RUNNING HEAD: UNDERCOVER BOSS 1

Undercover Boss: Discovering Gendered Leadership Through Discourse

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Abstract

While there has been a great deal of work discussing the role that gender plays in leadership

amongst management scholars, much of the scholarship draws on essentialist frameworks which

reify gender differences and fail to account for many communicative practices witnessed in

everyday life. Moreover, little communication work has attended to how male and female CEOs

leadership can be gendered. Using transcripts from episodes of the television series Undercover

Boss, the authors hope to expand on management and communication literature by examining the

leadership communicative practices of male and female CEOs. Using Ashcraft’s (2004)

framework for understanding the shifting relationship between gender, identity, and discourse,

this paper will contribute to the discussion of how leadership is gendered in corporate America.

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Undercover Boss: Discovering Gendered Leadership Through Discourse

All around the world, female CEOs and senior executives are extremely rare in large

corporations (Oakley, 2000). Even though 40% of managers are female in the U.S., larger

corporations they hold less than 0.5% of the highest paying management positions (Fierman,

1990). Leadership has traditionally been seen as better suited to men and it “has been

predominantly a male prerogative in corporate, political, military and other sectors of society”

(Eagly & Karau, 2002, pg. 573). The notion of leadership being a male dominated field has been

attributed to stereotypes about women such as the lack of qualified women due to family

responsibility (Greenhaus & Parasuraman, 1999) as well as inherited tendencies for women to

display fewer of the traits and motivations that are necessary to attain and achieve success in

high-level positions (Browne, 1999; Goldberg, 1993).

Included in such social issues are also the gendered expectations of emotions that help

create these stereotypes. Women are expected to be sensitive and supportive when it comes to

their employees and how they interact with them, while men are expected to be aggressive and

direct when displaying emotions toward their employees. Eagly and Karau (2002), mention that

communal characteristics are ascribed to women and describe them as affectionate, sympathetic,

sensitive, nurturing and gentle. Men on the other hand, are ascribed agentic characteristics, which

describe them as aggressive, dominant and prone to act as leaders (Eagly & Karau, 2000).

American society has taken on the role of informing us that emotions are different based

on gender. Brody (1997, pg. 370) mentions “the stereotypes that females are more emotionally

expressive and less aggressive than males are quite widely held”. Women are supposed to smile

more often and express warmth and affection than men. Men are supposed to express aggression

and more anger compared to women, who are supposed to display more fear and vulnerability.

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These stereotypes construct gender differences, which reflect the reality of the corporate

landscape in the United States.

Feeding off the essentialist characterization of women, popular literature on women in

management frequently advises women to adapt a fake self, that fits better with the masculinized

organizational identities (Tracy, 2005). Essentially masculine characteristics such as rationality,

as opposed to emotionality are privileged in the workplace (Mumby & Putnam, 1992), leading to

women who wish to reach leadership positions to adopt typically masculine affectations. Women

are encouraged to leave their family commitments at home or at least to “hide them behind

appropriate dress, language and behaviors” (Tracy, 2005, pg. 183).

Since leadership has been associated with masculinity, female leaders are often seen as

less ‘fit’ for the role because they are marked as ‘the other’ in association to the male norm (Tracy,

2005; Mumby & Putnam, 1992). As previously mentioned, women are expected to be sensitive

and supportive when it comes to their employees and how they interact with them, while men are

expected to be aggressive and direct when displaying emotions toward their employees.

However, management literature has begun to question the privileging of masculine

characteristics in regards to what makes for effective leaders. George (2000) argued that

communicating about emotions helps in achieving a goal and developing interpersonal

relationships. By displaying empathy, relationship leadership develops as well. Not only is

emotional expressiveness a positive for relationship leadership but also for task performance. By

“expressing stern, social control-type emotions may help to motivate group members who have a

tendency to slack off, whereas expressing enthusiasm may motivate people to complete their

work tasks” (Humphrey, 2008). Therefore, both traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine

displays of leadership styles can improve both productivity and workplace morale.

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Overall leaders use emotional labor to influence their follower’s moods and emotions.

When employees’ emotions and moods are influenced, it reflects positively on their performance.

Service workers are required to show many different emotions depending on the workplace that

after a while become routine-based, while leaders tend to display various emotions in order to

manage employees as well as use good judgment on what emotions should be displayed.

While this research has provided a valuable contribution into understanding one way in

which we might understand the ways in which masculine and feminine leaders perform leadership,

analysis of real life managerial situations leads to an understanding that these views are “limited .”

In particular, much of the management literature remains tied to essentialist and traditional views

of men and women, and views communicative practice as an outcome of gender as opposed to a

performance or a construction of gender (Butler, 1990).

This paper seeks to expand on the discussion around gender and leadership by examining

how interactions between discourse, gender, leadership and organizational practices. To

accomplish this goal, the authors adopted Ashcraft’s (2004) “four frames” of discourse, gender

and organization, and used each as a lens to better understand the relationship between gender and

leadership.

Method

To better understand how leadership might be gendered, the authors analyzed the

television show Undercover Boss. For those unfamiliar with the show, each episode follows the

journey of a corporate executive as they work in various entry level positions in their companies.

Employees are told that the “undercover boss” is competing in a reality television show as the

rationale for having the cameras follow them around. Throughout each episode, the executives

are given a glimpse into the working conditions of their employees, as well as learning about

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their personal lives. At the end of each episode, the bosses fly the employees that they met out to

their homes or the corporate headquarters and bestow various rewards on the hardworking

employees. The show features both male and female CEOs, and while (reflecting the landscape

of corporate America) the show has focused more heavily on male CEOs, there have been

representations of female in corporate leadership as well. In order to examine both male and

female CEOs through the four frames, the authors selected four male and four female CEOs to

serve as data. Each episode was transcribed and resulted in 192 single spaced pages in total.

The authors read the transcripts independently of one another, and worked to find the eight

episodes that displayed the strengths and limitations of each of the four frames. While the show

is dominated by male CEOs, we elected to take four examples of each in order to best analyze the

relationship between gender and leadership. At the beginning, we looked at this show as an

opportunity to discover how leadership is gendered through the use of emotions.

Emotions were a big part of our research at first and how they were displayed on the show

in comparison of masculine and feminine displays of emotion. However, as we dived into the

research further and as we started to look at the data there was not distinct connection that showed

how male CEOs portray leadership and how female CEOs portrayed leadership. This train of

thinking eventually led to our research question:

RQ: How is leadership gendered on Undercover Boss?

There is a mix of ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ leadership prompted us to change the course

of the study and focus on discourse. The realization of the limitation of much of the previous

work on gender and leadership led to utilizing the Ashcraft’s (2004) framework for understanding

the relationship between gender, organization and discourse with an aim towards developing

leadership as discursively created. In this study, we focus on the micro and meso levels of

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organization, gender and discourse as they pertained most directly to how leadership was enacted

on Undercover Boss.

Four Frames of Discourse, Gender and Leadership

As previously mentioned, women and men have operated under stereotypes in regards to

what kind of managers they are meant to be. In particular, feminine leadership styles were

portrayed as less effective than masculine and “women and men continue to be positioned

differently and unequally within a male dominated management structure” (Baxter, 2011, pg 233).

Considering the limited view of gender as a given within the individual, as opposed to enacted in

everyday practice (Butler, 1990), this limited view and essentializing differences between men

and women is unsurprising.

This limited view meant that women who wished to lead were forced to act in traditionally

masculine ways, abandoning aspects of traditionally feminine identities. Frequently, women are

portrayed as if they needed to take on a tough role because leadership has been viewed as a

masculine trait and in order for women to survive in the boardroom, or even reach the boardroom

they had to acquire men’s language. People have the preconceived notion that leaders are

supposed to have masculine agentic qualities and for that reason women are being judged for not

having those qualities (Eagly & Karau, 2002).

However, the reality breaks that notion when it reveals that leadership can be seen as

performative, meaning a leader is not born rather a leader is made based on discursive practices.

The way we exchange thoughts and ideas is different from person to person. We do gender

“through ‘ceremonial work’, which marks men and women as members of separate symbolic

orders” (Gherardi 1994, 1995, pg. 279). Adopting a discourse perspective reveals how through

conversation as well as other performative aspects men and women are able to perform various

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types of gendered leadership.

Ashcraft (2004) offers four different frameworks by which scholars can analyze the

relationship between discourse, gender and identity. The first frame, examining how gender

organizes discourse fits much of the previous work done in management in regarding male and

female styles of leadership. The second frame examines how discourse organizes gender, draws

on a performative lens in order to understand gender and organization. Ashcraft’s third frame

introduces the concept of organizations themselves as gendered, and explicates how organization

(en)genders discourse. Finally, the fourth frame looks at how discourse (en)genders organization,

this final frame brings to light how cultural discourses inform on our organizing practices, and

highlights that organization does not happen in a vacuum.

While all four of the frames highlight a different aspect of the relationship between

discourse, gender, and organization, Ashcraft highlights their capacity to work together in order to

inform on different aspects of the organizing process. For the purposes of this paper we will

remain within the realms of the first three frames, as they provide the most explanation for the

actions of individuals within an organizational context. By analyzing these three frames, we will

see how shifting our gaze highlights different important aspects of the relationship between

gender, discourse and organization in regards to gendered leadership.

The first type of leadership that will be looked at is the traditional style that fit

stereotypically essential gender characteristics. Participants who were direct and strict while

interacting with their employees demonstrated a more masculine type of leadership. On the other

hand participants who were less direct and more sympathetic demonstrated a feminine type of

leadership. The second type of leadership that was enacted on the show was performative

leadership. This includes participants who adapted their leadership style based on employees’

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narratives. In other words, regardless of their gender participants were able to take on a

performative approach and showcased both gender characteristics that constructed a gendered

leadership. The third type of leadership fit with organizations engendering discourse, meaning

organizations dictate what is appropriate and inappropriate, when it comes to behaviors that CEOs

exhibit on the show.

Analysis

First Frame: Gender, Organizes Leadership Discourse

The female and male communication style are correlated/associated when it comes to

expressing power in leadership position. Adjectives that historically describe the male

communication style are ‘direct’ and ‘straightforward’, while the female style of communication

is ‘nicer’ and less direct. Larry O’Donnel, the CEO Waste Management (the largest trash and

recycling company in North America). Larry (who goes by Randy for his time undercover) is

concerned by what he views as an abuse of power by a manager he encounters over the course of

the show. Near the end of the show (during the rewards phase) Larry calls Kevin, manager and

informs him that he needs to change the policy:

Larry: I've seen the way you ended up implementing our policy about 30 minutes for

lunch, what frustration it's causing. You know, if they're three minutes late, we don't

penalize them. And that seems to be the thing that is just really frustrating.

Kevin: Sure.

Larry: I think we can figure out a better way to do it than what we're doing. Can I count

on you to get that done?

Kevin: Ok. I don't think that's something that can't be done. All right.

The participant keeps the conversation short and does not waste time with small talk. Rather he

goes straight to the point, presents a solution to a problem, which proves his communication style

to be direct. Furthermore, through the encounter of the CEO and the employee it is obvious that

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the CEO is strict when he expresses his personal feeling toward the problem.

Another example that showcases the male communication style is Stephen Cloobek, CEO of

Diamond Resorts International, during his undercover experience; Steve worked at a call center

for reservations at Diamond Resorts. During his time in the call center, Steve became

increasingly concerned at what appeared to be a failure in training by the call center, leading him

to “break character” and deal with the problem immediately.

Steve: No, no, don’t. You didn’t fulfill any of the requests. You didn’t make that young lady

on the phone, force her to save her points. You should have just done it for her. That’s the meaning of yes. I’m going to go see your supervisor, and I’m going to find out what’s going on here at this call center.

Once again, we see a male CEO being straightforward and strict. After understanding the struggle

his employees are facing, the CEO is quick to come up with a solution. Steve acknowledges that

the deficit is in the employees training, and works to correct the issue immediately. Once more

the male CEO presents a direct side relying strictly on his verbal communication, which

emphasizes the typical male communication style.

These two examples both showcase a specific communication style that is based on two

characteristics: directness and strictness. This style of communication creates a specific type of

leadership. It showcases how male CEOs communicate as well as how conversation constructs a

gendered leadership once compared to female CEOs later on. The following two examples

involve two female CEOs showcasing how leadership is gendered. The first one is Linda Young,

who is co-CEO of Bright Star Care along with her husband J.D. Bright Star Care offers a variety

of care directed services including: childcare, temporary nursing, and in-home care to the elderly.

During the rewards portion of the show, Linda offers the following praise and reward to a man

who works in the childcare area of Bright Star Care:.

Linda: James, you were wonderful to work with. You’re so good. You give them love, you

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give them discipline. You do that so naturally with them. You’ve got so much opportunity ahead of you. And because you’re interested in so many things, I’d like to pay to have a

career coach work with you so that you could have someone guiding you and giving you advice. Help you reach all of your possible potential.

The participant was able to assist her own employees by providing not only a solution but also a

more sympathizing conversation with the employee. Sarah is more forthcoming with her praise

than many of the male CEOs, and displays a more traditionally feminine style with a focus on

nurturing the male employee and expressing concern for his future development.

Another example that demonstrates the traditional type of leadership is Dina Dwyer, CEO

from the Dwyer Group, who followed in her father’s footsteps and wants to continue his legacy in

their home care business. One male employee confided to Dina during the show that he

frequently had problems getting his checks through Roto-Rooter, and that the amounts were often

wrong, putting his finances in jeopardy:

Dina: So I talked to Mary Thompson who is actually the president of Roto-Rooter. I said Mary I’d just like you to check into this ‘cus Wayne shared his concerns with me and I’m

going to continue to follow up in this relationship and so we’ll take care of all of these compensation issues.

Once more, the participant was gentler when it comes down to fixing a problem instead of being

very direct and aggressive. While she remains focused on fixing a perceived problem, her

emphasis on the problem solving being based on a relationship with the employee emphasizes are

more communal stance than many male CEOs.

While these examples show the ways in which gender can organize discourse in a

leadership position, many of the examples we found in the show did not fit the mold provided by

this traditional and essentialist framework. Expanding our view from gender as essential and

given, to gender as performed through discourse offers a different reading of the actions of the

male and female CEOs on the show.

Leadership Discourse Organizes Gender

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Moving from the traditional type of leadership that includes the stereotypical

characteristics that women and men possess, the second frame highlights performative leadership

and displays how a leader can display both, feminine and masculine characteristics. In this frame,

gender becomes a resource that can be drawn on regardless of biological sex. The following

examples illustrate how talk constructs a gendered leader. It offers a new perspective on how

discourse impacts our understanding of leadership. The first example showcases Steve Joyce,

CEO of Choice Hotel who takes on a more traditionally feminine approach toward leadership and

proves that talk creates a gendered leadership.

Steve J.: I knew I was going to learn a lot, about our company, about our programs. What I

got surprised by is the quality of the people we’ve got in our hotels. As I think about it, we’re all part of the Choice family at this point. We don’t always act like it, but we should.

From this example, Steve discusses how the people he works with are the ones who drive the

company forward, and places a strong emphasis on the concept of the corporation working as a

family. We see a relationship that takes on the approach of how talk creates a gendered leadership.

As opposed to a direct, descriptive and specific way of dealing with problems, which under the

first frame you would expect to find, Steve emphasizes communal values that seem more at home

coming from a female CEO

Returning to Steve Cloobek of Diamond Resorts International, we see how it is possible in

single interactions to shift from masculine to feminine gender resources within a single interaction.

During the rewards portion of the show, Steve interacts with Sarah, the undertrained employee he

confronted earlier in the show:

Steve: Sarah. You nervous? Why? Sarah: Cause you were very upset with me the last time we saw each other. Steve: I intimidated you? Then I want to apologize to you. It’s not your fault. I’m personally

coming back to the call center to train each team member myself. Sarah: That means a lot. Thanks. Steve: You’re bubbly, you’re vivacious, you’re cheerful, you got a wonderful spirit about you. Sarah: Thank you.

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Steve: And I know I can be a little intimidating at times, and I stressed you out. I’m gonna send you and a friend on an all-expenses paid, first class airfare for a week to Kauai, so you can go to the Lihue airport and look at the ticket.

In this example the CEO exhibits the performative leadership once again. Based on his interaction

with the employee, he adopts a leadership style that includes masculine and feminine traits of

leadership. He conveys sensitivity and care toward the employee, and then informs her of a

specific plan of action to address his perceived problem, finally he returns to a more nurturing

form of leadership once more.

In addition to the male CEOs adopting a new leadership style, female CEOs invest in the

performative leadership style. They adopt both characteristics too, communal and agentic, while

they perform leadership. This is clearly seen through the following examples. The first example

presents Kim Schaefer, the CEO from Great Wolf Lodge. While Kim references to her comfort

level with being a CEO as higher than her comfort level as a mother, she still retains both

masculine and feminine performances throughout the show. While rewarding her employees,

Kim shifts between direct and specific talk to more value laden talk:

Kim: Kelly, I found you to be just an amazing young man. That level of responsibility

that you take on, I think resonates very well with our young lifeguards. I’d like to form a brand new aquatics team, and I want you to be the chairman of that group . I want to make

sure that you get a raise, and I want you guys to talk about how do we make things better for our employees. I’d also like to talk to you about something personal. I know that you have a dream to become a pilot. I’d like to pay for you to go to flight school to get your private

pilot’s license. Kelly: Are you serious?

Kim: I am. I know your dreams long term may not be with Great Wolf, but you know what, I’ll take you for the amount of time that we can have you, and your influence on the lifeguards and our guests is something that I really treasure.

In this example, the CEO exhibits care as well as directness by creating a solution that will not

only benefit the organization but also the employee. Moreover, she is nurturing in a way that she

provides more rewards and expresses her desire to help his personal dream come true. In other

words, she not only praises his work skills but also his personality. She is clearly exemplifying

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both gender characteristics that help her perform leadership.

Another example is seen from Sarah Bittorf, CEO of Boston Market, who is interested in the

brand of the company being delivered properly. When she find out during her time undercover

that a promising employee named April may feel the need to change companies in order to

advance her career, she takes steps to ensure that does not happen:

Sarah: I was not happy to hear that you think you need to leave there in order to advance your career.

April: Yeah. Sarah: Well, I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure you don’t leave Boston Market.

We are always in need of good people. We need some general managers in the south Florida area. April: Wow.

Sarah: And we’re always looking for good talent. April: Awesome.

Sarah: So, if you were willing to relocate for a general manager job, we would pay all of your expenses for that.

Sarah, like Kim, is concerned with the future of her young employee. However, she

adopts a more “masculine” tone than Kim, offering simply a direct plan of action to hold onto the

employee. Unlike Kim, she seems less concerned with fulfilling the personal ambitions of the

employee and more concerned with developing a course by which the employee is more likely to

stay with the company.

Both female CEOs, display masculine and feminine characteristics throughout the shows

both highlighting the inadequacy of traditional leadership scholarship and highlighting the

analytical flexibility of adopting a more performative framework. Adopting the performance

perspective proves stereotypes wrong and shows how talk constructs gendered leadership. Based

on their interactions with their employees, the CEOs communicated in a way that they were able

to connect with people on a personal level and make decisions at the same time.

While performance adds much to the organizational literature on gender and leadership in

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corporate contexts, it reaches its limit when trying to expand its gaze beyond the actions of the

individual. The third perspective offered by Ashcraft (2004) highlights how organizations

themselves are gendered, and how that gendered talk in turn continues to engender the

organization itself.

Organizing (En)genders Leadership Discourse

The third perspective shifts the research gaze from the individual to the organizational level,

and examines the ways in which conversations become embedded in organizations as texts.

These texts, in turn, influence conversations within the organization, forming a text-conversation

dialectic that is mutually constitutive, serving to reinforce the gendered nature of the

organizations (Cooren & Fairhusrt, 2009). The organization dictates what is appropriate and

inappropriate for each gender to display in organizations. It is constantly in process and guides

interactions (Ashcraft, 2004). Looking at Dina Dwyer (who goes by the name Faith while

undercover) of the Dwyer group it is possible to see how organizations (en)gender discursive

practices not only in conversation, but in dress as well. Dina interacts with Tanna, one of the few

female technicians employed by the Dwyer group, and while she is excited at the opportunity,

Tanna makes it clear that certain traditional feminine styles are not appropriate for the

organizations:

Tanna: So, do you like your nails? Dina: I do… Tanna: Are you willing to give them up

Dina: I may have to if you think this is a job I could do. Tanna: Obviously, appliance repair people don’t wear painted fingernails. So…she’ll learn

quickly to pull her hair back and cut her nails.

As being a technician is perceived as a more masculine job, it genders the appearance of both

male and female workers, in the same episode, employees remark on Dina’s hair and her wearing

pearls on several occasions as not suited for her position. Organizational norms serve as the

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resources for making the types of decisions about what is or is not appropriate wear, which may

influence the number of female technicians employed by the Dwyer group.

Male CEOs are likewise subjected to normative standards as to what sort of leadership is

acceptable within their organizations. Mitchell Modell, the CEO of Modell Sports provides an

example of the type of leader that he believes fits with his sporting goods company. He refers to

himself as a “no-nonsense kind of guy” who sometimes needs balancing. During his time

undercover, he discovers that one of his stores has not been receiving supplies of in-demand items,

which is leading to a drop-off in sales. After contacting Dan, the district manager, Mitchell

articulates how he believes those in leadership positions should act in retail:

Mitchell: I’ve done one job so far, in the Milford store, and they were complaining that

they couldn’t get the merchandise that the store needs, and that’s totally unacceptable. Today, I’m in the Bronx at the Modell’s distribution center working with a shipping associate. The reason why it’s so important that I’m there is because as CEO it is my

responsibility when there are problems I have to be Mr. Fix-it.

It is clear that organizations produce gendered discourse; the male CEO is displaying a masculine

attitude because he feels that is his job.

Both of the examples illustrate how the third framework focuses on the organization and

the behavior that is allowed rather than the individual. They both show how leaders in

organizations both create and reify texts within organizations that reinforce gender norms that are

repeated throughout the organization.

Discussion

The three perspectives we’ve explored he help us understand how leadership is gendered

on the show, Undercover Boss. The first frame refers to how gender shapes communication,

which affects how leadership is expressed on the television show based along rigid gendered lines.

However, much of the leadership displayed in the show did not fit within this narrow conception

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of gendered leadership as an outcome based on biological sex. Therefore, while this perspective

continues to dominate much of the management literature, it does not necessarily accurately

capture the lived reality of both male and female executive officers in corporate America.

The second framework showcases how everyday talk constructs a gendered leadership. In

other words, looking at discourse as a performance, it highlights the way in which Ashcraft

(2004) sees discourse constituting gender. This performative framework provides a much more

nuanced analysis of micro-level leadership performances, whereby gender styles become

resources as opposed to normative expectations for behavior. While characteristics are still

classified as masculine or feminine, by assuming a stance of interaction practices as drawing on

resources a more useful tool for understanding how leadership might be enacted id provided.

The third framework we examined broadens analysis out to the role that the organization

itself plays in enacting and maintaining normative gender expectations. When organizational

scripts encourage a certain kind of gendered actions, both male and female executives responded

to these texts which influenced their actions and their stances towards leadership. Organizations

frame leadership behaviors, and decisions by leaders reflect these normative organizational

expectations.

Conclusion

This paper has briefly examined how Ashcraft’s (2004) framework can be utilized to

examine different aspects of gender, organization and discourse with an eye towards

understanding leadership practices within a corporate setting. By analyzing the television show

Undercover Boss, we have seen how the research gaze shifts based on the framework that is

informing the analysis. What is clear is that while the traditional framework of gender organizing

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discourse has been useful in providing a vocabulary for understanding masculine and feminine

styles of leadership, it remains too limited in its scope and explanatory leverage.

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