
I have explored in this paper a range of ways in which men and women constructtheir role as leaders in workplace interaction. Social constructionism problematises gender identity and emphasises the dynamic aspects of constructing social identity. Our
research has put a good deal of emphasis on the varied and complex ways in which both
women and men draw on masculine and feminine discourse strategies in constructing
their workplace identi ties (Holmes 2006). However, it is also clear that pervasive society-wide stereotypes provide constraints on the behaviow- of women and men at work,and this entails the adoption of different strategies by male and female leaders to manage
the conflicts and complexities of reconciling different aspects of the leadership role.
Leaders are expected to be decisive, authoritative, and visionary. The hero leader isthus an appropriate role for many men at work, instantiated through powerful and controlling behaviour. As illustrated, the hero-leader often has a narrative to support his position. Enactment of a hero-leader stance involves such strategies as a hands-on approachto the management of meetings, including the use of contestive and challenging questions to control meetings.
To counteract the resentment of those who consider an overtly authoritative stanceunacceptable in New Zealand society, some leaders also construct a "good bloke" persona, and adopt the role of "the good mate" when appropriate. In the examples discussed
in this paper, self-denigrating humour and tolerance of teasing from other colleagues areways in which a leader might indicate his desire to reduce status boundmies and empha-

Gender, Leadership and Discourse in New Zealand Workplaces

99

sise that he is just one of the team. Colloquial pragmatic particles, such as eh and you
know, provide another way of emphasising solidarity and mateship, as well as contributing to the construction of a very informal interactional context. The frequent use of swear
words has a similar effect, though this strategy was not common in the professional workplaces where we collected data
Senior women also face a conflict in the workplace. The socially acceptable rolesof mother and queen provide two rather different strategies for resolving the tension
between constructing an authoritative professional identity as a leader, on the one hand,and p1aintaining one's feminine gender identity in the workplace. Using discourse strategies, such as humour and social talk, effective women managers strategically attenuate an
assertive powerful performance in a variety of politic ways to produce a socially acceptable construction of leadership.
Though I have generally used different people from our dataset to illustrate the ways
in which different kinds of leadership role may be constructed, it is of course common tofind particular leaders drawing on a range of such ways of doing leadership in the courseof their daily interactions. Leaders switch from one style to another according to theinteractional context in which they are operating. It is possible to find instances of thesame person behaving in an authoritarian way at one moment, and a collegial or feminine
way at another. The resolutions adopted on different occasions reflect the demands of thespecific social contexts leaders encounter in their very different communities of practice.
In conclusion it is worth noting that the dynamic nature of identity construction insocial interaction offers the possibility of altering perceptions of what is regarded as " typical" or "appropriate" over time. Individual speakers clearly do orient to and manipulate
established norms of masculine and feminine interaction, as well as norms of leadershipand mateship discourse. So it is clear that there are a number of male leaders who appear
to be successfully reconciling the demands of mateship and authority in a number of New
Zealand workplaces, contributing perhaps to a new conception of what constitutes anacceptable leader. Similarly, some women are forging new conceptions of what it means
to be a New Zealand leader as they introduce new ways of managing into workplaces previously considered as male domains, defined by masculine norms. By approptiating
authoritative, powerful strategies when required, women contribute to de-gendering themand make it clear that they are tools of leadership discourse, and not exclusively of male
discourse. In a range of ways, and to differing degrees, such women contest and trouble
the gendered discourse norms which characterize so many workplaces, and which contribute to the glass ceiling they are trying to break through. More generally, this presents
an optimistic picture of the possibility of achieving changes in workplace norms. Though
individuals are generally expected to adapt to new corrununities of practice, it is also
clearl y possible to contribute to changing the norms of those communities in ways whichmake them much more palatable and attractive places in which to work.

• I

100

Transcription conventions
All names are pseudonyms.
Paralinguistic features and other information in square brackets[laughs]:(colons indicate start and end)+
Pause of up to one second.... /......\...
Simultaneous speech.... /.......\ ...
(hello)Transcriber's best guess at an unclear utterance?
Rising or question intonation
Incomplete or cut-off utterance
Some words omitted
XMIXF
Unidentified Male/Female[voc]
Funny untranscribable noises

References
Ahearne, M., J. Mathieu and A. Rapp, A. 2005. "To Empower or Not to Empower your Sales
Force? An Empirical Examination of the Influence of Leadership Empowerment Behavior on
Customer Satisfaction and Performance." Journal of Applied Psychology 90:5, 945- 955.
Baxter, J. (ed.). 2006. Speaking Out: The Female Voice in Public Contexts. Basingstoke and New
York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bergvall, V. L., J. M. Bing and A. F. Freed (eels.). 1996. Rethinking Language and GenderResearch: Theory and Practice. New York: Longman.
Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge.
Cameron, D. 1995. "Rethinking Language and Gender Studies: Some Issues for the 1990s." In: S.
Mi lls (ed.) Language and Gender: lnterdisciplinal)' Perspectives, 3 1-44. London: Longman.
Cameron, D. and D. Kulick (eds.). 2006. The Language and Sexuality Reader. Abingdon and New
York: Routledge.
Coates, J. 2003. Men Talk. Oxford: Blackwell.
Crawford, M. 1995. Talking DijJerence: On Gender and Language. London: Sage.
Diamond, P. 2005. A Fire in your Belly: Maori Leaders Speak. Wellington: Huia.
Eckert, P. and S. McConneli-Ginet 2003. Language and Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hall, K. and M. Bucholtz (eds.). 1995. Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed
Self. London: Routledge.
Hol mes, J. 2005. "The Glass Ceiling-Does Talk Contribute? Gendered Discourse in the New
Zealand Workplace." In: C. Mills and D. Matheson (eels.) Communication at Work:
Showcasing Communication Scholarship: Publication of the Annual Meeting of the Australia
New Zealand Communication Association 2005. http://www.mang.canterbury.ac.nz/ANZCA/
FullPapers.shtml
Holmes, J. 2006. Gendered Talk at Work: Constructing Gender Identity through Workplace
Discourse. New York, Oxford: Blackwell.
Holmes, J. 2007. " Did Anyone One Feel Disempowered by That?" Gender, Leadership andPoliteness. Proceedings of !GALA 4, (DVD) (Valencia: Un iversity of Valencia 2007).
Holmes, J. fca. "Men, Masculinities and Leadership: Different Discourse Styles at Work." In: P.

Gender, Leadership and Discourse in New Zealand Workplaces

101

Pichler and E . Eppler (eds.) Gender and Spoken Interaction. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Holmes, J. feb. " 'Is that Right?' Questions as Control Devices in Workplace Meetings." In: A. F.
Freed and S. E hrlich (eds.) "Why Do You Ask?": The Function of Questions in Institutional
Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Holmes, J. and M . MatTa. 2004. "Relational Practice in the Workplace: Women's Talk or Gendered
Discourse?" Language in Society 33, 377- 398.
Holmes, J. and S. Schnun·. 2005. " Politeness, Humor and Gender in the Workplace: Negotiati ng
Norms and Identifying Contestation." Jou rnal of Politeness Research l: I , 12 1- 149.
Holmes, J. and S. Schnurr. 2006. "Doing Femininity at Work: More than just Relational Practice."
Journal of Sociolinguistics 10:1 , 31- 51.
Holmes, J., S. Schnurr and M. MatTa. 2007. "Leadership and Commu nication : Discursive Evidenceof Workplace Culture Change." Discourse & Communication 1:4, 433- 451.
Holmes, J. and M. Stubbe. 2003a. Power and Politeness in. the Workplace. A Sociolinguistic
Analysis of Talk at Work. London: Pearson Education.
Holmes, J. and M. Stubbe. 2003b. ""Feminine" Workplaces: Stereotype and Reality." In: J.
Holmes and M. Meyerhoff (eds.) The Handbook of Language and Gender, 573-599. O xford:
B lackwell.
Human Rights Commission Report 2005 New Zealand Census of Women's Participation in
Governance and Professional Life: www.hrc.co.n:dhrc_new/hrc/cms/files/documentsll l-Aug2005_2 1-35-04_Censuso1Womens_Participation.pdf
Jackson, B. and K. Parry. 2001. The Hero Manager: Learning from New Zealand's Top Chief
Executives. Auckland: Penguin.
Johnson S. 1997. "Theorizing Language and Masculinity: A Feminist Perspective." In: S. Johnson
and U. Meinhoff (eds.) Language and Masculinity, 8-26. London : Blackwell.
Koller, V. 2004. "Business Women and War Me taphors: 'Possessive, Jealous and Pugnacious'?"
Journal of Sociolinguistics 8:1 , 3-22.
Meyerhoff, M. 1994. "Sounds Pretty Ethnic, Eh?-A Pragm atic Particle in New Zealand Engl ish."
Language in Society 23:3, 367-388.
Miller, L. 1995. "Two Aspect of Japanese and American Co-worker Interaction: Giving
Insttuctions and Creating Rapport." Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 3 1:2, 14 1- 161.
Mills, S. 2005. "Gender and Impoliteness." Journal of Politeness Research 1, 263- 280.
Mullany, L. 2007. Gendered Discourse in the Professional Workplace. Palgrave Macmillan.
Phillips, J. 1996. A Man's Country: The Image of the Pakelw Male, A Hist01y. A uckland : Pengui n.
Schnurr, S. 2005. Leadership, Humour and Gender. An Analysis of Workplace Discourse. PhD thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
Schnurr, S. and A. Chan. 2007. "Politeness and Leadership Discourse at Work . A Case Study of
New Zealand and Hong Kong ." Paper presented at the 3rd International Symposium on
Politeness, University of Leeds.
Stubbe, M. and J. Holmes. 2000. "Talking Maori or Pakeha in English: Signalling Identity in
Discourse." In: A. Bell and K . Kuiper (eds.) New Zealand English, 249- 278. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins. W ellington: Victoria University Press.
Takano, S. 2005. "Re-Examining Linguistic Power: S trategic Uses of Directives by Professional
Japanese Women in Positions of Authority and Leadership." Journal of Pragmatics 37:5, 633666.
Unger, R. K. (ed. ). 1989. Representations: Social Constructions of Gender. Amityville, NY:
Baywood.

Constitution of The Pragmatics Society of Japan(Abbreviated Version)
Article I. Name and Purpose
1. This society shall be called the Pragmatics Society of Japan.
2. Its purpose shall be the advancement of pragmatics and related disciplines.
3. Activities:
PSI shall
1) organize annual conferences, and special lectures and talks;
2) publish Studies in Pragmatics;
3) carry out other relevant activities.

.. ·.

·•·. ·II

Article II. Membership
1. There shall be three categories of membership: regular, student, and institutional.
2. Any individual or institution in agreement with the purposes of the Society can obtainmembership by paying dues.
3. All individual members shall be entitled to participate in events organized by theSociety and to submit manuscripts for presentation at the Society's annual conferenceor for publication in the Society's Journal.
Article III. Officers
1. The Executive Committee of the Society shall consist of a President, a VicePresident, a Secretary-Treasurer and other officers.
2. The President shall serve for two years and serve as chair of the Executive
Committee.
3. The President, Vice President, and Secretary-General shall be elected from among themembers of the Executive Committee.
Article IV. Meetings
1. The Society shall hold an annual General Meeting.
2. The Executive Committee shall meet at least once a year.
Article V. Fiscal Policy
1. The Society shall be financed through membership fees and other donations. An outside audit shall be conducted annually.
2. The fiscal year shall start on April 1st and end on March 31st.
Article VI. The Secretariat and Other Committees
1. The Secretariat shall consist of a Secretary-General and one or more assistants. The
Secretary-General is responsible for the overall management of the Society.
102Constitution of The Pragmatics Society of Japan103

2. The Editorial Board is responsible for publication of the Society's journal.
3. The Conference Committee shall be responsible for reviewing conference abstracts,and for other matters related to conference planning and execution.
4. The Public Relations Committee shall be responsible for announcing information in
the Newsletters and on the society's web page.