Marra, Meredith, Vine, Bernadette and Holmes, J. (2008) Heroes, fathers and good mates: leadership styles of men at work. In: Australian and New Zealand Communication Association Conference 2008: Power and Place, Wellington, New Zealand, Jul 9-11, 2008. Published in: Proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association Conference 2008 pp. 1-15.

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Abstract

The perception of leaders as normatively masculine has been justifiably critiqued, and the single aspirational ‘hero’ figure has been challenged in favour of advocating for transformational and authentic leaders. The importance of communication skills to effective leadership practice is also well recognised in the leadership literature. To date, however, there is little empirical investigation of how effective leaders communicate in their organisational contexts. The emerging tradition of discursive leadership is a positive step towards discovering how the concepts of abstract academic discussions are manifest in action. As discourse analysts we welcome a closer focus on everyday leadership practices to explore the theory-practice divide and to provide justification for both new models and existing critiques. Using a discursive approach to leadership, one obvious source of critique for the ubiquitous masculine hero leader is to consider how effective feminine styles of leadership are enacted in talk. Earlier research proposed labels for a range of feminine styles based on extensive analysis of workplace recordings – the queen, the mother, the battleaxe. Male leaders in our data set also seem to instantiate broad categories. As a complementary analysis to our earlier research, this paper considers a range of socially acceptable roles for male leaders – the hero, the father and the good mate. These styles emerge from the practices of leaders in a range of New Zealand workplaces and will be illustrated by extracts of naturally occurring interactions. By identifying features which characterise a range of leadership styles we provide empirical support for the claim that there are many different ways of enacting effective leadership.

Item Type:	Conference Item (Paper)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management H Social Sciences > HM Sociology P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Centre for Applied Linguistics
Journal or Publication Title:	Proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association Conference 2008
Publisher:	Australian and New Zealand Communication Association
ISSN:	1179-0199
Date:	2008
Page Range:	pp. 1-15
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Conference Paper Type:	Paper
Title of Event:	Australian and New Zealand Communication Association Conference 2008: Power and Place
Type of Event:	Conference
Location of Event:	Wellington, New Zealand
Date(s) of Event:	Jul 9-11, 2008
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/48403

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