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Women often try to use self-deprecating humour to get their colleagues on-side but it raises few laughs

Humour is a staple part of any boardroom discussion, as viewers of the BBC’s The Apprentice will know. But research reveals that, while men benefit from the use of well-judged banter, the brand of humour used by leading businesswomen often leads to awkward silences and could be undermining their careers.

The claim is made by linguistics expert Dr Judith Baxter, who undertook an 18-month study into the speech patterns of men and women at meetings in seven big companies, including two in the FTSE 100. An analysis of the 600,000 words used during 14 meetings, seven led by a woman and seven by a man, found sharp differences between the use of humour by men and women in the boardroom – and how the jokes are received. Baxter discovered that the majority of male humour (80%) in business meetings takes the form of flippant, off-the-cuff witticisms or banter. About 90% of it receives an instant, positive response, usually as laughter.

Yet most female humour during the course of a meeting is self-deprecatory (70%) and more often than not (at least 80%) is received in silence, according to Baxter. Perhaps because of the poor reception accorded to women who used humour, men were also three times more likely to use jokes to lighten the mood in meetings they were leading.

Baxter, who is due to carry out further experiments on sex differences for a programme to be aired on BBC2 in September, said she believed the culture of male-dominated boardrooms was a challenge to women. She said: “My research has shown that male managers use humour to demonstrate and display their leadership of a team. Their male subordinates will also use ‘display’ humour to impress a male boss, because it shows they are on the same wavelength. It is part of leadership ‘tribe’ behaviour which women find hard to join. When women managers use humour it can misfire. This is partly because it is less culturally acceptable for women to use humour and partly because women haven’t traditionally been part of the leadership tribe. It is not that women are less funny: they tend to use humour differently. They are more comfortable with using humour in pairs with a friend and less as a means to manage people. When they do, their humour can appear arch, contrived, defensive or occasionally, just mean.

“One type of humour women leaders do use more than men is self-deprecating humour… Women would rather laugh at themselves on the whole than laugh at others because it is the safe option.

“What should senior women do about it? They should learn to develop the running gag or light, teasing banter with male and female colleagues at appropriate moments such as the beginning and ends of meetings, passing in the corridor, or while making a cup of tea.”

Hilary Devey, one of the business leaders on the BBC programme Dragons’ Den, who made her name in the haulage industry, said she recognised some of Baxter’s findings in her own career but believed humour based around self-deprecation could be a powerful tool. “The humour that I first encountered in the haulage sector was earthy and often confrontational, but by either giving as good as I got, or indulging in self-deprecation, it actually made people take me more seriously: breaking the tension before actually getting down to the real matters in hand. I once read that the British use the word ‘sorry’ in conversation in over 30 different ways that have absolutely nothing to do with apologising, and so too with self-deprecation: all is not quite what it seems.”

Devey added: “Don’t get me wrong, some people put themselves down all the time, and this goes beyond humour – they are just racked with self-doubt and probably need to pull themselves together and stop being so needy. However, for most British people, the key weapon in their arsenal of wit is that of self-deprecation: it is unexpected, punctures pomposity, shows humanity, and can often give you the upper hand as a result.”

Lynne Parker, who organises the Funny Women awards, runs workshops for women in business to give them confidence to use humour in their working day. She said: “The qualities men are supposed to have, we cannot. We are supposed to be submissive. Women are often frightened to use humour and can come across as austere and humourless. I am not expecting women to go into boardrooms to tell one-liners but it is all about timing, knowing when it is appropriate. Good comedians are very cognisant of their environment – it is about everyday life and what is going on about them. And whether you are a man or woman you should be aware of that in the boardroom.”

Baxter, author of the study, added: “I am not saying somehow women are deficient. But culturally there are fewer role models out there for funny women too. There are a few, obviously – Ruby Wax, Sarah Millican is a new one that has popped up, and French and Saunders, for example – but if you compare that to male comedians there are hundreds more people can think of.”

On this week’s agenda: disqualification proceedings relating to the collapsed Christmas savings company, and a commodity giant’s shares flood on to the market

It’s either very early, or rather late, for a spot of panto, but the curtain goes up on Thursday on the tale of the posse accused of cancelling Christmas.

Playing the roles of the pantomime villains will be seven out of nine former board members at failed hamper business Farepak (and its parent) who are charged with being “unfit to manage a company” by Vince Cable. The business secretary, via the Insolvency Service, is looking to have them disqualified as directors.

The list of those being lined up for a public heckling is understood to include Sir Clive Thompson, former chief executive of Rentokil and chairman of Farepak’s parent, European Home Retail (EHR). Also believed to be on the cast list is Neil Gillis, once boss of Blacks Leisure and an EHR non-executive. Neither responded to requests for comment.

Still, like many Christmas stories, most feel they already know this tale pretty well. Thousands of Farepak customers, mostly on modest incomes, lost savings put into a fund for Christmas gifts when the company went bust in October 2006.

There was no happy ending for them, nor for Farepak execs Stephen Hicks and Joanne Ponting. Both have already coughed and have promised not to act as company directors.

Roll up for Glencore’s big share sell-off

It has taken a year – but next week may finally see the emergence of a few (forced) buyers of Glencore shares.

The commodity trading group floated last year at 530p and investors haven’t seen those heady heights since, with the price now testing all-time lows of just below 350p. However, Friday sees the end of the lock-in that prevents staff from selling their shares, meaning a huge rise in the free float of tradable stock theoretically available to the market (Credit Suisse estimates from 16% to more than 51%).

That in turn means that the index tracking funds mirroring the market will need to increase their holdings, which in theory should be positive news for the shares (although it doesn’t always work like that).

If you haven’t nodded off yet, you might also like to know that Glencore investors won’t be the only lot trying to buoy the price, as analysts working for the scores of banks that advised on the float loyally pushed out glowing coverage as soon as they were allowed. Citi guessed the shares would go to 570p, which looks like a cracking call when compared with the target prices set by Credit Suisse (600p), Morgan Stanley (604p) and UBS (630p). Solid work.

M&S investors wait for Marc to reveal all

By all accounts, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is a striking looking woman and you may have noticed her, as she’s appeared in the Marks & Spencer Autograph ad campaign alongside some chap called Ryan Reynolds.

Naturally she’s a designer now as well, with the Rosie for Autograph collection of luxurious silk lingerie sets, camisoles and French knickers due to hit the stores in the autumn. Yet despite all the hype about the launch (and the City being a shamelessly lecherous place) the gentlemen of the Square Mile appear unmoved.

Instead, as Marks prepares to announce its full-year results this week, all the number-crunchers can focus on is what chief executive Marc Bolland is concealing under his own kimono. The expectation is that when the Dutchman peels back the silk, the sight will not be a pretty one.

Last year the retailer announced pre-tax profits of £780m (or £714m after stripping out exceptional items) and the guidance is that Tuesday’s numbers will show sales of £9.9bn and an underwhelming profit of £694m – the first slump in three years. That will put Bolland’s bonus at risk (but not his £6m golden hello) and leaves the chances of achieving his £11.5bn sales target in two years looking skimpier than a pair of Rosie’s new knickers.

Fireworks over sparklers

Unbelievable as it may seem, General Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias Júnior – the head of Angola’s military – looks like he might benefit from one of David Cameron’s parenting classes. He’s tried to instil some discipline into two of his warring associates – Russian-Israeli businessman Arkady Gaydamak and billionaire diamond tycoon Lev Leviev – but the boys are not doing as they are told.

Gaydamak is suing Leviev after a bust-up over the pair’s diamond interests, which court documents say were set up following concerns that illicit trading had funded the Angolan civil war. It sounds like a tale from the film Blood Diamond as does news of the general’s futile dressing down – so the pair head to the high court this week to sort it all out. Well, sort of. Gaydamak will not be travelling and will give evidence via video link. “There is a slight possibility he could be arrested,” admits his spokesman, “[on] a small outstanding charge that is being appealed.”

There are four weeks to go before the Greek elections – and, it seems, even longer to wait before a German change of heart on bailing out lenders. But fearful markets, and hard-pressed electorates, may not be patient much longer

For battle weary euro politicians, four long, tough weeks lie ahead between now and the next round of Greek elections, which could see recession-hit voters restating their determination to reject the savage austerity measures that are the price of Greece’s latest €130bn (£105bn) bailout.

But over the past two years, events have repeatedly been taken out of the hands of Europe’s leaders by the markets or a furious public – and analysts warn that the crisis could spiral beyond their control even before the Greeks get the chance to go to the polls.

As another frenzied week in euroland drew to a close, Spanish banks became the latest focus of anxiety as ratings agency Moody’s downgraded 16 of them – including Santander’s UK arm – on Thursday night.

In all the eurozone’s struggling peripheral economies – Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain – governments and banks are locked together in what Sony Kapoor, of Brussels-based thinktank Re-Define, calls a “dance of death”.

The weaker each economy becomes, the more bad debts its banks are forced to declare; and the more likely it is that their governments will be forced to set aside fresh resources to recapitalise them.

At the same time, much of the banks’ capital base – their safest assets – are made up of the bonds of their home country’s government, which become shakier investments as the governments are forced to stand behind their banks.

Madrid announced last week that Spanish banks were sitting on €148bn of bad loans in March. It was also forced to deny that one bailed-out lender, Bankia, was facing a dramatic run on its deposits. Bankia’s share price at one point plunged by more than a quarter.

A bank run of the sort that helped bring down Northern Rock in the UK is one of the greatest fears facing Europe’s leaders, because once panic-stricken savers take matters into their own hands, their fears can quickly become self-fulfilling. If a “Grexit” did materialise, businesses and consumers could respond by pulling their money out of financial institutions, not just in Greece but also Spain, Italy, Portugal and even Ireland, as they contemplated the possibility that others could follow Athens out of the single currency. Megan Greene, director of European economics at Roubini Global Economics, says: “The biggest risk over the next month is from a bank run.”

There may not have been queues outside branches, but already deposits in Greek banks are down by almost a third since before the crisis, and central bank governor George Provopoulos said that withdrawals had hit €700m in a single week. “We’re seeing a ‘bank jog’ in Greece already,” Greene says.

“People have been withdrawing deposits right, left and centre,” agrees Neil Mellor of BNY Mellon.

Greene believes European politicians could assuage savers’ concerns in the coming days by declaring a Europe-wide deposit protection scheme; but that would fall foul of Germany’s opposition to offering blanket support to struggling states. “No one is going to feel very calmed by the Greek government saying ‘We’re going to backstop all your deposits,’” she says.

Danny Gabay, director of City consultancy Fathom, says what Europe faces is fundamentally a banking crisis. “It’s not who borrowed: it’s who lent,” he says. “That’s the problem. The people in their tents outside St Paul’s were not complaining about the person who borrowed six times their income; they were complaining about the banks, which should have known better.”

It was severe strains in Europe’s banks, and the risk of a full-blown credit crunch, that prompted Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, to pump €1 trillion worth of cheap loans into the financial sector late last year, though analysts immediately warned that the drastic emergency measure would merely buy time.

As the Greek elections approach, European leaders are walking a tightrope. They must try to convince Greek voters that even brutal austerity is better than the dire consequences of being chucked out of the euro, while reassuring the markets and anxious voters in other countries that they could handle a “Grexit”.

With the latest gathering of EU leaders taking place this Wednesday, the outline is already emerging of a package of pro-growth measures, centred on an expansion of lending to infrastructure projects and small to medium-sized businesses by the EU-backed European Investment Bank (EIB).

Greene says that these proposals may provide a modest boost to growth over the medium term, and allow Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s François Hollande to adopt a more united political front, but that they do not tackle the underlying problem: that Greece – and, she believes, ultimately Spain – are in an unsustainable financial position. “It’s not like Europe is in need of infrastructure,” she says.

Mellor says: “If they do something with the EIB, the market will be content to give it the benefit of the doubt; but it just buys more time.”

As the storm rages, the keepers of the euro flame have lined up to offer radical ways to rewrite the single currency’s rules to make the project more viable in the long term. Jean-Claude Trichet, who stood down as president of the European Central Bank last autumn, made a speech on Thursday night in which he argued that eurozone states should be able to declare fellow members bankrupt, and take over their tax and spending policy – an idea that the economist Nouriel Roubini rapidly dismissed as “totally undermining national sovereignty”.

The European Stability Mechanism – the €500bn rescue fund that will be able to pay out to help states in distress – comes into operation at the beginning of July, and the International Monetary Fund has also boosted its resources in readiness to come to Europe’s aid.

But ultimately, most analysts believe whatever Greece decides in a month’s time, the crisis is unlikely to be cauterised until politicians make what Mellor calls a “monumental, megalithic decision”: to allow the ECB to freely lend cash-strapped banks as much as they need to stay afloat; and to allow eurozone governments to stand behind each other, come what may.

That would mean tackling Germany’s deep-seated political opposition to offering open-ended bailouts to countries it believes have behaved irresponsibly – something that still looks highly unlikely, despite growing evidence of a change of mood in other European countries.

Meanwhile, the Bank of England and the Treasury in the UK, and hundreds of firms across Europe, will continue hurriedly drawing up contingency plans as they watch the euro “tearing itself apart,” as Sir Mervyn King put it last week.

EU trade commissioner Karel de Gucht caused a flurry of excitement in the markets on Friday by apparently admitting in an interview with Belgian newspaper De Standaard that the commission itself was working on contingency plans for Greece leaving the euro. A spokesman for commission president José-Manuel Barroso later denied it, but most experts believe it would be irresponsible for Europe’s institutions not to be preparing for the worst.

While Alexis Tsipras, the leader of Greece’s anti-austerity Syriza party, talks tough in the runup to the election, some senior EU figures seem to have begun to comfort themselves with idea that they could contain the consequences of a “Grexit”; but Gabay says the term itself gives the misleading impression that the crisis would centre on Athens.

“The Greeks already have a word for exit: it’s Exodus. And the point about Exodus was the consequences were pretty damned painful. I’m not saying there are going to be rivers of blood or 40 days in the wilderness, but it’s very dangerous to think this is just about Greece.”

Roy Greenslade and other commentators may analyse the ABCs, but maybe sales disparities boil down to the change in our pockets

Professor Roy Greenslade (like other academic commentators before him) broods over the disparity between Saturday and Sunday newspaper circulations, as revealed by new ABC sales audits. What’s so soggy about British Sunday sales? he asks, running through a gamut of changing social habits. But sometimes you don’t need rocket science at all. Sometimes simple cash chinking on shop counters counts, too. I bought the total package of Saturday nationals yesterday for £10.80. Today’s equivalent Sunday bundle will cost £2.80 more (and £3.30 the moment the new Sun stops its launch promotion). Newspapers don’t like to talk about cover prices. It’s not supposed to be a suitable topic for conversation in polite society. But that doesn’t mean that even hard-working university professors don’t need to count every penny.

Tweet nothings

Ten million Twitter users in Britain. John Prescott celebrates. But something called the Portland Communications NewsTweet index shows 80,000 fewer tweets from journalists in the first three months of this year, almost 25% down. As for Sky News, the Guardian and the Telegraph, their tweets have slumped nearly 40%. What’s gone wrong? Boredom, overwork, stress, changing fashions, the beginning of the end? Or perhaps the realisation that no contender, however dogged, can out tweet the unstoppable and clearly under-employed Baron P.