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Little is known about what emotionally un(intelligent) CEOs really say to their close collaborators within the boardroom. Would the rhetoric content differ between an emotionally intelligent and an emotionally unintelligent CEO, especially during a crisis? This chapter aims to answer this question.

40 CEOs of large corporations were asked to deliver a verbal address to their board members in reaction to a vignette describing a critical situation for the company. Participants were provided with the Schutte self-report emotional intelligence (EI) test. The verbal content of CEOs' closed-door discourses was analyzed using Cognitive-Discursive Analysis (CDA) and, subsequently, Geometric Data Analysis (GDA).

The results revealed that CEOs with low EI tend to evoke unpleasant emotions, talk about competition, and often blame some – or all – of the board members for their (poor) actions in comparison to CEOs with high or medium EI. In contrast, CEOs with high EI tend to use terms in relation to decision or realization and appear to be more cooperative than those with lower EI and were also ready to make decisions on behalf of team.

Previous research has mainly focused on CEOs' public speeches. But the content of CEOs' speeches within the boardroom might noticeably differ from what they would say in a public address. The results of our exploratory study can serve CEOs as a basis toward improving their closed-door rhetoric during a crisis.

It would be interesting to enlarge the size of our population in order to strengthen our statistical analyses as well as explore other cultural and linguistic environments and other channels through which emotions can be expressed (e.g., human face, gesture, vocal tone).

This paper aims to investigate why followers have low perceptions of leader openness and thus feel reluctant to communicate novel ideas by examining leader–follower relationship conflict (i.e. interpersonal incompatibility) and a follower’s power distance orientation (i.e. an acceptance of uneven power distribution in organizations) as antecedents.

The research administrators conducted a three-wave work behavior survey in Study 1, a laboratory experiment in Study 2, and an online experiment in Study 3.

The results demonstrated that leader–follower relationship conflict reduced followers’ perceptions of leader openness. However, the negative impact of relationship conflict became non-significant when followers have high power distance orientations (i.e. an acceptance of uneven power distribution in organizations). The findings also showed an indirect interaction effect of leader–follower relationship conflict and followers’ power distance orientation on the followers’ communication of novel ideas through the followers’ perceptions of leader openness.

The research suggests that followers with higher power distance orientations are more likely to communicate novel ideas consistently because their relationship conflicts with their leaders do not negatively influence their perceptions of leader openness. Although researchers traditionally view cultures with a high level of power distance value as an obstacle to employee creativity, the present study reveals the benefits of an individual-level power distance orientation.