This is not true. The focus on specific word choice gives insight into how cognition and emotion drive perceptions. Women did not always lean in with a strong feeling-orientation language that assumed an empathetic mind-set. Instead, the language choices they used suggested a strong thinking orientation (that we often expect from leaders), which implies a logical, practical, and critical-minded approach.
Spiritual Loss
Beyond cognition and emotion, women may be spiritually shrouded in the sense of loss of self. She feels disconnected from her core, the idea of who she is wired to be in this world, and often senses a void in her being or soul. She may feel trampled, misplaced, and without an anchor.
Not every woman I spoke to about her experience of feeling silenced shared a spiritual impact. Some were atheists, others were devout in their chosen faith, and the rest nested somewhere in between. As a social scientist, I was not investigating their religious beliefs. Instead, I was interested in their level of consciousness and their way of knowing. Consciousness is a challenging topic to study. It can be as simple as being awake, or as complicated as being aware of ourselves and aware of the world. As far back as 1842, scholars have been attempting to categorize all the ways we know or the way we sense. In 1983, Wagner, who was influenced by the psychological consciousness work of all the smart minds preceding him, identified four elements of the self. The material-self is comprised of what we own. The social-self is what others notice. There is an ego-self, which is our sense of identity and sameness. Last, there is the spiritual-self—our inner being.[4]
How did each woman’s inner being change as a result of feeling silenced? Based on my interviews, at least half described some loss of inner self. In my linguistic analysis, the internal loss was not specific to losing a job, a relationship, or anything tangible. Some language examples include, “I lost contact with the heart part of me.” Or, “I found myself losing my connection to myself,” and, “There was so much of me that I lost.” Another powerful example from an executive who opted out of leadership to become a coach said, “Well, the first thing that comes to me is, I just think I kind of withdrew my personhood.” Last an African American executive working at a global engineering company said it this way:
From a spiritual standpoint, I felt like I kind of lost my way. That I didn’t have that grounding. That thing that kind of kept me steady just felt off, you know? I felt like I was less sure of what I needed to be doing and who I was.
While some named their spirit as suffering, others found solace in their spiritual practices. This, in turn, created a way for them to heal slowly. Using spiritual practices to manage and move to voice is integrated into many strategies women use to manage silencing.
Additionally, many women interviewed described their search for something to fill the void when they were silenced, and this often led to some physical ramifications that are covered in the next chapter.
In summary, the silenced are not just bullied, lacking in confidence, or behaving like victims. They may feel victimized; they may be on the receiving end of a bully’s power, and they certainly experience shifts in confidence when they are silenced. This dynamic goes beyond one encounter and one dip in certainty. When women feel consistently and egregiously silenced—they change. This change does not just impact them on a cognitive, emotional, or spiritual level. When a female leader experiences pervasive silencing, she will also experience it at a physical level.
The Body Keeps Score
I was thankful to have a recording device in each interview as it allowed me to settle into a deep sense of level three listening and the silence that connects. Kris shared stories with me that day in her home office that left me a bit shaken. “Carrie, I really tried to roll that boulder uphill.” She went on to tell me about her debilitating headaches and her ultimate decision to opt out of the organization that caused tremendous silencing. As I closed the interview, she shared with me how interested she was in learning more about the research. She felt it was a topic that many felt alone in, and the isolation needed to stop.
1.
Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance—What Women Should Know, first edition (New York: Harper Business, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2014).
2.
Dale Goldhaber, Theories of Human Development: Integrative Perspectives (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Pub., 2000).
3.
There are powerful forces in many organizations that cause widespread withholding of information about potential problems or issues by employees named as organizational silence. The base of the model is from Morrison & Milliken. Organizational silence is a collective phenomenon that includes (1) Top management team characteristics, (2) Organizational and environmental characteristics, (3) Affecting employee interaction, (4) Managerial belief, (5) Organizational structures and policies, (6) Managements’ fear of negative feedback, and (7) Demographic dissimilarity. Ghodratollah Bagheri, Reihaneh Zarei, and Mojtaba Nik Aeen, “Organizational Silence: Basic Concepts and Its Development Factors,” In Ideal Type of Management 1, no. 1 (2012): 47–58.
4.
Helmut R. Wagner, Phenomenology of Consciousness and Sociology of the Life-World: An Introductory Study (Edmonton, Alta., Canada: University of Alberta Press, 1983).
Chapter 3
Feeling Silenced Can Make You Sick!
Feeling silenced manifests into all kinds of different health issues. If I chose to stay silent, actually, I think I would have been dead. I think it would have killed me. Because I was able to find my voice, that’s actually what kept me alive, and it kept me going.
—Construction Company Chief Operating Officer
Joyce and I met at a restaurant, and it was clear within minutes of sitting down to conduct the interview, that she was someone I would love to call a friend. She had a presence about her and an ability to use silence and listen at expert levels. Joyce asked me smart questions about the research, my plans, and what I hoped to learn. She engaged with a sense of openness and curiosity that made it hard for me to believe she had ever suffered from the extreme forms of silencing she would soon disclose.
As a free thinker, Joyce was consistently rewarded for her ability to challenge systems and find new ways of approaching her work. She had a track record of success with several promotions—some included being on political cabinets. She was often the only woman in the roles she held or the only female at the table. However, when she landed at the executive table, things changed. “The understanding was once you get to a senior vice president position, reporting to the CEO, essentially I was told be a good soldier, shut up, and just follow along.”
I asked Joyce to share with me the emotional and physical impact of feeling silenced. These are her words.
It felt awful, demoralizing. I questioned my own leadership abilities, that maybe I wasn’t an effective leader. I knew I was being undermined. It affected me mentally because I started questioning everything I was doing. I’d question it too much. Health-wise it took its toll. I ended up with massive ulcers in my stomach, my esophagus, and in my intestinal tract. I probably gained sixty pounds in about four years. Then when I was on a flight, my stomach tore. I was rushed to the hospital. I lost a third of my stomach, three-fourths of my intestinal tract. My esophagus was a wreck. I ended up having everything rebuilt. There was a good chance that
