Women and men’s communication styles stem from their societal roles. Men tend to display more task-oriented behaviors which entail delegating tasks for the purpose of advancing one’s agenda, telling others what to do, and proposing ideas. Women engage with more relations-oriented behaviors like showing respect and caring for their peers, supporting, developing, and empowering others (Schlamp et al., 2020). When women display agentic behaviors, they are received more negatively when men do the same, which can hinder women when they assume leadership positions. However, team collaboration is greatly improved when women are in the group and cue organizational trust in both male and female dominated industries (Joshi & Diekman, 2021). “Employees perceive a democratic leader to be relaxed, animated, attentive, and friendly…women leaders focus on empathy, whereby they will share information, ideas and build a relationship with their teams as well as are more interpersonally-oriented in their communication styles” (Lynn-Sze). This is congruent to what Sheryl Sandberg states about influential leaders authentically communicating by taking ownership and being open to other people’s “truths”, and having the ability to persuade the people around them (Sandberg, 2011).
Studies show that women can be extraordinary leaders, but women are still not respected as highly in leadership roles as men are. At my Law Enforcement (LE) agency, I have noticed over the years that our culture is improving. Although, I still see or am part of interactions where senior male officers do not respect what the female officers bring to the table. Plus, when my male peer is authoritative, he can be respected and they are viewed as a strong leader, but when I or a female officer are assertive, it can be taken disparagingly. Since more women have been promoted to Sergeant, the consensus among my coworkers is that trust has increased among the Sergeant group since when I was hired 9 years ago. Nonetheless, there are still no women in our command staff besides our Sheriff. This has made it difficult for the female Sergeants to continue to promote when there is only one possible mentor, and they feel excluded in the male dominated higher ranks. My goal is to break the glass ceiling, and I encourage those above me to do the same. We need more diversity at the top of our pyramid.
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