The Problem
A simple cause and effect phenomenon in Dublin City University (DCU), presents an annual puzzle. The student population is 41% male and 59% female, however the Student Union is represented yearly by an 80% male stewardship. Except for an anomaly in 2005/2006, in which the trend was reversed to reflect an 80% female lead. Among all the leadership competitions, only one programme (Business Faculty) holds a 50-50 gender balance among its successful participants.
The question of gender has been widely debated in the leadership field, with scholars such as McKinsey (2009), Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt and van Engen, (2003) arguing that women are less hierarchical, more cooperative, collaborative and transformational while men are viewed as transactional, directive and autocratic (Eagly & Johnson, 1990). However, gender quota arguments on diversity and gender balancing perspectives (Reed Smith 2013) have not adequately considered converse outcomes such as a ‘depression of political ambition’ among candidates (Davidson-Schmich, 2008).
If the preferred outcome of elections are to be perfectly gender balanced, as researchers we would be will advised to determine opinion among emergent leaders in a university campus. Student leaders compliment faculty and serve as the mouthpiece in the promotion of a cordial campus community. This ‘gender mouthpiece’ will be tested for differing parts of speech to include involved (pronouns) and informative (nouns) words.
Leadership
Carl G. Jung’s concept of personality types greatly influenced leadership discussions. He proposed two fundamental types of personalities, which he called: introvert and extrovert. In addition, Floyd Henry Allport holds that human personality is composed of various traits which he groups into five classes: intelligence, motility, temperament, self-expression, and sociality (Bass 1981). Over the centuries, femininity has been stereotyped as dependent, submissive and conforming, and hence women have been seen as lacking in leadership qualities.
"The male bias is reflected in the false conception of leadership as mere command or control. As leadership comes properly to be seen as a process of leaders engaging and mobilizing the human needs of followers, women will be more readily recognized as leaders and men will change their own leadership styles" (Burns, 1978:50).
Burns (1978) argues that male leaders will become more transformational in practice to mirror female styles of leadership. In contrast, Bass (1981) suggests that leadership can simultaneously display both transformational and transactional leadership traits. If this is the case, do male and female leaders exhibit both transactional and transformational traits equally? If not, how does each gender differ? Can we confirm or disconfirm the stereotype that men use ‘I’ more than women do? Research on gender speech parts point towards Biber’s (1998) work that females use ‘involved’ words more and less ‘informative’ words while Pennebaker and Stone (2003) reveal males use more function words with females using more emotive words (Mehl and Pennebaker 2003).
Astin’s Input-Environment-Output model (1975) is the theoretical concept for transactional and transformational leadership. The study places particular emphasis on Astin’s involvement theory (1993), defined as students’ physical interaction and mental engagements combine to form the phenomenon of leadership involvement. Astin also proposes key active verb terms and pronouns as a measurement for involvement. These active verb terms and pronouns will be identified or eliminated among the research participants’ (clues) speech patterns (mouthpiece).
