Human Relations

http://hum.sagepub.com/ 'Lift as you rise': Union women's leadership talk

Gill Kirton and Geraldine Healy Human Relations 2012 65: 979 originally published online 15 June 2012 DOI: 10.1177/0018726712448202 The online version of this article can be found at: http://hum.sagepub.com/content/65/8/979

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HUM65810.1177/0018726712448202Kirton and HealyHuman Relations

human relations

Lift as you rise: Union womens leadership talk

human relations 65(8) 979999 The Author(s) 2012 Reprints and permission: sagepub. co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0018726712448202 hum.sagepub.com

Gill Kirton

Queen Mary, University of London, UK

Geraldine Healy

Queen Mary, University of London, UK

Abstract There is now an abundant and rich literature on gender and leadership in the corporate context, where concepts of masculine and feminine leadership are widely debated. This article provides a bridge between this literature and the women and unions literature, where womens leadership is under-researched but where feminist strategies are widely discussed. The article uses the relatively novel lens of masculine, feminine and feminist leadership for interpreting the leadership talk of an ethnically diverse group of American and British union women. We argue that when women lead in heavily masculinized settings, their leadership discourses and orientations are almost bound to reflect the dominant culture. The study reveals that while there is a discursive space within unions for alternative (feminine and feminist) visions of leadership, in practice women union leaders also engage in different combinations (often simultaneously) of (masculine) status quo and (feminine and feminist) transformative leadership talk. Keywords careers, feminism, gender in organizations, leadership, industrial relations, participation and workplace democracy, trade unions

Introduction
Union leadership has often been caricatured as male, pale and stale, and there can be no doubt that historically women, and especially black and minority ethnic (BME) women,
Corresponding author: Gill Kirton, School of Business and Management, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London El 4NS, UK. Email: g.kirton@qmul.ac.uk

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have experienced exclusion. This article discusses womens under-representation in union leadership and identifies the social construction processes that produce and reproduce this phenomenon. The article provides a bridge between the women and leadership literature and the women and unions literature. The former is mainly focused on the corporate sector and rarely on political settings, and generally does not take an intersectional, racially inclusive perspective (Ospina and Su, 2009). The latter typically neglects leadership (exceptions include Briskin, 2006; Eaton, 1992; Kaminski and Yakura, 2008; Ledwith et al., 1990), in favour of a broader conceptual framework of participation and activism (e.g. Bradley and Healy, 2008; Kirton, 2006). The article thereby contributes to filling a knowledge and theory gap that is timely, given womens increasing incursion into union leadership. We focus on womens leadership talk to reveal the complexity of gendered and racialized meanings, understandings and beliefs about leadership (see Fairhurst, 2009) held by American and British women union leaders. Our purpose is not to describe the individual union contexts that women encounter, but to situate the discussion of womens leadership within the broader context of the union movement cross-nationally. Kelly and Frege (2004) classify the UK and US as the liberal market variety of capitalism and place the two countries broadly within the same variety of unionism based on strong similarities weak institutionalization, decentralized bargaining structures and relatively strong ties to mainstream political parties. This similar context has the effect of creating analogous goals between UK and US unions: organizing workplaces; bargaining for conditions above the floor provided by legislation; mobilizing member voting in political elections. The two union movements also have similar individualistic leadership structures where the peak level general secretarys (UK) or presidents (US) power is said to be similar to that of a company CEO (Kelly and Frege, 2004). Below the peak level there is a range of paid and lay leadership positions where women are better represented and play their part in delivering union objectives (as workplace, branch, local, regional and national officials). Unlike corporate organizations, unions are ostensibly democratic, yet union structures of power and leadership in both countries are historically white-male-dominated, although significant change started to occur in the early 1970s as unions began to be influenced by other social movements, including the womens, civil rights and anti-racist movements (Cobble and Michal, 2002; Kirton, 2006). In the UK among the ten larger dominant unions, there are now four women general secretaries (of feminized education unions); in three unions women are at least proportionally represented among paid national officials and only two unions have achieved proportionality on the national executive (Labour Research Department, 2012). There are few concrete data on BME women, but all the available evidence indicates their under-representation in leadership (Bradley and Healy, 2008). Data are gathered less systematically in the US, but the picture is not dissimilar according to the available evidence (Cobble and Michal, 2002; Milkman, 2007). Again, womens representation among union leaders has increased dramatically since the 1970s, but men continue to dominate the top and most powerful positions. In nine major US unions with significant female membership, women comprise 24 per cent of top leaders, but in none of these unions does the female proportion of leaders equal the female proportion of members (Milkman, 2007). The increasing leadership of black and Latina

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women is particularly notable in the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and in organizing campaigns (Dickerson, 2006). Despite some positive signs, leadership change in US unions is notoriously slow as positions are held on to, often for life, and may even be inherited by incumbents offspring. Thus, the feminization of union membership of the last decades has not translated into proportional feminization of leadership in either country. Generally, the literature finds that unions continue to be strongly white masculinized contexts often unwelcoming and unreceptive to women and BME people (Bradley and Healy, 2008; Fletcher and Hurd, 2000: 67). A privileging and valorizing of masculine union identities (aggressive, domineering, tough, etc.) may sometimes include male BME workers, but exclude BME women (Moccio, 2009). The AFL-CIO identifies among other barriers push back from male leaders as inhibiting women from entering leadership, while the suggested solutions all point to the need for gendered cultural change (AFL-CIO, 2004). This history of gendered and racialized exclusion leaves the legacy at both discursive and lived levels of a white masculinist culture that stands in opposition to feminist identities and mitigates the transformative potential of feminist praxis (Cobble, 2004; Kirton, 2006; Williams, 2002). Further, class, as discourse and identity, is highly salient within the union movement and is deeply embedded in the forms of masculinity that infuse unions, especially blue-collar and male-dominated ones, even if today women are far more numerous in membership and leadership than formerly (Cobble, 2004; Williams, 2002). This article reveals how this cross-national gendered, racialized and classed context impacts on union womens leadership talk. First, the article outlines its conceptual positioning within the leadership literature, before proceeding to outline the methods and discuss findings.

Women and leadership

How women lead, and to what ends, have become prominent questions in the literature where two dominant interconnected discourses have been extensively explored: (i) two opposing models of feminine and masculine leadership; and (ii) female leadership advantage. Feminine leadership is defined as interpersonally oriented, democratic, collaborative and transformational, which contrasts with masculine leadership, defined as task-oriented, authoritarian, controlling and transactional. Socially and culturally, feminine leadership is typically ascribed to women and masculine to men (Fletcher, 2004). Women are often seen to choose participative management styles and to be willing to share available resources owing to their lack of social power rather than owing to essential (biological or psychological) characteristics (Fairhurst, 1993). Traditionally, though, it is masculinity that provides the dominant interpretive frame for acceptable organizational behaviour, while femininity is frequently marginalized and associated with peripheral rather than core organizational functions (Mumby, 1998; Mumby and Putnam, 1992). This is the case in unions where specifically white working class masculinity is often at play, particularly in male-dominated unions and unions representing blue-collar occupations (Williams, 2002). Paradoxically, changes at organization level towards participatory work structures are said to call for feminine leadership, such that there is now allegedly a female leadership

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advantage (Eagly and Carli, 2003; Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). Critical research in the communication field exposes flaws in the female leadership advantage thesis. Fairhurst (1993), for example, found that even though some female leaders might have high organization status, their social status as female (and perhaps black and/or young) created a gender hierarchy where white males of lower organization status made it difficult in everyday leaderfollower interactions for women to exercise positional power. Thus, women can occupy leader roles simultaneously and still function within the constraints of their gender roles (Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). For feminist scholars, the idea that women make better leaders than men is as problematic as the conventional belief that men make better leaders than women. The notion of feminine leadership and its ascription to women reinforces the same essentializing gender stereotypes that help to create and sustain organizational gender inequalities (Billing and Alvesson, 2000; Briskin, 2006; Fournier and Kelemen, 2001). Further, gender stereotypes create a double bind where highly communal women leaders are vulnerable to criticism for not being authoritative enough, but highly agentic women are criticized for lacking communion (Carli and Eagly, 2011: 108). Agency is, of course, exercised in context against existing gendered organizational discourses and practices that, combined, produce gendered realities. For example, women in male-typed leadership positions (gender-incongruent leaders) may be perceived by followers as well as by other leaders to lack leadership skills and authority, which may influence a choice of more masculine leadership practices in an attempt to compensate and to display leadership competence (Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001: 791; see also Fairhurst, 1993). Despite a discourse of feminine leadership and female leadership advantage, leaders are traditionally seen as heroic individuals. Heroism is generally taken to consist of masculine characteristics, hence the symbolic Great Man in many leadership stories (Binns, 2008; Cockburn, 1991; Pacholok, 2009). This has salience in the union context where the task is for the symbolic male hero to save others by dint of his mental and/or physical toughness (e.g. firefighting see Pacholok, 2009). At surface level, there seems little space for normative femininity or for heroines in traditional union leadership discourses. Further, heroic femininity seems an oxymoron when the idealized feminine way is to lead collaboratively, not to be leading battles to save others. The heroic individualistic model of leadership is also at odds with feminist value orientations (discussed below). Yet, in order to measure up as a (heroic) leader, again women might perceive the need to adopt masculine practices that appear at odds with their supposed preference for a feminine leadership style (Binns, 2008). Even the newer and more feminine post-heroic model, which emphasizes leadership as a social process, dependent on social networks of influence, is often presented as gender and, to a lesser degree, power neutral, not only in theory, but in practice (Fletcher, 2004). Moreover, authors argue that the idealized images of sex-linked attributes and inclinations, while they may not match reality, operate at the level of discourse to have a powerful effect on how we enact and are expected to enact our gender identities when engaged in leadership work (Ashcraft and Mumby, 2004; Fairhurst, 1993; Fletcher, 2004). The feminine/masculine dichotomy is further complicated when we consider the intersections of gender and race identities. An inclusive view of feminine/masculine leadership attempts to deconstruct the taken-for-granted whiteness of feminine and masculine

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(Ashcraft and Mumby, 2004; Parker, 2005). For example, Parker (2005) discusses the cultural assumptions about feminine and masculine leadership, arguing that Great Man theories are actually about the Great White Man and that the predominant vision of feminine leadership is implicitly based on an ideal (middle class) white woman. Thus, the race and class neutral feminine/masculine leadership stereotypes do not encompass the lived realities and histories of BME and working class women. Black leadership scholars have identified leader behaviours that draw from cultural resources to resist discrimination and racism so that race/ethnicity is seen to play a role in constructing the collective work of leadership (Dickerson, 2006; Opsina and Su, 2009; Prindeville, 2003). Prindevilles study of American Indian and Hispanic women political leaders finds gender identity to be salient, but race/ethnicity to be more so, while Dickersons (2009) study of black and Latina women union leaders finds a deep sense of responsibility and duty to representing and advocating for BME women. The case of BME women is a salutary reminder of the necessity of thinking in terms of multiple masculinities and femininities and the possibility for the subordination of specific forms (Connell, 1995). Given the union context of our study and the significant influence of feminism on union women, it is also important to consider the concept of feminist leadership as a value orientation. Feminism is not a unitary set of beliefs and values and contemporary feminist scholarship has been profoundly influenced by black feminist thought and theories of intersectionality that have exposed the white middle classism of much classic feminist theorizing (Crenshaw, 1991). Thus, while two concerns are identified as central to most variants of second-wave feminism (i) opposition to the domination of men over women, and (ii) a belief that women share a status as members of a subordinate group (Riger, 1994: 275) following Crenshaw, we add that an intersectional sensibility should be a central theoretical and political objective of feminism (Crenshaw, 1991: 1243). There is a paucity of literature specifically on feminist leadership, but collective empowerment and social change/justice goals are central (Lau Chin et al., 2007; Porter and Daniel, 2007). Some feminists advocate rejection of the masculine values that situate leaders as heroic or authoritarian, in favour of a system of more democratic governance involving flatter, less hierarchical and more participative decision-making structures. In this vision, leadership is a collective activity. However, other feminist scholars have criticized the egalitarian model of organization, arguing that the womens movement erred in its condemnation of leadership and that rather than an absence of leadership, what was needed was a system for making leaders accountable (e.g. Freeman; Hartstock, cited in Riger, 1994: 276). Despite some feminist ambivalence towards leadership itself, and while feminine leadership places more emphasis on processes than social change outcomes, there are links between discourses of feminine and feminist leadership. For example, scholars have noted feminist activists desire for nurturance from female leaders and the role of the mother has been proposed as a model of feminist leadership (see Rigers, 1994, discussion), which by implication is the binary opposite of father, potentially leading down the essentialist path. Further, the principles of feminist leadership resonate with Cliff et al.s (2005) account of feminine organizations created by female entrepreneurs, as flat, downplaying rules, exhibiting attentiveness to the needs of others, expressing relational orientations, in

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contrast to masculine organizations as hierarchical, reliant on rules, adopting an instrumental orientation and viewing members as a means for goal-accomplishment. However, since women, especially BME and working class women, tend to lack the power to determine or shape the culture/structure of organizations, a discussion of feminist leadership must necessarily confront the gendered asymmetries of power that reside within most organizations, including the union context of our research. Power how it is exercised, to what ends and with what effects/consequences is at the heart of theories of both leadership and feminism. Power is not only gendered but also racialized, in that men tend not to see their gender privilege and white men and women tend not to see their race privilege (Acker, 2006b: 452). To summarize, womens leadership in white male-gendered, egalitarian, democratic contexts such as unions is under-researched. The concepts drawn from the leadership literature of masculine, feminine and feminist leadership provide a relatively novel lens for interpreting the leadership talk of union women. Combining this lens with previous research (including our own) on women and unions, which in privileging activism has neglected to foreground leadership, has drawn our attention to four neglected questions: (i) What do women believe it takes to be a union leader?; (ii) What are the implications for union women of being a gender-incongruent leader?; (iii) Do women believe that there is a distinctive womens way of leading?; and (iv) How do women envision good leadership?. These questions organize the findings of our research study to which we now turn.

Research approach
The article draws on a two-year (20082010) cross-national (UK/US) research project on womens union leadership involving some 130 women, including some of the UKs and northeastern USAs most senior union women, in interviews and small focus groups. We position this study within a feminist research paradigm where the aim is to make women visible as a sex category. We were conscious of the importance of intersectionality for feminist scholarship (Acker, 2006a; Crenshaw, 1991; Healy et al., 2011), and our strategy of recruiting BME women to the study and highlighting their specific leadership experiences and discourses reflects this. To simplify the cross-national comparison, we used standard, semi-structured interview and focus group schedules that allowed for flexibility according to respondents narratives within their national contexts. Thus, we did not attempt to lock respondents by forcing them via our questioning into certain reaction patterns (Alvesson and Skoldberg, 2009: 231). This article draws on two main interview themes that encouraged respondents to offer reflections as well as concrete examples of: (i) what it is like being a woman activist/leader; (ii) their views on, and definitions of, union leadership. In this article we explore the findings within these themes through the lens of masculine, feminine and feminist leadership and the four specific questions outlined earlier. The interviewees age and ethnicity characteristics are shown in Table 1, and these broadly reflect the skew towards older white women, who make up the greatest proportion of women union leaders in both countries. Nevertheless, one-third of our sample were BME women. The interviewees held a range of union leadership positions at workplace, branch, local, regional and national levels, and came from a mix of female- and

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Table 1 Interviewee characteristics UK N = 63 Ethnicity BME Hispanic White Unknown Age 1825 2635 3645 4655 5665 65+ Unknown 18 0 45 0 0 6 17 22 14 3 1 USA New Jersey N = 31 7 0 21 2 1 4 5 13 3 3 1 USA New York N = 35 18 5 13 0 0 4 6 12 12 1 1 Totals N = 129 43 5 79 2 1 14 28 47 29 7 3

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male-dominated unions that organize white collar and manual workers in communications, construction, education, government, healthcare, hotels and catering, transport, light manufacturing, retail and entertainment. To enable the reader to contextualize respondents leadership talk, we show key demographic/biographical information after each quote, except where confidentiality/anonymity could be breached. Interviews and roundtable discussions were recorded and transcribed verbatim. The qualitative research software NVivo was used to code, sort and prepare the transcripts for thematic analysis. Initially, the transcripts were coded according to the responses to the interview questions. A number of themes were then identified as emerging from these responses, and further searches were then carried out to enable us to refine our understanding of respondents leadership discourses. We concentrate on respondents leadership talk because talk offers an alternative journey into studying the context of leadership one that is less concerned with impact and outcomes and, as stated earlier, more with meanings, understandings and beliefs (Fairhurst, 2009). Following Fairclough (2005), we see discourses as different perspectives on the world that depend on peoples positions in the world and on their identities. We focus on gender and on how race intersects with gender in womens discursive framing of union leadership. We regard discourses as powerful resources that can have material consequences, although as stated above the latter are not the subject of this article (Fairclough, 2005). Nevertheless, it is important to emphasize our underlying interest in portrayals of real life and lived experiences. In this article, we do not present a country-by-country comparison of womens leadership talk. We found that, at the discursive level, UK and US womens views on union leadership were so similar as to encourage us to foreground gender, including its intersections with ethnicity/race, and the concepts of masculine, feminine and feminist leadership as the analytical foci (see also Briskin, 2006). In contrast, in other publications based on this study we focus more on grounded contextual differences in leadership practices (Kirton and Healy, forthcoming).
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Findings from the research

The findings are organized around four questions identified earlier: What does it take to be a union leader?; Is there a womens way of leading?; Are women gender-incongruent leaders?; and How do women envision good leadership?. The ideas and views expressed by respondents are illustrated with indicative quotations.

What does it take to be a union leader?

In answer to this question, some women cited characteristics found in traditional (masculine) models of leadership, including: charisma, strength of character, risk-taking, foresight and vision. The quote below is from one of the UKs most senior union women and its emphasis on clarity, fixity and toughness is suggestive of traditional or idealized masculine leadership:
I believe leadership means that you are clear about where the organization needs to go, that you are confident in your articulation of that clarity, that you listen to a variety of opinions. But you are not blown in the wind by different voices, that you have fixity of purpose so when things get tough, you stand there against the storm. (UKCS2)

However, respondents also cited other more idealized feminine qualities, including: selflessness, empathy, patience, valuing and respecting others, listening skills, good people skills, being collaborative, recognizing your own weaknesses, being prepared to be wrong and open to changing your mind. The following American womans true leader is someone who exhibits many of these stereotypically feminine leadership qualities:
I think a true leader is someone who believes in it they are not trying to further their own political career people who believe in fairness and equity and do it for the right reasons and not just to propel themselves in the workplace as someone running their area, that its all about personal payoff instead of really being committed. (NJ3, white, age 3645, paid official, public sector union)

The idea of commitment to social justice expressed by the above quotation was a widely held ideal and not simply a white female subject position. It was notably resonant with BME women, who often use social movement activism as a means of serving their communities (Bradley and Healy, 2008; Ospina and Su, 2009). Further, the characteristics associated with feminist leadership of respecting, including and valuing members featured strongly in many definitions of a leader offered; for example:
I think they need to be in touch with the members and sometimes I get the impression they are not they need to be more focused on the grassroots so you get a general idea of what everybody is thinking and not just the activists, so someone that is able to engage at all levels of the union. (UK10, Black Caribbean, age 4655, national union official, public sector)

Is there a womens way of leading?

This question is asked in the light of the mix of stereotypically masculine and feminine qualities that were seen as important for leadership. On the one hand, many women
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talked about themselves as believing in participative, non-hierarchical leadership; for example, one BME interviewee said:
[W]omen are creating their own models in terms of how they negotiate so you would not find women banging the drum at the first meeting they would be making the case. That is not to say men dont make the case but they say there is a dispute, lets get it out there. Women say yes there is a dispute, lets gauge where the members want to go, so its bringing people with them. (UKCS5)

The above womans depiction of womens union leadership is one of collaboration with members rather than masculine domination. Thus, rather than following a Great Man approach to leadership, many of the UK and US women articulated the need for women to develop their own leadership model, which they described as more sensitive to opening lines of communication and building consensus from the bottom up. However, many also saw that this implicitly feminist approach was not practised by all women:
I would say my predecessor was more queen bee than I am the office conference would be the whole group around her. I work with a large group of people and I encourage those who need it, but I dont think I am a queen bee. I want to develop others rather than focus on me. (UK13, white, age 5665, regional official, general union)

However, the interviews revealed many examples of women asserting their readiness to adopt the more masculine practices associated with traditional models of leadership because they found them efficient and effective. Some stated that they were prepared to take harsh, unpopular, even ruthless decisions if they believed it was the right thing to do for the union, particularly in a crisis situation: for example, cutting staff jobs, changing internal management structures, getting rid of people who stood in the way of change efforts. One senior British respondent expressed it as being prepared to say just f****** do it, when she wanted something doing quickly with little consultation. This approach obviously weakens the premise that there is a distinctive feminine/feminist leadership. In contrast, we found that most respondents contrasted their own consultative (feminine/feminist) approach to the more authoritarian, dictatorial (masculine) one they had observed in men. For example, the British respondent below, a self-defined feminist, resigned as president of her branch when she went on maternity leave. She explained how her attempts to involve members and thus to reshape leadership had been entirely reversed by the new male president:
I have been checking my email while on leave and I have had five emails the whole year from the union I was sending emails out all the time and I was having questionnaires, doing surveys, organizing AGMs and newsletters every term. I just went back to work and there was some really horrible issue going on And there was a motion put and he [the president] said lets vote on that, but there was an amendment and I said you have to vote on the amendment first and he said, no I am a dictator. OK, so hes not a dictator, but he doesnt care very much about participative democracy. (UK2, white, 3645, former Branch President, education)

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She saw this as indicative of masculine and male leadership. However, while some of our respondents did believe that women typically do lead in a more feminine way, they emphasized the socially constructed, rather than essential nature of womens subjectivities, often drawing on the potentially female-unifying discourse of motherhood as a role that spilled over into the union role. As one BME woman said:
I think they [women] are a bit more caring than men. You know they are mothers and they are nurturing, so part of that comes right into the job. Im concerned about the workers out there. If something happens to them out there, I am sure that means more to me than the average man. (USCS3)

The above interviewee talks of women nurturing their members, but she also indicated her willingness to act on their behalf. There is a race reading of this insofar as black women in the US (and the UK) are more likely to be in agentic, self-determining roles as heads of households or lone mothers, inevitably infusing the concept of motherhood with expanded meaning as nurturer and provider. The above woman had climbed to the top by simultaneously tactically forging alliances with and battling against both white and BME men and this had influenced her perspective on gender difference and the average man. An awareness of the gendered nature of organization was apparent in other respondents explanations for why women seemed to lead differently:
Womens power typically has come from a group. Women tend not to have that kind of immediate power put on them if you want to get stuff done, stick to your sisters men dont get it done that way, they tend to have singular power and that makes for difficult politics because if there are six guys in the room, they are all trying to figure out whos the tough guy and I dont think women do that instinctively. (USCS1)

The above comment is insightful and reflects this womans experience of the differential gendered power base of union leaders. She uses the female unifying discourse of sisterhood and implies collective, rather than individual agency a position that perhaps is founded on her white, middle class identity. Further, critics might argue that some of the above views present a rather romantic, perhaps middle class, version of womanhood and femininity that not all women match up to all of the time. The other lived reality presented to us was that many respondents, particularly in blue-collar unions, were prepared to shout, swear, thump the table, etc. in the time honoured manner of their male working class counterparts.

Are women gender-incongruent leaders?

Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt (2001) place women in strongly male-typed leadership roles as gender-incongruent leaders. Our diverse sample indicated both gender and race incongruence. As discussed above, the role of union leader remains not only male-typed, but white male-typed, as the following quotation graphically demonstrates:
I am the first African American for this job, so I look different, I talk different, so until people started to get to know me, I had to muscle my way through to get the respect if I had a

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dime for every time you talk to people and then they meet you and the surprise is all over their face, its like oh, shes black! the first time I attended the meeting, the only one who knew me was the president and I walked into the hotel and it was me and 42 white males I will always remember that number 42. There was not another African American or woman in that meeting and I said, OK girl go on. (NJ5, African American, age 3645, paid union official, public sector)

The above quotation raises the image of BME women as gender-race incongruent union leaders and demonstrates that BME women practise leadership from multiple marginalized subject positions that may challenge the supremacy of white, working class males. As well as BME women being acutely aware of their race, the vast majority of respondents (BME and white) were highly conscious of their gender in the union environment. Many, particularly those in male-dominated unions (typically blue-collar), spoke to the issue of union leadership remaining infused with masculine meaning a mans world or a boys club. Moreover, their gendered or intersectional sensibilities may come to the fore in particular spaces. For women leading female or BME female-dominated locals/branches, stepping into regional or national union forums often meant entering a white-male-dominated, masculinized context. Respondents reflected on whether to be taken seriously as a woman meant adopting stereotypical masculine forms of behaviour or whether it was possible to present what might be seen as a more feminine approach to union leadership and still be respected and command authority. The following quotation illustrates the potent symbolism of womens dress and the way it is often conflated with leadership competence:
[O]ur president is a woman and half the flak she is getting is because she is a woman she is an introspective, she thinks, shes soft-spoken, she wears comfortable shoes, not high heels. What she says when she says it, is on point. Her policies are on point. She listens to her members. (US Focus Group participant)

whereas the following woman observed how union culture shapes womens leadership style in the blue-collar context of a male-dominated transport union:
Although there are a lot of women, the union I work for is very macho and can be very aggressive in all aspects and sometimes the women can get sucked into that. I found that unless you as a woman go and shout with the rest of them, you can be pushed aside a bit so yes, there are difficulties. (UK12, white, age 2635, Senior Regional Organizer, transport)

These quotations illustrate the multiple dilemmas women face. The first reveals womens consciousness of presentation of self, whether through feminine modes of speech or an informal dress code, and how this may attract the criticism of being perceived as simultaneously unfeminine and lacking authority. The second quotation demonstrates how gendered union culture is influenced by class positioning, which is powerful in reproducing among women specific masculine modes of behaviour. Thinking about the consequences of gender incongruence and intersections with other identities, it was notable that most BME and some working class women in the study presented themselves as able to withstand criticism and marginalizing treatment. They

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often invoked positive female family role models as providing a model of womanhood as equalling strength of character and independence rather than middle class feminine passivity, and they talked about themselves as having big mouths talk that resonates with Bradley and Healys (2008) study of BME union women. Feeling out of place (gender/race-incongruent) left many women believing that they had a responsibility to encourage other women into leadership positions for longer-term change as well as mutual support. Resonating with previous research (Bradley and Healy, 2008; Dickerson, 2006), it was BME respondents from both countries who argued most strongly for a collectivist approach, thus revealing specific racialized leadership discourses. In the quotations below this occurred within blue-collar male-dominated union contexts:
somebody who is looking out for the best interests of everybody that they are leading but also bringing somebody along because we are not always going to be here. And grooming or teaching or encouraging people to do the best they can for the people they are representing. (NJ4, African American, age 4655, paid official, manufacturing) You have to be willing to nurture people, step aside and let people fill your shoes. If you think you are that important, you cant do everything by yourself. You have to build some kind of internal coalition with your staff and I think a leader recognizes that. (NYC2, Hispanic, age 5665, paid official, public sector)

Nevertheless, it was a white British respondent who used the phrase made popular by Black American feminist Angela Davis (1994), stating that the aim for a woman union leader should be to lift as you rise. However, some of the more senior leaders we interviewed had had poor experiences of female leaders as they were rising up the union ladder themselves. The narrative below, coming from an African American woman speaking about her former white female boss, hints again at the racialized culture of unions:
At the time I was hired, the secretary treasurer was a woman and she was the worst and its bad because when we as women forget that we have to stick together. Someone does well, thats good. You bring someone else along. You dont forget we cant sustain without one another. We go through a lot of things in our life, women, we need one another. She is one that forgot that And she was far worse than any male boss that I had. (NJ5, African American, age 3645, paid union official, public sector)

Thus, gender incongruence produces a variety of responses among diverse women, not all reflecting feminist values. For some respondents, being an outsider had not been an entirely negative experience. There were some accounts of progressive white male leaders (practising feminine and pro-feminist leadership) encouraging and mentoring others, including BME women, rather than simply working for their own or their identity groups political ends as in white masculine leadership. At the same time, a reality experienced by senior women was male opposition to having too many women. As gender-incongruent leaders, women often found themselves competing with other women for tokenistic space. Consequently, one womans rise could mean anothers suppression. A senior British leader described her strategy to being marginalized:

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I just carry on and completely ignore the hateful way in which they [men] try to marginalize powerful women. If you try to engage with it, its very disempowering for other women you have to be strong. (UKCS1)

This woman explained how she had been blocked from an upwards move by senior men for publicly supporting another womans appointment to a senior position. In masculinized contexts, women often learn from bitter experience that alliances between women can be damaging, so it is hardly surprising to find that some women distance themselves from, rather than lift, other women as they climb upwards.

How do women envision good leadership?

Here we consider how women discursively construct good leadership. Many of the respondents, including some of the most senior, rejected traditional masculine leadership (power and authority over others) and saw good leadership as an empowering and influencing relationship with members. This feminist discourse seemed to frame many respondents actions, particularly UK (white and BME) women, who articulated their desire to bring about incremental emancipatory change. For example, they talked in various ways about wanting to bring a new woman-friendly culture to their unions. Some saw themselves as modelling a more flexible, family-friendly kind of approach to union leadership roles that contrasted with the masculine model they had learnt as they made their way up the hierarchy. Articulating that paid work is only one aspect of life is often seen as a feminist principle. One senior woman explained:
I spent the first two years trying to do it as I thought it ought to be done, which was following a very male way of doing things, which meant my family suffered, working long hours and thinking you had to turn up at events to be seen. That only works if you have strong backup at home and support that is very gender based. I didnt like that I was turning into something I didnt respect very much, because I didnt see the point of being in a role like this if I just carried on doing it the same way. So I shifted to a different way of working and its been much more comfortable for me. (UKCS3)

This interviewee thus used her senior position to personalize the professional (Ashcraft, 2000) and to create a space for challenge to and recasting of the traditional masculine leadership discourse of presenteeism and long hours within which she had climbed the ladder. Feminist values were more apparent among the British compared with the American women; the latter were more likely to present a feminine vision of empathetic and caring leadership, but not necessarily a feminist one that valued greater power sharing with activists and members. The exception was a number of older BME women from New York whose backgrounds in civil rights activism in the 1960s seemed to have influenced a more progressive and less hierarchical vision of leadership that echoed feminist notions. This enduring legacy of race struggle undoubtedly influenced their leadership and was transmitted through their leadership talk to younger generations of activists (see Parker, 2005). In contrast, many of the white American women seemed to support an individualistic, apolitical post-heroic model of leadership, but with idealized feminine values

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added in. They often emphasized service to members and securing member support for their endeavours, rather than member involvement. This is also consistent with the goals of US-style business unionism, with its instrumental emphasis on collective bargaining gains. Despite awareness of the leadership barriers faced by union women, the UK and US respondents were united in expecting higher standards of moral leadership behaviour from women. It was clear from their narratives that, when a woman shows that she is prepared to be ruthless or dictatorial or when she has an aggressive personal style (mirroring masculine leadership practices), this can meet the severe disapproval of other women and was heavily criticized for failing other women. A more fatalistic acceptance that men typically lead in authoritarian ways with self-interest or the interests of other men at heart was evident in the womens talk. This resonates with Eagly and JohannesenSchmidt (2001), who suggested that prejudice against female leaders stems from the widely held beliefs about how women ought to behave. Here, women leaders were condemned by other women if they failed to exhibit feminist or at least feminine leadership practices. This is highlighted by the words of one British respondent:
Our first female [general secretary] not once has [she] made any engagement with the staff to say this is who I am. That should have happened you should make an effort to know the staff I dont even bother [anymore]. I am not saying hello to anyone who is not saying hello to me. I dont care who are you are, general secretary or cleaner. (UK51, African Caribbean, age 3645)

Women typically expected other women leaders to be less hierarchical, more supportive and encouraging of other women, more altruistic, more inclusive, etc. and that they should want to change the very context that for so long had excluded women. Most of the more senior UK and some of the US respondents stated that one of the most satisfying aspects of their role was mentoring others, especially women; the ultimate goal was to work towards gendered cultural change, rather than simply maintain or reproduce the status quo, but with female bodies. Linking again with the feminist idea of lifting as you rise, this suggests that some women leaders do not simply see their role as preserving their own power:
There is a saying in feminism that its not enough for a woman to be president or whatever, she has to do things different and pull other women up and give them opportunities. (US Focus Group participant)

Discussion
This article has discussed the complex, multiple and sometimes contradictory ways a diverse group of American and British women talk of union leadership. Our intention was not to compare unionism in two geographical places, but to understand the somewhat different gendered leadership discourses between two countries that sit within the same macro-level variety of capitalism and unionism (Kelly and Frege, 2004). Since the union movements of the two countries are characterized by similar gender regimes, at a

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certain level of abstraction, it is not surprising to find similar experiences and views of gendered leadership among union women (see also Briskin, 2006). In many ways, we find that the gender order in unions supersedes national boundaries. However, we also uncovered cross-national differences in discursive leadership activity that are interwoven with each countrys history of gender, race and union struggles. We argue that the respondents leadership talk tells us much about UK and US union womens construction of leadership and by extension the kind of leadership practices that they seek to enact and to what ends. Following Ashcraft and Mumbys (2004) understanding of discourse, we see womens talk as a function of their lived experiences of leadership interaction processes, the specific organizational form they operate within and wider societal narratives about women and their roles combined. Thus womens individual narratives illuminate the way that gendered leadership discourses and ultimately practices are constructed through everyday communicative activities and interactions. Aware of the danger in the literature of the over-generalization of womens leadership orientations, practices and experiences (Alvesson and Skoldberg, 2009), this article deepens our understanding of the complexities of leadership by focusing attention on the talk of a diverse group of women in a specific organizational and comparative context. US and UK women did invoke stereotypical masculine and feminine characteristics when talking about their own and other womens leadership, but did not use the labels of masculine and feminine. Thus, by applying the concepts of masculinity and femininity as an analytical framework, we have shown how dominant gendered ideologies shape actors practices in ways that are perhaps not always readily apparent to actors themselves (Ashcraft and Mumby, 2004). The study also demonstrates the importance of seeing plurality and diversity in constructs of masculine and feminine that is, multiple masculinities and femininities are present in union womens talk. Although in this article we foreground gender and race, it is also clear from our respondents talk that class is never far away from union womens lived experiences of union leadership. Our study shows that barriers and opportunities for womens union leadership are reflected and embedded in gendered leadership discourses that contain the logic of effectiveness (Fletcher, 2004). However, not all roads lead back to reproducing barriers. As reflected in the title of this article, there was a strong feminist discourse of lifting as you rise, which perhaps explains some of the belief in gender difference, but without reference to essentialist ideas about women (Briskin, 2006). The BME women simultaneously utilized similar and subtly different gendered leadership discourses compared with the white women, indicating a fluid but constant subtext of race-ethnicity in leadership work (Ospina and Su, 2009; Parker, 2005). It was quite clear that past and current experiences of racial exclusion influenced the BME womens leadership talk. However, womens talk indicated that female unifying discourses might sometimes be a way of managing the potential tensions and conflicts between race and gender in white masculinized unions where the necessity for unity across social divisions is a powerful discourse (Cobble and Michal, 2002; Kirton, 2006; Williams, 2002) but through an intersectional sensibility (Crenshaw, 1991; Healy et al., 2011). Our study underlines that gender is a property not just of individuals, but also of organizations and organizing processes (Acker, 2006b), and the gender and inequality regimes in which union women practise leadership are relatively resilient and are often

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antithetical to feminist praxis. This undoubtedly results in tension between union womens discourses and abstract ideas about how womens (feminine and feminist) leadership might contribute to gender transformation, and their own leadership practices in the context of everyday lived experiences. Moreover, at the micro-level of this study, American women were more likely to display individualistic post-heroic feminine leadership narratives, whereas the British women tended to adopt more collectivist feminist narratives. We account for these differences by the different meso-level union contexts and union and societal gender structures operating in the two countries (see Kirton and Healy, forthcoming). We have sought to show how the gendered and racialized character of unions and wider social roles traditionally ascribed to women influence womens leadership talk rather than valorize womens leadership as a distinct phenomenon. This study is an example of how discursive activity continuously creates, solidifies, disrupts and alters gendered selves and organizational forms (Ashcraft, 2004: 275). Whilst many American and British, BME and white women union leaders want to and even claim to practise what might be characterized as feminist leadership, we also find that in certain conditions masculine leadership may be favoured by women. While women may be highly critical of masculine leadership approaches, they sometimes see them as effective given the gendered union context or as mitigating their isolation as women and the gender-race incongruence within which they might find themselves located. However, it was clear from our study of womens talk that individually and collectively women leaders at certain times in certain places believe they can and do make a positive difference to the gender culture, particularly when they practise feminist leadership. We identified a strong discourse that masculine leadership (whether exercised by men or women) was failing women. Thus, it was the type of leadership that mattered, not simply the leaders gender. By showing the contradictory gendered discourses that union women display, we have attempted to avoid casting women leaders as either mother figures or bitches as is so often the case in popular media representations of women leaders. Instead we show the tensions and complexities of womens leadership as lived. Moreover, we found that American and British women union leaders expressed a strong sense of accountability, not just to members generally, but specifically to other union women they wanted to lift other women as they climbed. This was a dominant discourse in the sample, but notably expressed strongly by BME women. In fact, lifting as we climb was the motto of the National Association of Colored Women formed in 1895 in the US, emphasizing commitment to community (Parker, 2005). Similar to other studies, in relation to race/ethnicity there was an understanding among our respondents that leadership geared towards social change is collective work (Dickerson, 2006; Ospina and Su, 2009; Prindeville, 2003). The senior women leaders were regarded by many at the lower levels as trail blazers and role models. Reflecting a feminist value orientation, they were clearly aware of the responsibility that this carried, and many wanted to contribute to the growth of other women. While British women were more likely to articulate stronger feminist positions explicitly, respondents generally engaged positively with feminist leadership practices towards feminist goals. For example, women articulated agentic capacities, particularly their own seniority status, to ensure that women are heard against a hierarchical and bureaucratic union culture, which could deter women from fully participating. Thus,

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giving women voice was another prominent discourse among our respondents. However, awareness of the unequal gender context in which women lead means that some union women were regarded as adopting defensive, even narcissistic practices, in order to protect themselves implicitly, at least from the greater risk of criticism and attack that women leaders often face (Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). It is noteworthy that holding instrumental goals may facilitate goal accomplishment in a harsh climate, whereas some of the tenets of feminine and feminist leadership (e.g. consultation; collective decision-making) might in practice hinder goal accomplishment (see Ashcraft, 2001; Riger, 1994 on the limitations of feminist organization). Further, when women lead in white masculinized contexts, their leadership discourses and orientations, as well as practices, are almost bound to reflect to some degree the dominant culture and discourses. In the union context, it is traditionally women who are expected to change to fit in (Williams, 2002). From our study we conclude that most women union leaders in the UK and US do not intend to imitate stereotypical masculine approaches to leadership, but some may end up doing so because that is the approach that they see as tried and tested for survival and success. This is particularly the case where the masculine individualistic leadership structure and model are individually taken for granted rather than collectively challenged or resisted the former being the more common orientation among the American women. There were certainly reports of women leaders allegedly deliberately keeping other women down either in the real or mistaken belief that there is only limited room for women at the higher levels. Echoing previous research (Binns, 2008; Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001), the womens narratives suggested greater expectations of women leaders, believing that they should not lose touch with members needs and concerns in the way that can happen once someone reaches a powerful, elite position and surrounds herself with only like-minded, even sycophantic people. This was the conventional masculine model that most recognized, but rejected, at least in the abstract, in their discourses.

Conclusion
To conclude, the study has shown that theoretically there is no necessary connection between feminine/ feminist leadership and women, or masculine leadership and men. It was clear from the interviews that leadership in the union movement is plural, not unitary, and there were many examples given to us of men who sought to lead in ways that resonate with feminine and feminist leadership. However, from this study, whether or not women were more likely to practise what could be classified as feminine leadership and men masculine is a moot point. Some women believed this to be the case, but at the same time they and others related experiences that pointed in the opposite direction. Thus, respondents talk positioned feminine leadership as a normative construct and perhaps as an ideal, but only to some extent as an empirical phenomenon (see Billing and Alvesson, 2000). Our findings indicate that the contradictory talk has to be seen in the gendered union context, whereas its normative nature is also underpinned by womens lack of social power (Fairhurst, 1993). Moreover, it was evident that minority womens discourse was also shaped by an intersectional sensibility that was resonant of the gendered and racialized union context of which they talked, but also of their different societal and

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domestic contexts and histories. Thus women leaders in unions, where voice is built into structures, demonstrate the same forms of power deficits as are evident in more conventionally hierarchical organizations. Second, against the incursion of women in union leadership, the discussion of gendered leadership discourses among union women serves to remind us that organizing processes that create and re-create inequalities may have become more subtle, but in some cases, they have become more difficult to challenge (Acker, 2006b: 458), especially if it is women enacting marginalizing processes in environments where women have been let in. Women can and do lead in ways that marginalize and exclude other women, either inter- or intra-racially, resulting in women feeling more let down than when it is men doing the excluding. A study comparing womens and mens union leadership discourses and orientations would further unpack gendered leadership in this changed and evolving context. Although our discussion is situated in one specific white masculinized context trade unionism it has resonance with other work within the field of gender and leadership that sees masculinity and femininity as inherent features of leadership dynamics (e.g. Collinson, 2005; Fournier and Kelemen, 2001) and that sees race/ethnicity as woven into the collective work of leadership (Ospina and Su, 2009; Parker, 2005). It is clear that union women often engage in different combinations (often simultaneously) of (masculine) status quo and (feminine and feminist) transformative leadership practices. Women also draw on multiple marginalized identities to find strength to resist and challenge the status quo. Although we believe that discourse and materiality exist in a dialectical relationship, it was beyond the scope of this article to explore outcomes of different types of gendered leadership, for example in terms of policy and practice this is something that future research could usefully tackle by taking a union-by-union case study approach, which might also unpack in more detail the class dynamics of leadership in different types of unions. Acknowledgements
We must acknowledge the invaluable contribution to the project of our American colleagues: Sally Alvarez, Legna Cabrera and Risa Lieberwitz (Cornell University, USA), and Mary Gatta and Heather McKay (Rutgers University, USA). Others at both universities also participated in discussions with us, and they are also thanked. Thanks are also warmly extended to all the union women who participated so willingly in interviews and focus groups.

Funding
This work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust, grant number F/07 476/AJ.

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explores womens participation in unions and unions gender and race equality strategies. Gill Kirtons work is published in major international journals such as British Journal of Industrial Relations, Gender, Work & Organization, Human Resource Management Journal, Human Relations, International Journal of Human Resource Management and Work, Employment & Society. Her books include: The Making of Women Trade Unionists (2006) and Diversity Management in the UK (2009) with Anne-Marie Greene. Gill sits on the editorial boards of Gender, Work & Organization and Equality, Diversity & Inclusion. [Email: g.kirton@qmul.ac.uk] Geraldine Healy is Professor of Employment Relations and Director of the Centre for Research in Equality and Diversity (CRED) in the School of Business and Management, Queen Mary, University of London, UK. Her recent work has explored the intersectionality between gender and ethnicity, equality policies and practices, inequalities in low paid and highly qualified health work, and a UK/US comparative study of women and trade union leadership. She has published widely in leading international journals, including British Journal of Industrial Relations, Human Relations and Work Employment & Society, and her books include: Diversity, Ethnicity, Migration and Work: International Perspectives (2011) with Franklin Oikelome, Equality, Inequalities and Diversity: Contemporary Challenges and Strategies (2010) with Gill Kirton and Mike Noon (eds), Ethnicity and Gender at Work Inequalities, Career and Employment Relations (2008) with Harriet Bradley, The Future of Worker Representation (2004) edited with Ed Heery and Phil Taylor, and Women and Trade Union Leadership with Gill Kirton, which is forthcoming in 2012. [Email: g.m.healy@qmul.ac.uk]

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