| Summary: | Women are being elevated into more leadership roles in society - roles that have long been primarly held by men. Women are also rising within male-dominated professions, and recent studies indicate that more women are being placed in key management positions. In order to gain credibility in leadership, women must find a management style that exudes authority, but also corresponds with the expectations of appropriate female behavior within masculine organizational contexts. In examining women in roles that are traditionally held by men, we conducted an interview-study to investigate and analyze the communication strategies of female managers in male-dominated companies. The study included analysis of communication strategies used by women as compared to their male colleagues. We note that research in this area has previously been done, but there has been a fairly limited focus examining only female communication strategies. Our study shows that the women use a variety of communication strategies, rather than a single strategy, and the main conclusion we can draw is that the women are proficient in changing communication strategies and methods depending on their audience. The study also shows an unexpected fact that goes against the published research on female communication in typically male dominated roles: Women in male-dominated professions choose to take on the communication style of men, using straight, simple and factual communication, rather than detailed, less direct communication styles generally associated with women.
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