Speaking as Women Leaders

By: Haleema A’ali and Judith Baxter

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Synopsis: This book offers new insights on how senior business women in Middle Eastern and Western companies use language for effective leadership in their respective management meetings. The book explores six case studies of women leaders, three in UK companies and three in a Bahraini company. The authors analyse meeting and transcript data to show that, in both cultural contexts, the women negotiate a range of gendered discourses such as 'hierarchy and status' and 'masculinisation' in order to manage their teams with authority and skill. The book challenges received wisdom about the opportunities and constraints each cultural context offers women in public life. While the UK women are constrained by chronic change and uncertainty in performing their roles effectively, the Bahraini women are far better supported by their bosses, yet are constrained by patriarchal assumptions of what constitutes effective leadership. The book demonstrates the use of Feminist Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis (FPDA), which is applied by scholars worldwide yet has relatively few published models of practice.