GENDER DIFFERENCES in Communication ep 141

In early 2021, Yashiro Mori, president of the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee, was asked about why there were so few women on the committee. His response, his formal, on-the-record response to committee members and to reporters was, and I quote, Board of Directors meetings with many women take a lot of time. When you increase the number of female executive members, if their speaking time isn't restricted to a certain extent, they have difficulty finishing, which is annoying. My response to Mori's 38 words is just three words. Do. The. Research. And that is exactly what we're going to do here. Let's do this. Let's talk about talk. Greetings and welcome to Talk About Talk, episode number 141, gender differences in communication. In this episode, you're going to learn about the stereotypes we have about how men communicate and about how women communicate. And of course, I'm going to take you through what the research says. Was Yashiro Mori right? Do women talk too much? Well, let's just say that he ended up apologizing a few times before he finally resigned. First though, let me introduce myself in case we haven't met. My name is Dr. Andrea Voynitsky and I'm your executive communication coach. Please just call me Andrea. I'm the founder of Talk About Talk, where I coach communication skills to ambitious executives through one-on-one coaching, bootcamps, workshops, and keynotes. My objective is to help you improve your communication, your confidence, and your clarity so that you get noticed for the right reasons and ultimately get promoted. That's my goal here. I want to help you accelerate your career trajectory. If you go to the TalkAboutTalk.com website, you'll find many resources to help you out. There's information there about one-on-one and group coaching, online courses, corporate workshops, the archive of this bi-weekly podcast, and I really hope you'll sign up for the Talk About Talk newsletter. That newsletter is your chance to get communication coaching from me every week. I choose a communication topic and then I coach you on three things related to that topic. Okay, on to our topic at hand here today. Gender differences in communication. This is going to be a lot of fun and I promise you'll learn a lot, but you do not need to take notes because I do that for you. I'm going to summarize the important takeaways for us at the end, and you can always read the transcript on the TalkAboutTalk.com website. There's also an extensive list of the academic research that I used for this episode there in the show notes. So, just keep doing whatever you're doing, walking or driving, or maybe you're sitting on the couch. I got you covered. Okay, so I have to say that people ask me all the time about this topic. Gender differences in communication is a popular search topic on the TalkAboutTalk.com website too. People enter the question, what are gender differences in communication? I should start though by reminding you about this. Sex is biological and gender is learned. In other words, while there are innate physiological differences that it may explain some of the differences between the sexes, we should also keep in mind that socialization, culture, and learned behaviors account for significant differences. And, of course, the differences identified in these research studies are averages for a group and do not apply to every individual. Of course. It's essential to remind ourselves to treat each person as an individual rather than making assumptions solely based on gender. That all said, gender differences certainly exist. You've probably heard things like, men are direct, women are emotional. Just yesterday, I had this conversation with a friend. We were talking about this podcast and I was telling him that I was about to record an episode on gender differences in communication. And I asked him what his observations were, what his personal observations were in terms of how men talk versus how women talk. And do you know what he said? He said this. He said, men are generally more direct. But Andrea, you're direct. I had to laugh about that. I told him, yeah, I agree. Generally, men tend to be more direct than women. And also, I agree, I am probably more direct than the average woman. There is no passive aggressive here. I say it like it is. Indeed. Anyway, so you may have heard the stereotype that men are direct and that women are emotional. You may have also heard that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Are men and women really from different planets? No, of course not. However, men and women often do have different communication styles. So I scoured the academic research and I came up with seven meaningful ways that men and women's communication styles may differ. Now, I know seven is a lot. I agree. If you've been listening to the Talk About Talk podcast, you probably know that I'm a big fan of the power of three. But when I combed through the research, the insights were more easily categorized in terms of these seven things. So we're going to go with lucky number seven. Let me tell you what they are right now. And then I'm going to get into detail and tell you what the research says about each of these seven elements of communication. Are you ready? Okay. First, it's how much we talk. Then our communication mindsets. Third is our words or vocabulary. Then our voices, our listening skills, our nonverbal communication, and our confidence. Now then, let's get into this and see what the research says. The first communication element is how much we talk. Yes, out of the gates. Let's see if that notorious Japanese Olympic official was on to something. Remember what he said. He said that if women's speaking time isn't restricted to a certain extent, they have difficulty finishing, which is annoying. Well, let me tell you this, Mr. Mori. Based on my comprehensive analysis of research focused on gender differences and communication volume, it seems that if anything, the opposite might be true. While there is a perception, a common perception, that women and girls talk more, be it in the classroom or in business and professional settings, this perception is incorrect. You can imagine how this research was done, right? They would count the words or they would measure the time that women took to talk versus men talking in various contexts. It's pretty simple research to conduct, actually, but it's important research so that we can dispel the incorrect messages like what Mr. Mori is pontificating. By the way, all of the research papers that I referenced for this episode are included in the show notes. You can find the show notes in your podcast app or on the Talk About Talk website. Before we move on to the second communication element, I just want to add one more point about the research on how much we talk. I found a paper called Physician Gender Effects in Medical Communication, a meta-analytic review. This paper concludes that female doctors spend on average two minutes longer talking to their patients. So in other words, your female physician may talk more, but only because she's spending more time with you than a male physician would. Open wide and say ah. All right, let's move on to communication mindsets. The research on this is quite definitive. Women are more focused on relationships and emotions, while men are more direct and focused on information sharing. Even starting at a young age, multiple sources demonstrate that women use communication as a tool to enhance social connections and to create relationships. Men, on the other hand, use language to command dominance, power, and to achieve tangible outcomes. In a 2009 study of over 400 participants, researchers concluded significant differences in how men and women perceive the benefit of work relationships. Men focus on relationships at work as a means to get the job done. On the other hand, women value relationships at work in terms of social and emotional support. For women, work friendships are a key driver of job satisfaction. So in other words, men tend to be task-oriented, while women are relationship-oriented. Men may engage in rapport talk, while women gravitate to rapport talk. A helpful way to think about this is that men tend to be friendly, while women are friends. And I have to say thanks to my friend Mary for this one. Let me say that again. Men are friendly. Women are friends. Now this plays out differently, of course, depending on the communication context. One research paper that I read concluded that in conflict situations, women may approach resolution by seeking compromise and emphasizing collaboration. They often prioritize maintaining relationships, and they may use indirect language to express disagreement. Men, on the other hand, are more direct in addressing conflicts, and they may focus on finding solutions quickly, sometimes at the expense of discussing emotional aspects. In another paper that I read that focused on topics of conversation, concluded that women tend to engage in conversations that revolve around relationships, emotions, and personal experiences. Men may gravitate towards discussions related to factual information, activities, and external events. Wow. Speaking of topics of conversation, let's move on to the third element of communication. So, so far we've covered how much we talk and our mindsets. Point number three is our words. There are a few things here. Research suggests that women tend to use more expressive and elaborative verbal communication. Men, on the other hand, may prioritize content and use more direct or concise language. You could say that women's words could be more flowery, while men's words are more black and white. Linguistic research has found that women may use more qualifiers and hedges. Words like maybe, I think, and sort of. These words soften their statements and make them more polite. I've read a lot of papers about this, and you may have come across this yourself. Ladies, we need to stop with these qualifiers. No more maybe, I think, or sort of. And certainly, no more seeking permission to speak. Do you mind if I interject here? And apologies. I'm sorry, but I have one suggestion. Why are we apologizing? Then there's the way some women may employ more tag questions or phrases that turn the statement into a question, like it's a nice day, isn't it? This is seeking validation and agreement. There's no need for it. Men, on the other hand, tend to use more assertive and direct language. One other point here in terms of our words and women seeking validation. I learned this one from Judith Humphrey, a communication coach and an author. She highlights how women tend to talk more about their hard work, while men just get the work done. They lead and they delegate. It's almost like women need to describe their work. Again, seeking validation. Of course, there are many reasons for this in terms of our culture and social norms and, of course, sexism. But it's interesting. Once you've read some of this research and you learn what these tendencies are, you seem to see examples of this everywhere. All right, let's move on to number four, our voices. Our voices vary across several vocal elements, including rate, volume, articulation, pronunciation, fluency, and pitch. Understanding and incorporating variety in all of these elements helps with our verbal communication. In other words, if you can speak fast and slow, loudly and softly, it'll end up being more engaging. And this goes for both men and for women. The pitch of men's voices is typically almost one octave deeper than women's due to their higher testosterone level, the hormone that elongates the vocal cords during puberty. But we all knew this, right? Women are more likely to use upspeak. This is when you make a statement, but with an inflection at the end, so it comes across as a question. I've noticed upspeak with plenty of women I've noticed over the years. Once they learn about upspeak and hear themselves, it's relatively easy to fix. They do not want to appear as if they're implicitly seeking validation. Back to the pitch of our voices though. There's plenty of research that highlights the benefits of men's deep voices. Not surprisingly, women find men with deeper voices more attractive than those with higher pitched voices. According to one academic study, male CEOs with deeper voices are more successful than their higher pitched peers across several measures. They tend to manage larger companies, they make $187,000 a year more, and they last in their jobs an average of five years longer. A 2015 study concluded that the US presidential candidate with the deeper voice won in every single election since Calvin Coolidge. And you may have heard that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher took voice lessons to deepen her voice prior to an election. And guess what? She then won. All right, we're rounding the corner here. We've covered how much we talk, we've covered communication mindsets, we've covered our words, we've covered our voices. Now, it's listening. Here's the thing. The anatomy of our ears is identical, yet somehow our listening is not. In other words, it's not our hearing that's different, but rather, it's how we listen. It's what engages us. The signals that men focus on might be different from the signals that women focus on. Research reveals that women may tend to use more verbal cues like facial expressions, gestures, and body language to convey meaning, while men may rely on more verbal cues. This sounds similar to what I was just saying in terms of mindsets. Men are direct. Women, on the other hand, may consider nuance. There's another point here that's related to listening that I just want to share, and this is from my interview again with Judith Humphrey. Judith notes that women typically don't assume people will listen. Put another way, women assume that people aren't listening to them. This may also explain why women use qualifiers to get a word in. But I wonder, if we shift our assumptions to be that people are listening, then I wonder if they will. And if this applies to you, I challenge you to try to shift your mindset. People are listening. Got it? And yes, I have a big smile on my face as I'm saying this into the microphone, and I really hope you're listening. One more thing related to listening, and it's about interrupting. I did a whole episode on interrupting recently. This is a fascinating topic that's obviously related to listening. It's episode number 128. I encourage you to listen. I shared lots of research in that episode, much of which was conducted by Professor Sally Farley at the University of Baltimore. So if you're encouraged, please check that out. But let me share with you now three of the most relevant and important things from that episode. Number one, men interrupt more than women. Got it? Okay. Number two, who's allowed to interrupt has a lot to do with who has the relative status. And number three, this is where it gets good. If someone of higher status interrupts you, let it go. Everyone expects it, and no one will think less of you for letting it go. But if it's a more junior person or perhaps your competitive peer that's interrupting you, that is when you need to stand your ground. Does that make sense? I have to tell you, this reminds me of the verbal sparring focused on interrupting that we all witnessed in the 2020 vice presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence. If you don't mind letting me finish, we can then have a conversation. Do you remember that? Well, that leads me to turn-taking and tracking the ratio. If you've been listening to this Talk About Talk podcast for a while, you've likely heard me encouraging you to track the ratio, as in track the proportion of the conversation when you're talking versus others are talking. And if you're a leader, making space for everyone in the room to speak up. It's about tracking the ratio of airtime, and it's about turn-taking. When I was doing the research for this episode on gender differences in communication, this term, turn-taking, kept coming up in several papers. Generally speaking, the research shows that men tend to interrupt more frequently in conversations, often to assert dominance or take control of the discussion. Women, on the other hand, may prioritize turn-taking and show more awareness of each other's speaking time, contributing to a more cooperative conversation dynamic. In other words, women may be more likely to track the ratio. Interesting, right? But I have to say this, in my experience coaching senior executives, I have not noticed this. The senior executives that I coach, the men and the women, are all focused on tracking the ratio. But I also recognize that there is a self-selection bias here. I'm coaching folks who are literally investing in their communication skills, so they may be aware of things like tracking the ratio. So anyway, there's a lot going on here in terms of gender differences with listening in particular. I started here by mentioning the research that concluded that when men listen, they are more focused on direct verbal cues, while women tend to rely more on non-verbal cues like facial expressions, gestures, and body language. The sixth of our seven communication elements that we're focusing on here includes these non-verbal cues, including facial expressions, gestures, and body language. The upshot with this point is this. Men and women act differently. Research shows significant differences between men's and women's non-verbal communication. Not surprising. Generally, men display more power and status-oriented body language, while women display more warm body language. Various research studies show that men's non-verbal communication is more assertive and power-hungry. Men show more dominant behaviors such as side-to-side head shaking and expressions of anger and disgust, and they may be more expansive, as in man-spreading. You know, that guy who sits with his legs spread apart who takes as much space up as he possibly can. On the other hand, you might not be surprised to learn that research indicates women may be expressive, tentative, and polite in conversation. They display more affiliative body movement such as smiling and open body postures. Not open as in man-spreading, open as in vulnerable. Women may also be more likely to touch their face and their hair. You've probably heard that this is perceived as flirting. It can also signal anxiety and stress. Either way, ladies, keep your hands off your face. All right, so that's non-verbal communication. We're ready to move on to the last, the seventh of seven communication elements. So far, we've covered how much we talk, our communication mindsets, our words, our voices, our listening skills, and our non-verbal communication. The last communication element is confidence. You've probably heard and read a lot about imposter syndrome, but do you know the origin of the term? Well, let me tell you. In 1978, psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes studied high-achieving women. They were interested to learn what makes them tick and what differentiates them versus other women. They were surprised to learn that almost a hundred percent of these high-achieving women described what Clance and Imes called imposter phenomenon, and thus the term was born. Ever since then, people have been diagnosing imposter syndrome as in doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud in themselves and particularly in women. Recently though, and this is really important, the imposter syndrome discourse has shifted in at least three ways. So first, it turns out that everyone suffers from imposter syndrome. Yes, both men and women. Secondly, we should be focusing less on improving people's confidence and more on changing toxic work environments. Yes. And the third point, confidence does not equal competence. Overconfidence or arrogance is inversely correlated with leadership success. In other words, humility can be a strength. This should be great news for all of us. I could go on and on here with all sorts of advice for you on how to communicate with confidence and credibility. But today, right now, we're focusing on gender differences. There's one other point here that I want to share. There's another commonly known phenomenon that illustrates the difference between men's and women's confidence that I want to share, and it's with job applications. Apparently, men are more likely to apply for a job or to seek a promotion when they fulfill one of the many job criteria. Women, on the other hand, will wait until they fulfill all of the criteria. Wow. That says a lot, doesn't it? It also might explain a lot in terms of the proportion of women in senior executive positions. All right, we are through the list of seven ways that women's and men's communication may differ. There's how much we talk. It turns out there is no significant difference. There's our communication mindsets. Remember, women are more focused on relationships and emotions, while men are more direct and focused on tasks and information sharing. Third are words. Women are more likely to be expressive and to use qualifiers and hedges, while men, again, are more direct. Fourth are voices. Women are more likely to speak softly and possibly to employ up-speak, while men's voice are deeper, and deeper voices are associated with credibility. Our listening skills is number five. Our ears are the same, and we hear the same things, but we listen differently. We focus on different things. Men listen to the words, and women also listen for nuance in terms of non-verbal communication. And that's point number six, our non-verbal communication. There are big differences here. Women are more expressive, tentative, and polite, while men are more assertive and expansive. And last, number seven, our confidence. While recent research shows that most of us, not just women, suffer from imposter syndrome, at the same time, it seems that men demonstrate higher levels of self-confidence. So, the question is, who's the better communicator? No, no, no. I am not going to answer that question. But I will say this. While I was combing through the research, it occurred to me that these differences in communication styles may also explain why diverse groups are more high-performing. When men and women, and all sorts of different people, work together as a team, they can benefit from their diverse communication styles. So, I'm curious. I have a question for you. As you were listening to me run through all this research, did you consider whether your own personal communication style is consistent with the patterns found in this research? We have a lot to learn from each other, don't we? Men can learn from how women tend to communicate, and women can learn from men. So, for example, women might focus more on leading and more on being direct. Sometimes, but not always, of course, being direct is ideal. On the other hand, women could also focus on not apologizing and not minimizing their comments, and certainly not seeking permission to speak. And men might focus more on nuance. At this point, it's safe to say we have a much more thorough response for Mr. Yoshiri Mori, the Japanese Olympic official. Let me remind you, Mr. Mori stated that when women's speaking time isn't restricted to a certain extent, they have difficulty finishing, which is annoying. Well, Mr. Mori, let me tell you what the research says. Academic research indicates that women do not talk more, unless, of course, you're referencing your medical doctor. Female doctors do spend more time talking with their patients. Women are also more likely to be tracking that ratio of how much people are talking. They're more focused on taking turns in conversation. Perhaps, Mr. Mori, you might try to do the same. And that is a great place to end this episode. If you ever have any questions or suggestions for me, I love hearing from you. Yes, even you, Mr. Mori. There are multiple ways that you can connect with me. Everything is on the TalkAboutTalk.com website, so that's probably the best place to start. From there, you can send me a message, you can connect with me on LinkedIn, you can even leave me an audio recording. Like I said, I love to hear from you, so bring it on. And if you enjoyed this podcast episode, I hope you'll share it with your friends and leave me a review on whatever podcast app you're using, and especially if you're on YouTube. It really makes a difference, and I appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening, and talk soon.