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The purpose of this conceptual paper is to engage the field of leaders, practitioners, organizational trainers, and scholars into the idea that leader talk and the implementation of Motivating Language Theory takes ability. It takes thought and intentionality. It goes beyond just the use of the three leadership languages known as the Motivating Language Constructs that are so often written about in Motivating Language Theory research as “Motivating Language” when indeed they are not.

The conceptual approach behind this quick primer is to take previous research in Motivating Language Theory and refine and expand the work centered around Motivating Language Ability in order to bring greater attention and focus to Motivating Language and the necessary skills leaders need to bring it about.

The findings of this conceptual paper explicitly highlight levels of leader talk and Motivating Language usage and provides ideas and strategies for the implementation of Motivating Language Ability.

The research implication of this conceptual paper is to assist scholars in clarifying their use of Motivating Language in research as there are times when researchers will identify Motivating Language in their research but not have Motivating Language as a significant variable.

The practical implication of this conceptual paper is to provide guidance and information to practitioners in the field on content that is critical for leader and organizational development.

The value of this conceptual paper is that it builds off of research already published and adds additional clarification and emphasis to an understudied and discussed element of Motivating Language Theory and leader talk in general.

The purpose of this conceptual paper is twofold, i.e. first, to elevate an assumption of Motivating Language Theory (MLT) – walk and talk congruence – to the level of antecedent variable serving as a prerequisite to the implementation of Motivating Language (ML) and second, to explore the components of walk and talk congruence (Behavioral Integrity and Credibility) to understand how they are vital in the establishment of trust at the organizational level which is the key lever for ML to be strategically implemented.

The approach is cross-disciplinary, as it utilized MLT from the field of business; applied in the field of education with research from educational researchers; and for the purpose of utilization by organizations, leaders, and scholars from all fields.

The findings are leadership communication matters and is how leadership gets done, ML makes a difference to employees and organizations, trust is a critical factor in organizational success, Credibility is all that stands between a leader’s believability or not, and Behavioral Intergrity is the key determiner in walk and talk alignment.

The implications for researchers are new research opportunities in the ML field.

The implications for practitioners are clear in terms of how to maximize leader effectiveness and organizational trust/citizenship, increase employee and organizational outcomes and drive leadership development.

The value of this paper is to both the practitioner and scholar in terms of application and deepening of the field.

This study aims to examine the effect of motivating language on employee performance and assesses the mediating roles of organisational citizenship behaviour and employee engagement between motivating language and employee performance in the Indian health-care sector, which is a highly demanding work environment, wherein employee burnout is high.

The study was in the context of COVID-19 pandemic set for health-care workers in India. To collect data and test the proposed research model, 328 questionnaires were respondent by multi-level health-care professionals from private and government hospitals in North India.

The findings suggest that leader’s motivating language is crucial for health-care leaders, inducing employee’s performance in context to patientcare, safety and satisfaction. Underpinning theory of leader member exchange substantiates that the role of leader is pivotal in daily interaction with the stakeholders. Self-determination theory of motivation is determined by psychological needs satisfaction inducing employee engagement and organisational citizenship behaviour, amplified through the leader’s motivating language, resulting into improved patientcare and patient safety. The findings state that leader’s motivating language impacts the high culture context like health-care professionals, as observed in the Indian health-care sector during COVID-19. The findings are indicative of developing non-cognitive personality traits for managerial skills.

The study substantiates the pivotal role of the leader’s communication with stakeholders such as patients/attendants and health-care staff. The findings, which are an indicator of patientcare, as an outcome of patient compliance, will be indicative of developing the non-cognitive skills in the personality traits of managerial skills, inducing patients’ trust in their health-care providers, using motivating language. Therefore, the health-care professionals must be trained in the application of motivating language with stakeholders, namely, patients/attendants and staff.

The findings state that leader’s motivating language impacts on employees of high culture context like health-care professionals, as observed in the Indian health-care sector during the recent global medical emergency of COVID-19, whereas the earlier studies posited leader’s motivating language to be effective on employees with low-cultural context. The role of leader is pivotal in daily interaction with the stakeholders, namely, patients/attendants and health-care staff.

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to increase the leadership and organizational effectiveness concepts presented by Simon Sinek in his 2009 book “Start with Why” by connecting them to Motivating Language Theory and presenting the integrated framework within a double-loop organizational and developmental learning model.

The approach of this conceptual paper is to link Sinek’s concepts WHY/HOW/WHAT with Motivating Language Theory’s constructs Meaning-Making Language/Empathetic Language/Direction-Giving Language to support deeper implementation as well as maximize implementation of WHY/HOW/WHAT through implementation of the higher-level variable Motivating Language. Additionally, this conceptual paper expands upon Sinek’s discussion of process and outcomes through the illustration of a double-loop organizational learning and development model that highlights data-driven decision-making, working from the inside-out organizational processes, and the connection between outcomes and reflection to improve organizational work.

The findings of this conceptual paper are motivating language theory can enhance and extend Sinek’s organizational and leadership assertions, and the creation of a double-loop organizational learning and development model provides greater clarity and insight to Sinek’s initial concepts presented in Start with Why. These findings provide practitioners greater tools and resources for implementation in the field as well as continue to provide scholars with an ongoing thread of connections and applications of Motivating Language Theory.

The originality of this conceptual paper builds off Sinek’s assertion that communication is vital to leaders and organizations by giving it context and specificity in the form of a well-established leadership and organizational communication theory.

This study aims to extend the investigation on leader communication by assessing the usage of motivating language (ML) by leaders in Waqf institutions in Malaysia.

Data analysis was carried out using structural equation modelling via the partial least squares. The probability sampling technique was deemed more suitable for this study as the available data was definable for constructing the sampling frame.

Management effectiveness was shown to have a significant effect on direction-giving and meaning-making language (MML), but not on empathetic language (EL). The findings demonstrate that increasing use of directive and MML leads to greater management performance; however, increased use of EL has no such effect.

The findings should not be taken as a comprehensive solution for improving the management effectiveness of all Waqf institutions. As the study only focused on the aspect of leader communication in Waqf institutions, the findings cannot be generalized to other contexts. Additionally, this study had only examined religious-based non-profit organizations (NPOs) with affiliations to a religious body, mission statements that incorporate religious values, financial support from religious sources and governance structure and employee selection based on religious processes. Hence, the findings cannot be used as a reference in the context of non-religious NPOs.

This paper contributes to the theoretical enhancement of existing literature about leader communication towards improving institutional effectiveness. The current study has empirically tested the model through the integration of the ML theory. Thus, the leader’s choice of language improves employee motivation and ultimately institutional productivity and effectiveness.

There is a glaring gap in empirical studies on the relationship between ML usage by leaders and management effectiveness specifically in the context of Malaysian organizations. Based on rigorous searches using the Scopus and Web of Sciences databases, it was found that past studies investigating the said relationship had focused more on Western countries. This is a crucial gap that must be addressed to gain a deeper understanding of the effect of ML on management effectiveness, especially in the Malaysian setting.

Leader credibility is often discussed in literature. Although the literature discusses many facts related to building leader credibility, organized and structured knowledge of how leaders build leader credibility is missing. The present study's purpose is to begin closing that gap by drawing concepts from the literature related to building leader credibility, categorizing them into relevant constructs and building a model. The present study provides a foundation, built from items drawn from peer-reviewed literature, for future research on how leaders build credibility.

The authors reviewed 66 articles discussing or exploring building leader credibility. From those articles, they drew potential leader credibility antecedents. They analyzed the antecedents, seeking to group them into understandable constructs that provide a building leader credibility model. Seeking nomological validity (evidence that our building leader credibility constructs reflect real-world thinking), they conducted an open-ended survey to compare what practitioners say builds leader credibility to our model.

The leader credibility antecedents the authors drew from the literature fell into two dimensions: competence and character. The competence antecedents fell into three subdivisions: interpersonal competence, technical competence and leader competence. The character antecedents fell into two subdivisions: character behaviors and character attributes. Responses from our open-ended survey fit our five subdimensions for building leader credibility, providing some nomological validity for our model.

The authors’ model may help practitioners see the big picture of building leader credibility, develop specific tactics for building leader credibility and provide a basis for assessing their building leader credibility approach.

Although leader credibility is vastly researched and leader credibility antecedents are discussed or explored, a big-picture model of building leader credibility is lacking. This study pursues a path previously not taken, developing a credibility-building model drawn from concepts presented in the literature.

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of rural superintendent’s talk on the perceived outcomes of principal communication competence and organizational communication satisfaction. More specifically, this study explored whether the source credibility dimensions of goodwill, competency and trustworthiness had a greater impact on the perceived outcomes when mediated by motivating language (ML) than not.

Direct and indirect paths between superintendent and principal communication were modeled, analyzed and evaluated using descriptive and inferential methods, including R version 3.6.1 with the lavaan package and the Sobel mediation test.

Research findings indicated the importance of superintendent talk and motivating language theory (MLT) that, when combined, constitute the medium of superintendent practice and enable a superintendent to execute their roles and duties. Additionally, the authors found the dimensions of goodwill and competency had the most significant impact on the two outcomes mediated by ML. This finding indicates that principals are calling for a more empathetic and interactive form of credibility than the long-established form of credibility based on expertise and stewardship. Finally, as the authors call for an expanded role from the community in research, scholarship and implementation of MLT, they suggest due to the lack of significance in trustworthiness mediated by ML, future research into trustworthiness and trust.

This study’s value is to increase understanding of educational administration scholars of MLT and its power to influence employee and organizational outcomes and highlight a reframing of superintendent credibility away from say and do agreement and expertise and stewardship.

The purpose of this paper is to propose motivating language as a mediator to increase the positive effects of servant leadership on subordinates’ outcomes. The authors propose that motivating language acts as a mediator to transmit servant leadership traits and enhances the positive impact that servant leadership verbal behavior has on employees’ performance.

By developing a conceptual model, the authors propose a connection between servant leadership and motivating language.

In the proposed model, motivating language acts as a full and a partial mediator. The authors further categorize three distinct outcome sets that should be improved from this relationship. The first set includes improved worker performance, job satisfaction, absenteeism and worker innovation. The second set is composed of self-efficacy, organizational citizenship behavior and employee commitment. Finally, the third set includes trust, satisfaction with the leader and inspiration to become servant leaders.

Empirical research needs to be conducted to test this model.

The positive effects of servant leadership through the use of motivating language could be operationalized in multiple ways. First, potential servant leaders could take the well-established, reliable and valid motivating language scale to diagnostically identify their leader-member communication strengths and weaknesses. Then, tailored motivating language trainings could be implemented which target motivating language weaknesses and key strategic outcomes in the proposed model. Furthermore, motivating language training would be a valuable instrument for transmission of a servant leadership culture.

Servant leadership style responds to the demand for positive ethical behavior that is much needed during these times when emphasis is given to profitability and lack of concern for people is the norm rather than the exception. It is also synchronized with the current benefits of organizational citizenship behaviors that have recently emerged in the field of managerial research.

This paper aims at addressing a gap in the literature by developing a model of how leader strategic language, namely, motivating language, mediates between servant leadership and worker outcomes.

Recent evidence suggests that leaders' communication is central to an organization's success. The purpose of the current research is to examine how the leader's motivating language (direction giving, empathetic and meaning-making) translates into positive career outcomes through the mechanism of positive affective tone.

A three-wave time-lagged research design was applied to collect data (N = 320) from employees of the telecom sector of Pakistan.

Employing structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis, the study results indicate that high levels of leader's motivating language (direction giving and meaning-making) result in positive affective tone in employees, which further creates career motivation (career insight, career resilience and career identity) and career satisfaction. In contrast, positive affective tone does not mediate between empathetic language and career motivation (career insight, career resilience and career identity) and career satisfaction relationship.

The present study's findings explicate the unique effects and mechanism through which leaders motivating language becomes influential in reaping its benefits for followers' career outcomes. More research is warranted to examine other attitudinal and behavioral outcomes of leaders motivating language. This study research prepares future researchers to investigate other mediators and moderators in the leaders motivating language–career outcomes relationship. The authors recommend further implications of the study's findings for research and practice in the domain of leadership, affect and careers.

The current study opens up a new perspective in leaders motivating language literature by examining the underlying mechanism of positive affective tone.

This study aims to validate the motivating language scale developed by Mayfield et al. (1995) in the context of the hotel industries of Bangladesh and Malaysia.

For Study 1, data were collected from employees (lower and mid-level) of three to five-star hotels in Bangladesh. Customer-contact employees working in four- and five-star hotels in Malaysia participated in Study 2. Both studies featured a cross-sectional survey design.

Factor analysis revealed that both samples provided three-factor solutions for the motivating language scale in both countries. Convergent, discriminant and nomological validity were assessed by testing with outcome variables of motivating language.

Future studies may use all three versions of the scale (Bengali, Malay and English) to collect data, as all three have been validated.

By validating the Bengali and Malay versions of the motivating language scale, this study contributes to the leadership language literature, specifically that related to hotel industries in developing contexts.