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Abstract: The working life is slightly changing towards more equality between genders and role of women at charge is increasing. Plenty of studies have concentrated about men leaders due to available data, but the need to study women leaders have increased. In order to know more about women leaders this study focuses on communication style of the Finnish women leaders. The data was collected altogether from 164 women leaders. Finnish women leaders are using Enabling and Modelling transformational leadership style and having tendency to use Emphatic and Self-Controlled communication style. Results also indicated that highly transformational women leaders communicate differently than less transformational women leaders. Several statistically significant results emerged indicating that those highly transformational leaders are using more Impatient, Self-Controlled, Dominant and Clear communication styles than less transformational women leaders. The results and their applicability in the leadership training are discussed.
Keywords: Leadership, transformational leadership, women in management, communication
1. Introduction
According to Tienari, Soderberg, Holgersson and Vaara (2005) the lack of women leaders in business organizations is justified by reference to general social inequality. It has been argued that gender stereotypes can be particularly damaging for women in leadership roles, since masculine attributes are still considered more essential than feminine ones (Kunda & Spencer, 2003). Also, the research has been focused mostly on men leaders, due the fact that men are more represented in those positions, and this might have strengthened the masculine views of leadership. These may be the reasons for some research results indicating that women are undervalued by male subordinates and colleagues (Northouse, 2007). However, recent leadership literature has stressed importance of feminine qualities, and, for example, in case of the transformational leadership multiple studies indicate that women leaders exceed men leaders (Bass, 1999; Brandt & Edinger, 2015; Carless, 1998; Northouse, 2007). This study focuses on the transformational leadership, because it consists both masculine (challenging) and feminine (enabling and rewarding) behavior.
The communication is the crucial part of leaders' behavior and leaders cannot be effective if they cannot communicate their visions, values and expectations in clear and appealing way. The emotions are transmitted via communication and the emphasizing positive emotions and empathy have impact on the leaders' effect on others. The research shows that leaders who pay attention to...