4.same Talk, Different Reaction - Communication, Emergent Leadership and Gender
4.same Talk, Different Reaction - Communication, Emergent Leadership and Gender
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0268-3946.htm
Sven C. Voelpel
Jacobs University Bremen, Bremen, Germany
Abstract
Purpose – We investigate the role of gender in linking communicative acts that occur in the interactions of
self-managed teams to emergent leadership. Specifically, this study presents a framework that differentiates
between agentic and communal task- and relations-oriented communication as predictors of emergent
leadership, and it hypothesizes that men and women do not differ in what they say but do differ in how they are
rewarded (i.e. ascribed informal leadership responsibilities) for their statements.
Design/methodology/approach – Interaction coding was used to capture the meeting communication of
116 members of 41 self-managed teams.
Findings – Men and women exhibited the same amount of agentic and communal task- and relations-oriented
communication and were equally likely to emerge as leaders. However, men experienced an emergent
leadership advantage when engaging in agentic and communal task-oriented behaviors. Agentic and
communal relations-oriented behaviors did not predict emergent leadership.
Research limitations/implications – The findings imply that theories could be more precise in
differentiating between objective behaviors (i.e. actor perspective) and perceptions thereof (i.e. observer
perspective) to understand why women experience a disadvantage in assuming leadership roles.
Practical implications – Although women displayed the same verbal behaviors as men, they experienced
different consequences. Organizations can provide unconscious bias training programs, which help increase
employees’ self-awareness of a potential positive assessment bias toward men’s communication.
Originality/value – This research utilizes an innovative, fine-grained coding approach to gather data that
add to previous studies showing that, unlike men, women experience a disadvantage in terms of emergent
leadership ascriptions when they deviate from stereotypically expected behavior.
Keywords Leadership, Communication, Gender differences
Paper type Research paper
Although the gender gap in emergent leadership – i.e. the ascription of social influence by
others – has become smaller in recent years, women are still less likely than men to emerge as
leaders in initially leaderless teams (Badura et al., 2018). This imbalance in emergent
leadership has at least two detrimental implications for the goal of reaching an equal gender
distribution in leadership positions. First, the team members who emerge as leaders possess
an extensive influence on team outcomes (Taggar et al., 1999). Given that a growing number
of firms implement self-managed teams (Ilgen et al., 2005), this means that women are at a
disadvantage in their possibilities of exhibiting social influence over outcomes. Second, Journal of Managerial Psychology
emergent leaders are also more likely to receive formal leadership positions in the future Vol. 36 No. 1, 2021
pp. 51-74
(Badura et al., 2018). Hence, if men are more likely to emerge as leaders in self-managed teams, © Emerald Publishing Limited
0268-3946
this implies that they also have an increased likelihood of being promoted into formal DOI 10.1108/JMP-01-2019-0062
JMP leadership positions compared to women. Studying emergent leadership from a gender
36,1 perspective thus constitutes an important step in gaining a deeper understanding of the
micro-level processes that, in the long run, may contribute to unequal gender distributions in
leadership positions.
Scholars have contributed much to identifying general factors that may hinder women from
assuming leadership, such as lower work-related self-confidence than their male counterparts
(Martin and Phillips, 2017), a lack of masculine characteristics (Anderson and Klofstad, 2012) or
52 gender stereotypes that characterize women as high on communal traits (i.e. warm, sensitive), but
low on agentic traits (i.e. competitive, dominant; Badura et al., 2018). Nevertheless, we know little
about the concrete behaviors that occur in teams and that result in some members being assigned
more social influence than others over time. This lack of research is surprising against the
backdrop that emergent leadership is constructed in interactions between team members
(Uhl-Bien, 2006; DeRue and Ashford, 2010; Gerpott et al., 2019). One exception in this regard is a
recent meta-analysis by Badura et al. (2018), in which the authors found that participation
(i.e. amount of time spent talking) mediated the relationship between gender and leadership
emergence. In other words, men were more likely than women to emerge as leaders due to their
higher verbal participation rate. Although this constitutes an interesting insight, it does not tell us
much about the specific verbal behaviors that male and female team members use to emerge as
leaders. For example, do men engage in more task-oriented behaviors and women in more
relations-oriented behaviors, resulting in different likelihoods of emerging as leaders? Or do both
sexes equally engage in specific types of communication, but these verbal behaviors result in
different outcomes depending on whether male or female team members exhibit them?
To answer these questions, we provide a nuanced definition of task- and relations-oriented
behaviors that allow us to untangle the ambiguous evidence regarding their role in being
ascribed emergent leadership from a gender perspective. Task- and relations-oriented
behaviors are two broad, widely studied categories of leader behaviors (e.g. Burke et al., 2006;
Stogdill, 1974; Judge et al., 2004; Yukl, 2011). Evidence indicates that particularly task-
oriented behaviors are important for emergent leadership (Gerpott et al., 2019). The previous
literature has often mistakenly equated task-oriented behaviors with agentic qualities and
relations-oriented behaviors with communal qualities (Abele and Wojciszke, 2014; Lanaj and
Hollenbeck, 2015). In contrast, we argue that both task- and relations-oriented behaviors can
be expressed in an agentic or in a communal way. Drawing from social role theory and the
backlash effect (Eagly, 1987; Wood and Eagly, 2002), we propose that this conceptual
differentiation is essential to understanding why women may indeed be less likely to emerge
as leaders, as “the competent task contributions of women [are] . . . more likely to be ignored
or to evoke negative reactions than those of men” (Eagly and Karau, 2002, p. 584). We argue
that the latter is the case when women exhibit task-oriented behaviors in an agentic way, as
this contradicts their gender role. However, when female team members express task-
oriented behaviors in a communal way, this may represent one opportunity to fulfill both role
expectations: behaving like a leader (i.e. contributing to the task) and behaving like a woman
(i.e. making communal statements). In other words, women can exhibit social influence by
engaging in communal, task-oriented behaviors, which represent communicative acts that
combine masculine and feminine characteristics (Keck, 2019). This line of argumentation
suggests a moderation effect such that agentic task-oriented behaviors are positively
associated with emergent leadership, particularly when men exhibit them, and that
communal task-oriented behaviors are positively associated with emergent leadership,
particularly when women exhibit them.
In terms of a positive association between relations-oriented behaviors and emergent
leadership, the evidence is more ambiguous, with some studies arguing for it (Bales and
Slater, 1955; Pescosolido, 2002) and others finding no link (Taggar et al., 1999; Lanaj and
Hollenbeck, 2015). We draw from work that suggests that men – unlike women – benefit from
behaving differently than expected (Hentschel et al., 2018). That is, men are praised for Emergent
displaying any relations-oriented behaviors (i.e. agentic and communal) and thus should leadership,
achieve higher emergent leadership ratings. In contrast, women are expected to care about
the relationships in a team. Hence, they are not ascribed any social influence for doing so.
communication
To summarize, we expect men to receive higher emergent leadership ratings for three and gender
communication categories (i.e. agentic task-oriented, agentic relations-oriented and communal
relations-oriented behaviors). In contrast, women benefit when engaging in communal task-
oriented behaviors, as these are in line with both their gender role (i.e. being communal) and 53
expectations toward a leader role (i.e. engaging in task-oriented behaviors).
Our research makes three contributions to the literature. First, our conceptual
differentiation between agentic and communal task- and relations-oriented behaviors helps
to connect the leadership, gender and communication literature more tightly to offer new
assumptions on the behavioral combinations that may help or hinder male and female team
members from emerging as leaders. Second, we extend preliminary evidence that shows that
the differences between men’s and women’s communication styles may be smaller than
suggested (Eagly et al., 2003) or even nonexistent (Mehl et al., 2007). This means that
differences in emergent leadership may not be driven by objective differences in behaviors,
but that agentic and communal task- and relations-oriented verbal behaviors are associated
with emergent leadership in different ways depending on the gender of the team member
exhibiting these behaviors. Lastly, our work contributes to a recent research stream that
utilizes a communicative perspective on leadership (DeRue et al., 2011; Fairhurst and
Connaughton, 2014; Van Quaquebeke and Felps, 2018). In line with the conceptual
understanding of leadership as a socially distributed phenomenon, we utilized interaction
analysis to generate copious data on the verbal behaviors underlying emergent leadership in
team interactions. This allows us to investigate actor effects (i.e. differences in actual
behaviors) and interpret differences in emergent leadership in terms of observer effects (i.e.
differences in perceptions).
Methods
Sample and procedure
We collected data at a private university in Germany and recruited 116 students (51 females,
65 males, Mage 5 19.28, SDage 5 1.56) who worked for 15 weeks in 41 teams on developing
innovative solutions for real-world organizational problems (e.g. developing new business
models). To create a realistic project scenario, as often occurs in the business world, the best
teams had the opportunity to receive funding for their business model from investors.
Participants were randomly allocated to teams of two to three members to ensure that they
did not know one another before the teamwork. Our criteria for the team size were based on
previous literature indicating that teams are “a distinguishable set of two or more people who
interact, dynamically, interdependently, and adaptively towards a common and valued goal/
objective/mission, who have been assigned specific roles or functions to perform, and who
have a limited lifespan of membership” (Salas et al., 1992, p. 4). Furthermore, this resembles
workplace settings, where it is common for small teams of two to three people to work on a
project (Costa et al., 2014).
Before we conducted the study (i.e. in the seminar’s first session), a research assistant
informed the participants that videotaping their meetings was only for research purposes,
and that the course instructor would not have access to the recordings. Upon receiving this
information, the participants provided their informed consent and completed a demographics
questionnaire.
At the midpoint of the project period (i.e. the seventh week working on the project), all
teams were videotaped during a regular team meeting in a laboratory. After the recording
session, participants completed a survey on their perceptions of one another’s leadership as
exhibited during the meeting. The decision to record the participants at this time was based
on previous research showing that teams experience an important transition that intensifies Emergent
their influence-related communication at the midpoint (Gersick, 1988, 1989) and the fact that leadership,
stereotypes are less likely to be apparent (Badura et al., 2018). First, at the midpoint, teams
become aware that time is running out and they need to deliver, which leads to increased
communication
pressure and often results in the reexamination of group strategies, procedures and goals and gender
(Gersick, 1988). This manifests in intensive interactions (i.e. most team interactions occur half-
way during the project; Gerpott et al., 2019), which in turn relate to social influence and
conflict (Tuckman, 1965; Gersick, 1989). Second, research on emergent leadership and gender 59
shows that, in teams that interact for a longer time period, there is a smaller gender gap in
emergent leadership, which is explained by the notion that team members rely less heavily on
gender stereotypical believes (Badura et al., 2018).
Communal Agentic
Task-oriented behaviors
Request Command
For example, ask others to do something For example, tell others to do something
“Could you write down the advantages of our “Write down our ideas,” “You finish this by tomorrow.”
solution?” “Could you finish this by yourself?”
Propose plan Directive plan
For example, suggest others initiate an activity For example, instruct others to initiate an activity
“Should we practice it?” “Maybe everybody could “We have to discuss this first,” “We will skip this”
tell their own solution first”
Promote idea – Polite Promote idea – Dominating
For example, ask others to consider one’s idea For example, tell others to accept one’s idea
“Could you look at my idea?” “What do you think “We try my solution,” “My idea works better”
about trying my solution?”
Relations-oriented behaviors
Express humility/Praising others Self-promotion
For example, undermining one’s work or For example, promote one’s skills or achievements
praising others
“Oh, no, I was lucky,” “Thank you” “I can talk really well,” “I got the best grade of the class”
Encourage participation Interrupt
For example, active listening or addressing quiet For example, interrupt others when they are talking
participants
“Uhum,” “Is there anything you want to add to “Person A: My idea is the following, why do not we. . .
this idea?” Person B (interruption): Let’s go for the idea we had last
week”
Support and empower Criticize someone
For example, help or offer support For example, make negative comments about others
“That’s an excellent idea,” “Do you need help?” “Even you can do that,” “Let me do it, you are too slow at Table 1.
typing” Verbal behavior coding
Note(s): During the meeting, each statement was annotated with only one code. Statements that did not fit any scheme with sample
of these codes were coded as “other” and were not included in the analysis statements
JMP classified according to the coding scheme (e.g. laughter, organizational statements) were
36,1 coded as “other.” To ensure the reliability of the instrument, we sent the coding scheme to
three scholars (i.e. academic experts in the field of leadership and verbal behavior) and
incorporated their feedback. Furthermore, we asked two research assistants who had
experience in coding verbal behaviors from videos to test the coding scheme and provide us
with feedback on whether it was possible to clearly differentiate between behaviors. After
this second round of revision, we asked a different group of four research assistants to learn
60 the coding scheme. We applied a fully crossed design to establish interrater reliability, which
means that each research assistant double-coded one complete video from the data set with
an expert coder before being allowed to code videotaped meetings alone. All research
assistants received a satisfying Cohen’s kappa value (Cohen, 1960) of at least Ƙ 5 0.70,
meaning that there was a substantial agreement on the coding of verbal behaviors. After the
meetings were coded, all verbal behaviors were standardized per 60-min period to ensure that
the length of the team meetings did not influence the analysis. In other words, we multiplied
the frequency of behaviors used in the meeting by 60, and we divided this number by the
meeting length.
Agentic task-oriented statements were coded when a participant commanded (delegated a
task to others), engaged in directive planning (told others what to do), and proposed an idea
dominantly (told others to accept his/her idea).
Communal task-oriented statements were coded when a participant made a polite request
(asked others to do something), proposed a plan (suggested others should initiate an activity),
or proposed an idea politely (asked others to consider his/her idea).
Agentic relation-oriented statements Agentic relation-oriented statements were coded when
a participant engaged in self-promotion (promoted his/her skills or experience), interrupted
(disturbed others when they were contributing), and criticized someone (made negative
comments about others).
Communal relations-oriented statements were coded when a participant expressed humility
or offered praise (undermining one’s achievements, praising others), encouraged
participation (addressing quiet participants), and supported and empowered others
(helping or offering support).
Emergent leadership was assessed by asking participants to complete a questionnaire in
which they had to rate one another according to four items (Lanaj and Hollenbeck, 2015;
Gerpott et al., 2019) after the videotaped meeting. Example items are as follows: “Team
member A has taken a leadership role in our team,” “Team member A has tried to
influence the team,” “Team member A has set goals for the team” and “Team member A
provided the team with direction.” The respondents indicated their answers on a six-
point Likert scale (1 5 completely disagree, 6 5 completely agree). We calculated the
individual emergent leadership scores by averaging the ratings the other team members
assigned.
Results
Our analytical approach resulted in a total of 9,042 coded communicative acts
(i.e. unstandardized behaviors) from all the participants. Since the meeting length among
groups varied, to test our hypotheses we standardized behaviors per 60-min period. The
descriptive statistics indicate that communal behaviors were the most frequently used
form of communication. Specifically, 3,729 statements were classified as communal
relations-oriented verbal behaviors (average per meeting: 90.95) and 2,503
communicative acts as communal task-oriented (average per meeting: 61.05).
Furthermore, we coded a total of 1,543 agentic task-oriented behaviors (average per
meeting: 37.63) and 1,367 agentic relations-oriented statements (average per Emergent
meeting: 30.90). leadership,
Table 2 displays the mean and standard deviation of standardized verbal behaviors per
individual, in addition to correlations between verbal behaviors, emergent leadership and
communication
gender. Emergent leadership correlates with agentic task-oriented (r 5 0.27, p < 0.01) and and gender
communal task-oriented (r 5 0.24, p 5 0.01) behaviors. Emergent leadership does not
correlate with agentic relations-oriented (r 5 0.13, p 5 0.16) or communal relations-oriented
(r 5 0.14, p 5 0.13) behaviors. Furthermore, as shown in Table 2, gender does not correlate 61
with emergent leadership (r 5 0.09, p 5 0.36) or with any verbal behavior categories.
The results of a t-test showed that men and women were equally likely to emerge as
leaders, t(114) 5 0.93, p 5 0.36. We also ran a second t-test to determine whether there was a
difference in the overall frequency of men’s and women’s shown verbal-behaviors. This
is because gender differences in communication quantity can potentially impact the
emergent leadership ratings (Bass, 1954; Gerpott et al., 2018). The results indicate that men
and women did not differ with regard to the total frequency of their verbal behaviors
t(114) 5 0.34, p 5 0.74.
To test whether male and female team members assigned different emergent leadership
ratings to other team members of the same or opposite sex, we ran two additional t-tests.
When comparing male and female team members in terms of their emergent leadership rating
of peers, we found that those ratings were not influenced by the gender of the assessing team
member (women t(71) 5 0.45, p 5 0.66), men (t(85) 5 0.49, p 5 0.63). In other words, men and
women were not biased toward providing more positive emergent leadership ratings to peers
of their own or the other gender.
Hypotheses tests
Hypothesis 1 stated that there are no gender differences in the expression of agentic task-
oriented, agentic relations-oriented, communal task-oriented and communal relations-
oriented behaviors. We ran four t-tests to test this Hypothesis. Providing support for
Hypothesis 1, we found that men and women did not differ in their agentic task-oriented,
t(114) 5 0.19, p 5 0.85; communal task-oriented, t(114) 5 0.35, p 5 0.72; agentic relation-
oriented, t(114) 5 1.2, p 5 0.24; or communal relation-oriented, t(114) 5 0.24, p 5 0.36
communication.
To investigate the extent to which agentic and communal behaviors predict emergent
leadership in men and women, we conducted multilevel regression analysis, which is
beneficial for analyzing data nested in hierarchies, in this case, the individuals (level 1)
Figure 1.
Emergent leadership
and agentic task-
oriented behaviors
exhibited by men
and women
Emergent
leadership,
communication
and gender
63
Figure 2.
Emergent leadership
and communal task-
oriented behaviors
exhibited by men
and women
Figure 3.
Emergent leadership
and agentic relations-
oriented behaviors
exhibited by men
and women
Discussion
This study analyzed the verbal behaviors of men and women in self-managed teams in team
interactions to better understand the relationship between task-oriented communication and
emergent leadership from a gender perspective. We found that, while men and women do not
differ in the objective amount of agentic and communal task-oriented statements, men were
more likely to emerge as leaders when engaging in any type of task-oriented statements (i.e.
agentic and communal). Relations-oriented statements did not predict emergent leadership
for either men or women.
Theoretical implications
First, we find no overall difference in emergent leadership between male and female team
members, which is in line with a slowly decreasing gender gap in emergent leadership (see
Badura et al., 2018). However, we do find that men are more likely to emerge as leaders when
JMP
36,1
64
Figure 4.
Emergent leadership
and communal
relations-oriented
behaviors exhibited by
men and women
they engage in agentic task-oriented behaviors. Contrary to our expectation, men also benefit
from communal task-oriented behaviors. This contradicts previous findings showing that
female team members over-emerge as leaders when they exhibit agentic task-oriented
behaviors, as reported by other team members (Lanaj and Hollenbeck, 2015). Theoretically,
this inconsistency points to an important difference between defining concepts in terms of
actor effects (i.e. differences in actual behaviors) or in terms of observer effects (i.e. differences
in the perceptions of the same behaviors). Empirically, when studying gender in the context
of leadership, researchers should consider the value of coding verbal behaviors (e.g.
frequency of agentic task-oriented behaviors by member A) in addition to relying on survey-
rated perceptions of these behaviors (e.g. self- and/or other-ratings). This is because the
amount of objectively coded and perceived behaviors may diverge and thus provide
important insights into perceptual biases. In other words, participants who indicate their
perceptions of other team members’ behavior or the frequency of such behaviors are often
influenced by biases that may result from individual stereotypes (Campbell, 1967), such as
associating men (more than women) with leadership roles (Braun et al., 2017) and with agentic
behaviors (Eagly et al., 2000). Furthermore, similar to the hindsight bias phenomenon
(Fischhoff, 2007), the reported behaviors in follow-up surveys are often influenced by the
outcome (i.e. in this study, emergent leadership ratings). That is, if a team member is rated
high on emergent leadership, then the participant might tend to also rate this person high on
any behavior that could potentially explain the high emergent leadership value.
Second, we provide a conceptually more fine-grained approach to studying leadership
behaviors by creating a coding scheme that differentiates two broad classes or types of
communication (task- and relations-oriented behaviors) based on how they are expressed
(agentic or communal). Based on our conceptual differentiation, future research may want to
acknowledge that task-oriented behaviors cannot be equated with agentic behaviors, and
that relations-oriented behaviors are not necessarily equal to positive behaviors aimed at
supporting and developing others (i.e. communal behaviors). While we only found an
advantage for men exhibiting these behaviors, theorizing in different settings using our 2 3 2
differentiation of task- and relations-oriented behaviors expressed in an agentic or communal
way may offer a more nuanced view on when women can profit from certain types of
communication when it comes to the ascription of leadership.
Third, relations-oriented statements did not predict emergent leadership for either
men or women. The results of our analysis support the notion that task-oriented
behaviors, compared to relations-oriented behaviors, play a more important role in Emergent
predicting leadership (Lanaj and Hollenbeck, 2015; Slater, 1955). Based on recent research leadership,
by Gerpott et al. (2019), relations-oriented behaviors predicted emergent leadership when
measured toward the end of the project. The fact that the present study’s data collection
communication
took place at the project’s midpoint could therefore potentially explain why we found and gender
significant results of task-oriented but not relations-oriented behaviors when predicting
emergent leadership.
65
Practical implications
Our findings suggest that men and women do not differ in their agentic and communal task-
and relations-oriented verbal behaviors, thus challenging the common belief that men and
women have different communication styles. To support an increase of women in leadership
positions, organizations may thus want to change the content of their training programs to
focus less on gender differences in leadership behavior and instead place greater emphasis on
similarities (e.g. Enterprise Media, 2013), such as the importance of both task and relations
oriented behaviors and the role they place for both men and women in leader emergence. This
implication is in line with recent evidence showing that downplaying gender differences
rather than emphasizing them positively impacts women’s confidence and behaviors at work
(Martin and Phillips, 2017). For example, organizational development programs could profit
from spending less time on teaching women how to behave differently (Peck, 2019), and
instead focus on male and female participants’ awareness on how they evaluate male and
female leaders differently. To ensure that employees make unbiased evaluations of female
leaders, organizations can provide unconscious bias identification trainings (Gino, 2015),
which would help increase employees’ self-awareness of their perceptions of women in
leadership roles.
Furthermore, this study uses an innovative approach of analyzing actual verbal behavior
instead of utilizing other-reports based on perceptions of behaviors. The analysis of verbal
behaviors can provide a broad range of opportunities to explore in practice (Wenzel and Van
Quaquebeke, 2018). Due to recent technological advancements, such data can now be
collected and analyzed in a large volume, thus allowing for a rich database to guide corporate
decision making (Chaffin et al., 2017). Furthermore, compared to relying exclusively on data
based on self-reports, analyzing verbal behavior between employees allows practitioners to
reduce the influence of individual biases in their decision-making. For example, data used to
determine leadership decisions such as promotions and the design of leadership courses
could be enriched by gathering data from multiple sources, such as a 360 assessment and
video-based observations of the behavior of interest in a high-stakes situation such as a
negotiation or conflict scenario. Furthermore, leadership development courses could provide
deeper insights for participants when relying on different data sources. For instance,
participants could be asked to link a performance assessment with verbal behavior data from
a hypothetical male versus female leader to understand how the leader’s behaviors are
perceived differently across participants depending on the leader’s gender. This would
represent a powerful demonstration of gender biases. To conclude, the creation of an
application to systematically collect data and analyze verbal behaviors could help HR
functions such as HR analytics, talent management and leadership development to utilize
data for deriving evidence-based recommendations (Klonek et al., 2018).
Note
1. Notably every task-oriented statement also has a relations-oriented message and vice versa
(Watzlawick et al., 1967). However, we focus on behavior’s primary function as task- or relations-
oriented.
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Appendix
36,1
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