In the age of multiple equity movements, it is critical to explore an unspoken nuance—the silencing of women leaders. Carrie Lynn Arnold calls attention to the history and complex dynamics that can suppress a leader’s voice while offering solutions for change. Women are taught to speak up, develop confidence, leverage their strengths, polish their interpersonal skills, widen their competencies, and fight to sit at the table. But once they make it to that executive chair, they rarely examine the unspoken dynamics that impact their success. The silencing of female voices is an all too common epidemic, preventing women from harnessing their full capabilities and leading with maximum potential. This phenomenon of isolating women by subduing their voices is a decades-old tradition. It can be impossible to avoid encounters, organizational cultures, and even feelings of self-suppression that all foster silencing. It is no longer about questioning competency or confidence. It is about understanding the complex factors and biases that are deeply embedded in relationships between men and women, amongst women, and within the dynamics of systems and the self that allows for this trend to continue despite growing successes in equity.Carrie Lynn Arnold examines silencing, which is essential to name and recognize, as a pre-requisite to effective leadership. By understanding where we have been before, we may fully appreciate and call attention to where we need to go. Regardless of your gender or whether you are an emerging leader or a CEO of a large corporation, the silencing virus is capable of infecting everyone. Silenced and Sidelined explores what it means to feel suppressed, giving words to the experience so that leaders can begin different types of conversations about voice and leadership. There are no shortcuts or simple, easy steps; this call to leadership is a call for courage. It requires the ability to communicate with a voice that carries currency—one, people will not just hear, but follow. Given the complexity of our world and the challenges society faces, we can no longer afford leaders with silenced voices.
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D Lynn D Arnold. Silenced and Sidelined
Introduction
How Silence Is a Hiatus or a Scream
A Summary of Silence
Distinctions in Silence
Breaking Silence
The Silenced
Who Is She?
Not a Victim Mindset
Bullying
Confidence
Her Profile
Fight Club
Isolation and Death
Give a Little Bit of Heart and Soul
The Silencers
Cognitive Compromise
Emotional Distress
Spiritual Loss
The Body Keeps Score
Feeling Silenced Can Make You Sick!
The Silencing Virus Causes Physical Pain
The Silencing Virus Causes Psychological Pain
Relationships that Silence
Worthiness
Queen Bee Syndrome
Amplification
Men Who Silence
Systems that Silence
Socially Constructed Systems
Construct Examples
In-Group and Out-Group Behavior
Failures
When Women Silence Themselves
History
My Research
How Women Self-Silence
Externalized Self-Perception
Care as Self-Sacrifice
Inhibit and Divide
Consciousness
How Voice Is a Screech or a Sanctification
Speech Acts
Illocutionary Speech Acts
Passive Speech Acts
Action-Oriented Speech Acts
The Sanctity of Seven
Perlocutionary Speech Acts
Head Heart Gut
Dominant Discourse
Dominant Discourse
Authenticity
Authentic Leadership
The Preference Pivot
A Voice with Currency
The Journey to Voice Recovery
A Typology
Innovative Pioneers
Resolute Propellers
Voice Reinventors
Resilient Aspirants
Voice Efficacy
Caring for Self
The Kitchen Table
Self-Regard
Tears
Overplayed Boundaries
Create Boundaries
The Important Role Men Play
Men Need to Understand the Significance
Men—Please Know Our Statistics
Please See the Big Picture
Redefining What it Means to Be a Male Ally
Specific Things Men Can Do
Men Who Feel Silenced
Refusing to Become a Silencer
A Virus Loves Interdependency
The Silenced Become Silencers
Trailblazing Hurts
Adult Development and Voice Digression
Women Are More Effective at Leading
Women Creating a New Normal with Voice and Silence
The Appeal of Coaching and Consulting
Model of Voice Currency
Make No Assumptions
A Final Call to Action
Acknowledgments
Appendix
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
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When I began my PhD program, I got feedback that I was a good writer, but that I was too colloquial. What an odd thing to say! I had to Google colloquial. It means informal, which begs the question of why not just say, “Carrie, be formal!” In general, academia is full of intellectuals who I am reasonably sure are reincarnated medieval torture coordinators. They poke, redline, disassemble, tweak, toss, disparage, disagree (with you and each other), and they force multiple rewrites. There is a particular way to structure, argue, read, analyze, critique, and write.
When I was putting together my book submission, my literary coach told me not to write like an academic—in other words, don’t be formal—facepalm! She also said, use your own voice, Carrie. And, so, I will, and thus, I do! I am a blend of informal and formal—I love language and stringing together words to form a meaningful sentence, but sometimes I just need to cuss out the phrase. It is with my voice that I introduce you to many characters and stories. Names and companies are changed to honor the confidentiality of the women who participated in this research but make no mistake; their experiences are real.
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The problem is when leaders are not able to shift out of level one listening and consider what the other is saying. I would argue that leaders need to live primarily at level two listening—listen to understand and then with intention, shift to listening level one or three based on the conditions, people, and context of the situation.
However, when it comes to silence—staying too long in the silence that separates, or the silence that confuses, is dangerous. Ostracizing, giving the silent treatment, or avoiding are poor leadership moves if used with regularity. Although I would argue that when a leader uses them sparingly with good intention, they can be powerful.
