Gendered Voice & Silencing in Leadership

Silencing in organizations can take many forms. Much of the related research in the field of leadership and management focuses on the concepts of ‘employee silence,’ or ‘organizational silence,’ terms which refer to the deliberate withholding of information by workers. The view here is that some workers hoard information pertinent to organizational effectiveness, safety or increased performance.

In this workshop, the interest is on the role of power and the silencing of diverse voices in the workplace and how this impedes women’s leadership journeys.

Our perspective draws on feminist and critical approaches to silence in organizations (Ahmed, 2016; Simpson & Lewis, 2005). Here marginalized ways of experiencing and seeing the world are devalued (Allard-Tremblay, 2019; Alvesson & Karreman, 2000; McAlpine & March, 2005; Priola et al., 2014; Wolbring, 2008).

Even worse, when those who are marginalized speak out against injustices, often they are labelled as extreme or problematic. The victim becomes the ‘problem’ for the organization (Alvesson & Karreman, 2000; Foucault, 1978; Simpson & Lewis, 2005; Wray-Bliss, 2002). When individuals experience this issue, or see others being treated in this way, they quickly learn to self-silence (Ozbilgin et al., 2022).

The danger is that existing inequities in the workplace are maintained and reinforced through the silencing of experiences, which serves to reinforce the dominant organizational discourse (Ahmed, 2021; Smith, 2001).

In this workshop, we will listen to, and learn from, the experiences of those who have been silenced, and explore how power and discourse maintain and reproduce dominant worldviews which are inherently exclusive.

For the ILA Women & Leadership member community:

• Advance visibility and knowledge about gendered voice and silencing from an intersectional perspective.
• Create a community of practice of scholars who are committed to research within the topic. 

For workshop participants: 

• Explore own area/level of interest within this topic
• Find at least one writing partner