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MAY 2001
FEATURE Understanding The Differences Between How Women And Men Communicate In the third issue of the Journal (January 2001), I wrote about the skills involved in communicating with clarity, and how such skills help you in numerous situations – in your day-to-day relationships with and coaching of your athletes and in your work relationships with staff, assistant coaches, and your national sport federation (NSF). Among the skills are understanding non-verbal communication; listening well; speaking clearly and concisely; giving and receiving feedback and criticism; choosing the right words; and resolving conflict effectively. Continuing the theme of communication in this article, I examine some of the current research and thinking on the differing ways women and men communicate and look at how knowledge and an understanding of potential differences can help you significantly in becoming a more effective coach. I place the research within the context of what women coaches and athletes have to say about working with each other. The focus is on speaking (what gets said and how it is said) and on listening (what gets heard and why). An important note. Although I am writing about the differences between how women and men communicate, it is not my purpose to conclude that "this is how men are and this is how women are" in their communication styles, or to suggest that life and relationships would be a whole lot simpler if it was that cut and dried. My purpose is to help you be a more effective coach. Developing a better understanding of differing conversational styles and critically reflecting on how you, as a woman and as a coach, speak and listen will help you be more effective coaching both female and male athletes and interacting with female and male colleagues. I hope that just as male coaches work with both female and male athletes, women coaches will not focus exclusively on female athletes. There are many examples of very good women coaches who have successfully coached male athletes, and you will hear from some of them. As you read this article, keep in mind your own experiences and note how some of these ideas might "fit" for you in your coaching world. In her book You Just Don’t Understand, Women and Men in Conversation, and in an article in Harvard Business Review entitled "The Power Of Talk: Who Gets Heard and Why," Deborah Tannen writes about the influence of linguistic styles on conversations and relationships, particularly in terms of the differences in women’s and men’s communication. What exactly does Tannen mean by linguistic style? Everything each of us says, whether we are female or male, is said in a certain way, in a certain tone of voice, at a certain speed, with a certain choice of words, with directness or indirectness, with a certain degree of quietness or loudness. Each of us has a certain speaking pattern, and Tannen argues that there are fundamental differences between women and men in how those patterns look and sound. "In other words, linguistic style is a set of culturally learned signals by which we not only communicate what we mean but also interpret others’ meaning and evaluate one another as people." Tannen says that language communicates ideas and, at the same time, negotiates relationships. So how is that relevant for you as a coach? When you speak with your athletes and colleagues, you are conveying information and knowledge. Simultaneously, a more subtle form of communication is going on. As you communicate, you are, in fact, building relationships between you and your athletes and colleagues. What factors affect this building of effective and productive relationships or, in some circumstances, non-effective, non-productive relationships? Research has shown that the patterns that make up how men and women speak are not the same. According to Tannen, we learn ways of speaking as children, especially from peers, and children tend to play with other children of the same gender. She states that research on North American children has shown that girls tend to play in small groups or with a single friend, spend a lot of time talking, and tend to downplay ways one girl is better than another. Boys tend to play in larger groups. Some are expected to become the leaders and emphasize how they are better. Boys learn to use words to negotiate their status by displaying their abilities and knowledge. In essence, Tannen argues that boys, growing into young men, use talk to emphasize status and girls, growing into young women, use talk to create connections. (As Tannen notes, and I emphasize, not all boys and girls grow up in this way, but it tends to be the way we learn our conversational styles.) Women are also inclined to downplay rather than display their expertise. A study by Helena Leet-Pellegrini that looked at gender and expertise, set up pairs of women, pairs of men, and mixed pairs, with one in each pair set up as the "expert." She found that, on average, the individual with expertise talked more, but men experts talked more than women experts. She also found that the women did not use their expertise as power, but rather tried to downplay it. The men in this study, whether declared as experts or not, were much more inclined to attempt to dominate the situation, challenge the other individual, and fight for control and status. |
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MAY
2001 Understanding
The Differences Between How Women And Men Communicate Download
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2001 Coaching Association of Canada, Coaching
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