She Just Doesn’t Seem Like a Leader: African American Women College Presidents and Rhetorical Leadership

• In Event: Gender, Communication, and the Leadership Gap

Short Description

This rhetorical analysis of inaugural speeches of three newly appointed presidents of predominantly white higher education institutions hypothesizes that the intersectionality of race, class, and gender may affect the language choices of new African American women leaders who must socially construct their leadership identities, thereby legitimizing their role as institutional leaders for new stakeholders.

Detailed Abstract

In 2013, women held 52.2% of the managerial and professional occupations in the United States, but held only 22% of the senior management positions in 2014 (Pew Research Center, 2015). The numbers for black women are even more dismal. Only 1.2% of executive/senior level officials and managers in S&P 500 companies are black women, and they currently hold only 0.2% of CEO positions (Catalyst, 2016). The American Council on Education (ACE) reported in 2012 that a scant 4% of American college presidents were women of color (Cooper, 2015) and the number of African Americans in chief academic positions had, in fact, declined from 3.7 percent in 2008 to 2.3 percent in 2013 (ACE, 2014). One reason women of color lack access to these executive level positions is that women, particularly women of color, are often not perceived as leaders. Trait-based theories of leadership assert that masculine values—strength, self-efficacy, control, and authority—are commonly associated with good leadership and therefore reinforce masculine models of leadership (Malkowski, 2012; Northouse, 2007; Parker, 2005). As a result, “women lack the presumption of competence enjoyed by White men” (Kellerman & Rhode, 2014, p. 27) to be perceived as effective leaders. Moreover, for black women in higher education, barriers such as stereotypical attitudes and racial discrimination have been found to limit access to top roles for female minorities (Jackson & Harris, 2007).
This research examines the role communication plays in the development of one’s leadership identity by analyzing the communication practices of women of color. Parker and Byrd have criticized race-neutral mainstream leadership literature because the scholarship was based almost exclusively on men and white women (Byrd, 2008; Parker, 2005). Nonetheless, according to recent mainstream leadership literature, aspiring leaders of color are still encouraged to “crack” the code of executive presence by “acting, speaking, and dressing the part” of a leader (Marshall & Wingfield, 2016, p. 70). For many women and women of color, this may be too heavy a burden to bear. A review of inaugural addresses presented by three newly appointed black women presidents allowed us to center black women leaders within a study of communication and leadership instead of relegating them to the role of a subgroup or comparison group. We hypothesized that the intersectionality of race, class, and gender may affect the language choices of new African American women leaders who must socially construct their leadership identities, thereby legitimizing their role as institutional leaders, for new stakeholders.
Khwaja (2015) asserts that certain patterns are to be expected in the inaugural speeches of university presidents, “given similar leadership roles in somewhat similar contexts” (Khwaja, p. 216). In this examination, the three presidents heeded, consciously or unconsciously, the conventional norms of university inaugural addresses by identifying values held in common with the audience, articulating a vision for the institution, and fostering a sense of community. However, during their speeches they also employed rhetorical strategies that may be considered unconventional for university inaugural speeches. For example the speakers shared rich family narratives and directly called attention to their ethnicity and gender.
This examination highlights three important practical implications for current and emerging leaders: (1) leadership communication research should include a focus on women of color so that the leadership community can recognize that the communication of women of color is not derivative; (2) women and women of color must be encouraged to develop communication competency in public address because developing a language of leadership requires a deliberate effort to understand how language can be powerful and influential; and, finally, (3) women and women of color who seek leadership positions must find their own voice in order to be authentic leaders. Marshall and Wingfield note that women of color often resent the pressure to conform to white male leadership norms (p. 72). The leaders of color in this examination made conventional and unconventional rhetorical choices in their inaugural addresses and they managed to establish legitimacy as institutional leaders while maintaining their identities as black women.
As Bornstein contended, greater diversity among presidents will allow us to “expand our conceptions of the [university] presidency” (Bornstein, 2009, p. 234) and broaden our ideas about who is qualified to be a leader. Scholars of women’s communicative leadership must recognize the need for a more interdisciplinary approach for identifying effective leadership communication. Because public address and the scholarship surrounding leadership communication have traditionally been the domain of “prominent white men with political power” (Dow, 2016, p. 61), we must make sure that we include in our leadership communication toolkit examples of public oratory presented by a diverse set of speakers so that we not only broaden our conceptions of academic presidencies but we broaden our understanding of what it means to sound like a leader.

Participant

• Dorine Lawrence-Hughes, University of Michigan