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J Bus Psychol (2010) 25:367380 DOI 10.1007/s10869-009-9140-2
Leadership 5 Communication? The Relations of Leaders Communication Styles with Leadership Styles, Knowledge Sharing and Leadership Outcomes
Reinout E. de Vries Angelique Bakker-Pieper
Wyneke Oostenveld
Published online: 4 October 2009 The Author(s) 2009. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
AbstractPurpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the relations between leaders communication styles and charismatic leadership, human-oriented leadership (leaders consideration), task-oriented leadership (leaders initiating structure), and leadership outcomes. Methodology A survey was conducted among 279 employees of a governmental organization. The following six main communication styles were operationalized: verbal aggressiveness, expressiveness, preciseness, assuredness, supportiveness, and argumentativeness. Regression analyses were employed to test three main hypotheses. Findings In line with expectations, the study showed that charismatic and human-oriented leadership are mainly communicative, while task-oriented leadership is signicantly less communicative. The communication styles were strongly and differentially related to knowledge sharing behaviors, perceived leader performance, satisfaction with the leader, and subordinates team commitment. Multiple regression analyses showed that the leadership styles mediated the relations between the communication styles and
leadership outcomes. However, leaders preciseness explained variance in perceived leader performance and satisfaction with the leader above and beyond the leadership style variables.
Implications This study offers potentially invaluable input for leadership training programs by showing the importance of leaders supportiveness, assuredness, and preciseness when communicating with subordinates. Originality/value Although one of the core elements of leadership is interpersonal communication, this study is one of the rst to use a comprehensive communication styles instrument in the study of leadership.
Keywords Communication styles Leadership
Leadership styles Charisma Consideration
Initiating structure Knowledge sharing Commitment
Satisfaction with the leader Perceived leader performance
Introduction
Several authors have noted that communication is central to leadership (Awamleh and Gardner 1999; Den Hartog and Verburg 1997; Frese et al. 2003; Kirkpatrick and Locke 1996; Riggio et al. 2003; Shamir et al. 1994; Spangler and House 1991; Towler 2003), but, except for studies devoted to oratory skills and content in highly specic speech-like contexts, few have attempted to operationalize the communication styles leaders use in their daily transactions with subordinates. Even fewer have attempted to nd out what the relations are of these communication styles with general leadership styles and outcome variables. This is somewhat...