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The executives, just below the chief executive officers represent an important but rarely investigated senior executives. The purpose of this paper is to investigate their need for social acceptance and the impact of culture on the perceived use of transformational and transactional leadership behaviors.

A cross-sectional, multi-instrument design was used to investigate 439 Australian executives at the apex of their organization.

The results suggest that these executives identified a prominent need to self-deceive themselves when assessing their perceived use of transformational and transactional leadership behaviors. In addition, the cultural dimensions, such as supportiveness and performance orientation, were identified as influencing specific leadership behaviors, in order to produce competitive advantages. However, the cultural dimension of emphasis on rewards uniquely decreased the perceived use of several leadership behaviors (i.e. articulates vision, fosters the acceptance of group goals, and provides an appropriate role model).

The study provides further evidence of how the social context impacts on leadership behaviors and thinking

The development of executive requires insights into how their personal need for social acceptance and culture alter their use of leadership.

Social desirability and specific culture dimensions do not uniformly influence the perceived use of transformational and transactional leadership behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to use Motivating Language Theory (MLT) as a framework in determining leader use of different language styles during times of dynamic change.

This exploratory study of executive members of the Australian Institute of Management examined how MLT may provide a mechanism for analyzing what leaders say in the context of a work setting. Written transcripts of interview data were analyzed to determine leaders’ use of three language styles: meaning-making (locutionary), direction giving (perlocutionary), and empathetic (illocutionary) language. The software program NVivo was used to help aggregate themes emerging from written and interview data into discrete modules to enable more robust and comprehensive analysis of the data.

A range of issues pertinent to the way executives lead and manage their businesses, both in private and not-for-profit organizations, was identified in this study. Direction giving language was most prominent in management activities and leadership that was strategic or people related, followed by meaning-making and empathetic language. The findings suggest that business leaders could develop a repertoire of language approaches in order to achieve organizational outcomes.

More research of the language of leadership and its implications for organizational outcomes is warranted. For instance, the strategic integration of motivating language with a compatible set of leader behaviors, organizational objectives, and cultures may reveal mechanisms as yet unknown for achieving outcomes. Research is needed to determine the content and construct of these behaviors, objectives, and cultures. Some questions also remain regarding the appropriateness of using the Motivating Language Scale to examine the types of language used by managers and leaders in the work place. The authors recommend further application of MLT through the Motivating Language Scale in order to help clarify these queries.

This paper used MLT as a framework for identifying leader use of different language styles during times of dynamic change. MLT has been used to identify the speech patterns of leaders during verbal communication exchanges with staff and work colleagues, but this study is the first example of the use of MLT when examining leader responses to interviews and in their written responses to survey questions.

This paper serves two purposes: first, it is an apology for a failure to produce a planned special issue, along with the rationales as to why the authors decided to withdraw it; and second, a commentary on the apparent failure of the research community to address a neglected area of inquiry in emotional intelligence (EI) research.

The authors provide a commentary.

The authors draw attention to the possiblity that employing highly emotionally intelligent individuals may not always yield desirable outcomes for organisations, thus seeking to ignite a more balanced debate as to the merits of EI in management and leadership studies. The authors also detail briefly several avenues for future research.

The theme of the planned special issue was situated at the forefront EI research, so this commentary succinctly highlights the theorising that informed the background to it.