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In:Discourse, Politics and Women as Global Leaders
Edited by John Wilson and Diana Boxer
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 63] 2015
► pp. 67–90

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Chapter 3. Under fire

Pronominal use and leadership in the discourse of Helle Thorning-Schmidt

 | University of Southern Denmark
Published online: 30 October 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.63.04mil
The chapter addresses Helle Thorning-Schmidt’s performance of leadership through an analysis of her use of 1st person pronouns in two news interviews, one in Danish and the other in English. The analysis reveals a preference for the collective perspective, particularly in the Danish interview. Through strategies of shifting, blurring, aligning and contesting perspective, Thorning-Schmidt deals with issues of crisis and identity management. There are indications that she is operating with notions of transformational leadership, blended with characteristics of transactional leadership. Although a transformational leadership style is argued by some to be more feminine, I suggest that gender aspects are more apparent in relation to Thorning-Schmidt’s authenticity and legitimacy as a social democrat in the national, but not the international, context.
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