Communicative leadership

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to enhance the knowledge of how leadership concepts are embraced by leadership actors and perceived to influence relationships between leaders and co-workers. Specifically, the authors aim to investigate how leaders and co-workers discursively construct the concept of “communicative leadership” and its practices and perceive that communicative leadership influences relationships, work processes, and agency. Design/methodology/approach – The authors analyzed interviews with leaders and co-workers in two Swedish business organizations about their understandings and experiences of leadership. Findings – Communicative processes that enhance co-worker agency, defined as a capacity to act; include: facilitating autonomy, sharing responsibility, and mutual participation. Relational and discursive leadership processes such as responsiveness and dialogue were seen to enhance mutual participation in both organizations. Broader Swedish cultural macro discourses shaped the leader/co-worker relationship, making agency a relational accomplishment rather than an individual phenomenon. Research limitations/implications – This study relies on data from individual and focus group interviews, rather than direct observation of leadership processes. Practical implications – Findings suggest that organizations would benefit from making explicit their goals and expectations for communicative leadership in their respective social and cultural contexts. Originality/value – The authors provide new theoretical and empirical knowledge of leaders’ and co-workers’ discursive construction of a leadership concept; leadership communication research in the Swedish context; empirical research on communicative leadership as an empowering form of leadership communication; and how leadership communication discourse on a micro level is connected to organizational and macro-social cultural levels.

Leadership in Organizations and the PR Department Work Quality

“…The other research group relates to examining and defining the characteristics of leadership in public relations. Summarizing the results of these studies, it may be concluded that public relations require leadership with: strategic orientation (Meng & Berger, 2013;Luo & Jiang, 2014;Luo et al, 2015), human orientation and support (Gambetti & Biraghi, 2015;Martinelli & Erzikova, 2017), ethical orientation (Meng & Berger, 2013), professional competencies (Killingsworth & Flynn, 2016), and the ability to achieve quality communication (Meng & Berger, 2013;Hamrin, 2016;Hamrin et al, 2016;Gambetti & Biraghi, 2015). These references, in fact, indirectly show that transformational leadership and ethical leadership behaviour are desirable leadership styles in public relations at the level of PR departments.…”

“…Viewed from the perspective of employees, communicative leadership has significant advantages over authoritative leadership (Hamrin, 2016). Viewed from the perspective of enhancing co-worker agency, communicative leadership should include: facilitating autonomy, sharing responsibility, mutual participation, responsiveness and dialogue (Hamrin et al, 2016). Gambetti and Biraghi (2015) highlight the importance of the humanistic nature of the corporate communications officer as well as conversational leadership.…”

The roles of supervisor support, employee engagement and internal communication in performance: a social exchange perspective

“…Therefore, future research may use a longitudinal research design and research may use contemporary techniques such as neural networks and/or fuzzy sets to yield robust findings. However, a qualitative study along with a quantitative study can bring additional insight, particularly on the role of internal communication that what constitutes leader–subordinates communication and causes an increase in subordinates' engagement and other productive behaviors such as empowerment, voice (Allert and Chatterjee, 1997; Hamrin, 2016; Hamrin et al. , 2016) etc.…”

Post-heroic heroism: Embedded masculinities in media framing of Australian business leadership

“…Whilst post-heroic leadership is positioned as the antithesis of heroic leadership, in practice there is much overlap between the two conceptualizations of individual (heroic) and collaborative or shared (post-heroic) leadership, with leaders demonstrating both individualistic and shared characteristics (Crevani et al, 2007; Hamrin et al, 2016; Harding, 2014). For example, in certain situations leaders perform both heroic and post-heroic leadership or hybrid forms of leadership that draw on both sets of attributes (Arnulf et al, 2012).…”