Both style and communication intertwine tightly
around the effectiveness of leaders.
Reinout de Vries and Angelique Bakker-Pieper conducted research on 279
employees in government agencies to understand the communication styles on
human-oriented and leadership outcomes
(2010). They used the six main communication styles of verbal aggressiveness,
expressiveness, preciseness and assuredness, supportiveness and
argumentativeness.
Leadership communication style bases its
effectiveness on the need to maximize hierarchical relationships to reach goals
(Daft, 2003). Communication has a purpose and is goal oriented. Communication
seeks to enhance and influence the environment in one form or another. The
ultimate goal is often dependent on the leader who seeks either collective or
self-gain.
Communication is about knowledge sharing. It is a
process where individuals exchange tacit and explicit information to create new
knowledge (Van den Hoof and De Ridder, 2004). Communication helps participants
bring forward new information and connect them together in ways that have more
meaning for them. The more someone communicates with others the more they
understand both the issues at hand and the potential solutions.
Charismatic and human-oriented leadership correlated
with perceived leadership performance, satisfaction with that leader, and employee’s
commitment. Likewise, Leadership supportiveness had a strong correlation with
knowledge sharing. Both styles were stronger than correlations with
task-oriented leadership.
The authors contend that leadership supportiveness
appears to be the strongest communication approach and has positive associations
with leadership styles and outcome. This
find makes sense if we consider that leadership is about influence and drawing
people in through supportive, humanistic, and knowledge sharing behaviors that helps
others solve their own problems and sets higher expectations. Leaders who excessively focus on tasks may be
less successful if their subordinates do not understand the greater purpose of
the tasks, do not feel connected to it, and do not know how to achieve it.
De Vries & Bakker-Pieper, W. (2010).
Leadership=communication? The relations of leaders’ communication styles with
leadership styles, knowledge sharing and leadership outcomes. Journal of
Business & Psychology, 25 (3).
Daft, R. (2003). Management (6th Edition). Cincinnati, Oh: South-West.
Van den Hoof & Hendrix, (2004). Eagerness and willingness to hare:
the relevance of different attitudes towards knowledge sharing. Paper presented at the Fifth European Conference on Organizational
Knowledge, Learning and Capabilities: Innsbruck, Australia.
