In a truly diverse workplace that “embraces” inclusion, are we actually communicating effectively with our diverse audiences?
This week I attended the Washington DC Student Veterans of America (SVA) Summit because I recently joined (was hired by) the Georgetown University Veterans Office team as the graduate assistant. While I don’t play a leadership role in the Georgetown University Student Veteran’s Association (GUSVA), I want to be cognizant of the needs of other student veterans and service-connected students in order to better do my job. In the Veterans Office, we serve as a resource for prospective service-connected students who need help navigating the academic landscape as well as their VA education benefits. Additionally, we guide those students to various veteran-tailored resources (such as mental health, professional development, etc) on campus.
Within the veteran community, and especially in veteran spaces, I want to advocate for better diversity and inclusion (D and I) practices. Simply creating a “veteran space” and expecting veterans to come is ineffective at reaching all veterans even if the veteran space is accepting of all identities. While at the SVA summit, I spoke with a few participants about being accepting of all genders, all sexualities, and all individuals. However, the delivery of their message often conflicted with the actual message.
Judith Baxter (2010) identified a similar phenomenon in her data when she interviewed male CEOs from what she calls “gender-multiple corporations”. These corporations demonstrate a fluidity in gender roles as “boundaries between ‘male’ and ‘female’, ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ have thus become more permeable” (p. 77) When the CEOs were asked to provide narratives (in an interview), the CEOs acknowledged the need for a relationally-oriented communicative/leadership style. However, they “were often quite unaware that they offered more traditionally masculine speaker identities in their narratives” (p. 92).
While speaking with one of the SVA participants about his leadership style at work, he said (paraphrased), “I don’t care if you’re a man, a woman, gay or lesbian, or transgender, as long as you do your job. If I have a problem with you, I am not going to dance around. I’m going to be direct and tell you”. Similar to Baxter’s observations, this participant demonstrated a “traditionally masculine speaker identity” characterized by assertiveness, directness, and confrontation. While I don’t question the veracity of his acceptance of diverse individuals – I think he could benefit from understanding his communicative behavior could possibly undermine his intentions.
Additionally, a reality of the “veteran identity” is that many people who had a tough time during their service may not want to identify as a veteran because it conflicts with their various other identities (gender, sexuality, etc). When I served during DADT, my military identity conflicted with my identity as a gay man. For women in the service, sometimes putting on the uniform is the only way to identify them as a service-member which conflicts with being “on duty 24/7”. So, if we want to create a truly inclusive environment of different diversities, we should be cognizant (linguistically aware) of our communicative behaviors and ensure they align with the desired audiences expectations.
Baxter, Judith. (2010). The language of female leadership. New York, NY: Palgrave McMillan.
