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This study explores interactions on internal social media (ISM) in a Danish bank in order to understand how communicative leadership is enacted in social media dialogues within an organizational context. Three months of posts, comments and likes from September to November 2018 were analyzed to identify communicative leadership roles and communicative leadership behaviours. Three types of communicative leadership arose in this study: formal communicative leadership, coconstructed communicative leadership and peer communicative leadership. Communicative leadership was further identified in communicative acts such as setting directions, making sense, solving problems and listening. The findings suggest that communicative leadership is coconstructed in interactions between managers and employees as well as in interactions among employees. In this respect, communicative leadership on ISM is not only enacted by formal managers but aslo by knowledgeable individual organizational members and it is also coconstructed by groups of employees. In this respect, the findings help us understand leadership as a complex set of interactions in organizational contexts and know that empowering communication on ISM can therefore enhance employee engagement.

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.

The authors analyzed interviews with leaders and co-workers in two Swedish business organizations about their understandings and experiences of leadership.

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.

This study relies on data from individual and focus group interviews, rather than direct observation of leadership processes.

Findings suggest that organizations would benefit from making explicit their goals and expectations for communicative leadership in their respective social and cultural contexts.

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.

This purpose of this paper is to explore the discursive constructions of context and its significance in employees’ accounts of leadership practices, more specifically, discourses of communicative leadership. In doing so, it also seeks to clarify the relationship between perceptions and constructions of contexts and leadership discourses.

This study relies on focus group interviews conducted with nine groups and a total of 31 employees (16 males and 15 females) in a Swedish industrial organization employing 490 employees.

The findings reveal that micro-contexts were more evident influencing leadership discourses in the accounts of employees. However, macro-contexts identified as an authoritative leadership style were triggering constructions of “idealized” communicative leaders in contrast to the leadership experienced in the work environment by employees as “real.”

The investigation presents one organizational context, but can be expanded using additional contexts that may show various leadership forms and communication needs. Findings suggest that understanding the context considered to be relevant to perceptions and constructions of leadership can be essential for identifying and confronting challenges, leading to a more communicative organization.

The study approaches leadership and context as dynamic and multifaceted constructs shaped locally in interaction with macro-discourses. Further, it also suggests that individuals are agents of change controlling context through being aware of their discourses.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of a leader’s communication style (LCS) on the quality of interpersonal exchanges between leaders and followers (LMX), and how this translates into the employee’s affective organizational commitment (AOC), in the context of Peru.

An integrated model of six dimensions is used to measure LCS. Using multiple hierarchical regressions and the Preacher and Hayes mediation model, the study focuses on determining the direct and indirect effect of each of the dimensions on LMX and organizational commitment.

The dimension preciseness shows a significant direct association to AOC. Four dimensions are significantly related with LMX: expressiveness, preciseness and questioningness with a positive sign, while verbal aggressiveness records an important negative one. The same four dimensions show an indirect effect on AOC through LMX. Emotionality and impression manipulativeness do not record significant results.

The research was carried out with a sample of 253 white-collar Peruvian professionals with high-level studies and managerial experience, which are not necessarily representative of the labor population. This research provides comprehensive evidence on how leaders’ communicative behavior may contribute to desirable outcomes such as employee commitment in a Latin American cultural context, although the findings may apply to other cultures.

This study contributes to clarify that each dimension of the LCS impacts differently on subordinate perceptions; leaders should understand this model and be able to make the necessary adjustments to their communication in order to obtain the desired results of leadership. The leader’s ability to communicate with a style characterized by expressiveness, precision, and questioning makes it easy to build high-quality LMX relationships for Peruvian employees. On the contrary, a communication style characterized by high levels of verbal aggressiveness may negatively affect subordinates, limiting the possibility of building high-quality LMX relationships. This, in turn, affects AOC of employees.

This study is a contribution to clarify that each feature of the LCS has a different impact on the perception of the subordinate, for which the leaders should be trained to understand this model and be able to make the necessary adjustments to obtain the desired results of leadership. The leader’s ability to communicate with a style characterized by expressiveness, precision and questioning makes it easy to build high-quality LMX relationships for Peruvian employees. On the contrary, a communication style characterized by high levels of verbal aggressiveness will negatively impact subordinates, limiting the possibility of building high-quality LMX relationships.

The value lies in revisiting the construct “leader’s communication style” to turn it into an instrument for the exercise of leadership. It is a contribution in favor of leaders becoming aware that their own communication style constitutes an instrument of effective leadership and a lever to optimize the commitment of their collaborators toward the organization.

This chapter examines different dimensions of leadership communication that promote creativity and innovativeness. It explores how leaders engage and inspire their subordinates on the one hand and how they motivate, challenge and encourage them on the other. The aim is to provide a multifaceted description of how leaders use communication to promote innovativeness in organisations. The chapter draws on the ‘wheel of leadership communication on innovations’ by Zerfass and Huck (2007). The wheel examines communication based on cognitive, affective, conative and social dimensions. The other key concepts of the study are transformational and communicative leadership. The approach is qualitative, and the data derive from interviews with leaders of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The findings suggest that to promote organisational innovativeness all four dimensions – cognitive, affective, conative and social – must be taken into account. Multidimensional skills are required of leaders who are expected to master different communicational roles and to act as enablers, engagers, motivators and supporters at the same time. This calls for emotional and social sensibility, flexibility and adaptability to different people and situations. Leadership communication is crucial for innovation management because creative thinking and commitment enable innovation. Therefore, in the business context, attention must be paid to how people are inspired, supported and motivated, as well as to open communication. The main limitations of the study are that it focuses only on SMEs and that it does not include the voices of personnel, which would have added value to the managerial perspectives.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate leadership attributes that contribute to or inhibit the successful adaptation of lean techniques.

Using leadership attributes of the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) project, this paper develops an ideal leadership profile of a production manager who aims to develop a lean production system (based on Liker’s seminal work in 2004). Five hypotheses related to contributor and inhibitor leadership behaviors and their associated leadership attributes are analyzed using survey data based on a PLS model.

According to the results, the proposed conceptual leadership profile, in which leadership attributes are divided into two sets (contributors and inhibitors), required modification. The authors identified five distinct leadership behaviors (specific interrelated sets of leadership attributes). Two of the five leadership behaviors (communicative and micromanager) for production managers contributed to lean implementation. None of the leadership behaviors were inhibitors. Surprisingly, a theoretical inhibitor type of leadership behavior, namely micromanager, proved to be a contributor.

The results provide direct guidance for Hungarian managers with leadership behaviors that can contribute to the successful adaptation of lean techniques. However, managers must also consider that although these leadership behaviors may result in short-term gains, the micromanager leadership behavior can undermine the long-term sustainability of lean success and can hinder the development of a lean culture.

Leaders are frequently considered to be the key drivers of lean management. The empirical paper is unique because it analyzes the relationship among leadership behaviors, leadership attributes, and lean contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that affect the entrepreneurial leadership in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of Pakistan.

A conceptual framework is developed after reviewing a vigorous literature. This is a quantitative methodology in which cross-sectional data are collected from top managers and founders in SMEs of Pakistan through a survey questionnaire. The random technique is applied for the collection of data. The total samples are 352. Initially, 500 survey questionnaires are distributed through personal visits in different cities of Pakistan. The returned rate is noticed as 70 percent.

The data are analyzed through Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 24.0. The overall Cronbach’s α reliability is 0.866. On the other hand, the α for all variables (dependent and independent) is observed within the adequate ranges. The overall findings reveal that there is a positive and significant relationship among strategic factor, motivational factor, personality factor, communicative factor and entrepreneurial leadership.

This study may contribute to existing efforts to assimilate the arenas of strategy, motivation, communication, leadership and entrepreneurship. In addition, by reviewing the outcomes of present study, the policy makers and planners may further concentrate for promoting SMEs sector that is famous as a backbone for economic development.

This study is original and valuable with respect to data and context. The findings of such study may play a substantial role in the stability of the economy in Pakistan through enriching the SMEs sector.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the underlying process of a relative leader–member dyadic communication behavior linking association between ethical leadership and organizational identification in Malaysia’s diverse workplace.

Based on relational dyadic communication, social comparison and social identity theories, the authors develop a mediation model. The model illustrates the link between the relative leader–member dyadic communication behavior processes, ethical leadership and organizational identification. The model was tested on a sample of 273 group members from 58 groups working in large government link corporations in Malaysia.

Results of hierarchical regression analysis provide support for the model. The authors found that ethical leadership was positively related to relative leader–member dyadic communication behavior based on the norms and values of budi context. Budi is a social norm in the Malaysian context that helps employees to know how they should interact with others. Budi is manifested through the use of language and should be used or present in the interactions or conversations with others.

The relative shared norms and values of budi mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and organizational identification after controlling for the perception of individual leader–member dyadic communication behavior on norms and values of budi.

The purpose of this study is to narratively explore the influence of leader narcissism on leader/follower social exchange. Moreover, while researchers acknowledge that narcissistic personality is a dimensional construct, the preponderance of extant literature approaches the concept of narcissistic leadership categorically by focusing on the reactive or constructive narcissistic extremes. This bimodal emphasis ignores self-deceptive forms of narcissistic leadership, where vision orientation and communication could differ from leaders with more reactive or constructive narcissistic personalities.

The authors argue that they encountered a compelling example of a communal, self-deceiving narcissist during archival research of Robert Owen’s collective experiment at New Harmony, Indiana. To explore Owen’s narcissistic leadership, they utilize an analytically structured history approach to interpret his leadership, as he conveyed his vision of social reform in America.

Approaching data from a ‘history to theory’ perspective and via a communicative lens, the authors use insights from their abductive analysis to advance a cross-paradigm, communication-centered process model of narcissistic leadership that accounts for the full dimensional nature of leader narcissism and the relational aspects of narcissistic leadership.

Scholars maintaining a positivist stance might consider this method a limitation, as historical case-based research places greater emphasis on reflexivity than replication. However, from a constructionist perspective, a focus on generalization might be considered inappropriate or premature, potentially hampering the revelation of insights.

Through a multi-paradigmatic analysis of the historical case of Robert Owen and his visionary communal experiment at New Harmony, the authors contribute to the extant literature by elaborating a comprehensive, dimensional and relational process framework of narcissistic leadership. In doing so, the authors have heeded calls to better delineate leader narcissism, embrace process and relational aspects of leadership and consider leader communication as constitutive of leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the privatisation and restructuring of social housing provision upon union leadership in the sector. The paper explores how local union leaders have adapted to radical reforms in the nature and organization of social housing provision in the UK.

The paper draws upon empirical material collected by the authors from social housing associations, informed by the union leadership literature and Habermas’ concepts of “communicative action” and “colonization”, drawing in particular upon the recent work of Edwards.

There are indications of moves to a more formalised relationship between management and local union leaders/staff representatives, with management keen to promote more “openness, partnership and collaboration” in working with the union leaders and staff reps. There was some evidence of senior managers involving local union leaders at earlier stages of policy and procedural initiatives, and of senior managers being more explicitly incorporated in the management‐union leader nexus.

Given the limited amount of research to date on union leadership in social housing organizations, and the exploratory nature and limited scope of this study (which, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the first to look at these matters), it follows that we still have limited knowledge of practice. Amongst other considerations, it is necessary to broaden the scope of future studies to take in a larger number of UK social housing providers, and to gather data from union/staff association members as well as managers and local union leaders.

The paper examines a matter which has been neglected by researchers to date, that is the changing nature and role of union leadership in social housing organizations, and it does this through an examination of the changing intra‐ organizational contexts within which this is taking place.