Running Head: Leadership and Organizational Communication

1

Leadership And Organizational Communication

By Alex Keya

Introduction:

According to Northouse (2013), leadership is the process whereby an individual influences a

group of individuals to achieve a common goal. As a process it means that it is not a trait or

characteristic that resides in the leader, but rather a transactional event that occurs between the

leader and the followers.

The process implies that a leader affects and is affected by the followers. It emphasizes

that leadership is not a linear, one-way event but rather an interactive event. When we say it

involves influence, it is concerned with how the leader affects followers. Without influence then

leadership does exist.

Leadership is a process of social influence in which a person can enlist the aid and

support of others in the accomplishment of a certain task. It can also be the art of leading others

to deliberately create an end result. It also involves defining the direction of a team and

communicating it to the people, motivating, inspiring and empowering them to contribute to

achieving organizational success.

It requires being strategically focused and applying behavioral techniques to build

commitment and attain the best work from your people. Leadership involves influencing a group

of individuals who have a common purpose. It can either be a small group, a community or a

large group encompassing the entire organization. When leaders are effective the influence they

exert over others helps a group or organization achieve its performance goals. Leaders who are

influential then definitely the whole organization will always draw them away from achieving

the main goal.

According to Smith (1974) in his book “ A pattern approach to the study a leaders’

emergency” In leadership a leader is the one who influences the followers A leader is one or

more people who selects, equips, trains, and influences one or more people or follower(s) who

have diverse gifts, abilities, and skills and focuses the person to the organization’s mission and

objectives causing the follower(s) to willingly and enthusiastically expend spiritual, emotional,

Leadership and Organizational Communication

2

and physical energy in a concerted coordinated effort to achieve the organizational mission and

objectives. He/she achieves this influence by humbly conveying a prophetic vision of the future

in clear terms that resonates with the person’s beliefs and values in such a way that the employee

can understand and interpret the future into present-time action steps.

In this process, the leader presents the prophetic vision in contrast to the present status of

the organization and through the use of critical thinking skills, insight, intuition, and the use of

both persuasive rhetoric and interpersonal communication including both active listening and

positive discourse, facilitates and draws forth the opinions and beliefs of the followers such that

the followers move through ambiguity toward clarity of understanding and shared insight that

results in influencing the follower(s) to see and accept the future state of the organization as a

desirable condition worth committing personal and corporate resources toward its achievement.

The leader achieves this using ethical means and seeks the greater good of the follower(s)

in the process of action steps such that the follower(s) is/are better off (including the personal

development of the follower as well as emotional and physical healing of the follower) as a result

of the interaction with the leader. The leader achieves this same state for his/her own self as a

leader, as he/she seeks personal growth, renewal, regeneration, and increased stamina–mental,

physical, emotional, and spiritual–through the leader-follower interactions.

The leader recognizes the diversity of the follower(s) and achieves unity of common values and

directions without destroying the uniqueness of the person. The leader accomplishes this through

innovative flexible means of education, training, support, and protection that provide each

follower with what the follower needs within the reason and scope of the organization’s

resources and accommodations relative to the value of accomplishing the organization’s

objectives and the growth of the follower.

In this process of leading, he/she enables the follower(s) to be innovative as well as self-directed

within the scope of individual-follower assignments and allows the follower(s) to learn from

his/her/their own, as well as others’ successes, mistakes, and failures along the process of

completing the organization’s objectives. The leader accomplishes this by building credibility

and trust with the followers through interaction and feedback to and with the followers that

shapes the followers’ values, attitudes, and behaviors towards risk, failure, and success. In doing

Leadership and Organizational Communication

3

this, the leader builds the followers’ sense of self-worth and self-efficacy such that both the

leader and followers are willing and ready to take calculated risks in making decisions to meet

the organization’s goals/objectives and through repeated process steps of risk-taking and

decision-making the leader and followers together change the organization to best accomplish

the organization’s objectives.

The leader recognizes the impact and importance of audiences outside of the

organization’s system and presents the organization to outside audiences in such a manner that

the audiences have a clear impression of the organization’s purpose and goals and can clearly see

the purpose and goals lived out in the life of the leader. In so doing, the leader examines the fit of

the organization relative to the outside environment and shapes both the organization and the

environment to the extent of the leader’s capability to insure the best fit between the organization

and the outside environment.

The leader throughout each leader-follower-audience interaction demonstrates his/her

commitment to the values of; humility, concern for others, controlled discipline seeking what is

right and good for the organization, (e) showing mercy in beliefs and actions with all people,

focusing on the purpose of the organization and on the well-being of the followers, and creating

and sustaining peace in the organization–not a lack of conflict but a place where peace grows.

These values are the seven Beatitudes found in Matthew 5 and are the base of the virtuous theory

Trait approach

According to NorthHouse (2013), the trait approach was one of the systematic attempts to study

leadership and in the early 20th

century leadership traits were studied to determine what made

certain people great leaders. The theories were studied to determine what made certain people

great leaders. The theories that were developed were called,”great theories” because they were

focused in identifying the innate qualities and characteristics that were possessed by great social,

political and military leaders.

During this time, research concentrated on studying the specific traits that clearly differentiated

leaders from followers. (Bass, 1990; Jago, 1982) in the mid 20th century, the trait approach was

challenged by research that questioned the universality of leadership traits. In a major review,

Stogdil (1948) suggested that no consistent set of traits differentiated leaders to from non-leaders

Leadership and Organizational Communication

4

across a variety of situations. An individual who was a leader in one situation might not be a

leader in another situation. Hence the trait approach has generated a lot of interest among many

researchers who have come up with explanations of how traits influence leadership (Bryman,

1992).

Among the many researchers including Mann (1959), (Lord De Vader & Allieger 1986),

(Kirkpatrick & Locke 1991), (Kemp & Bader 2004) who studied of leadership traits and

characteristics came-up with almost similar traits. There are two questions that one might ask in

order to understand well the trait research and they are as follows: what can be said about the

trait approach?

What has the century of research on the trait approach given us that is useful? The trait approach

is an extended list of traits that individuals might hope to posses or wish to cultivate if they want

to be perceived by others as leaders. Some of the traits that are central to the list include

intelligence, self confidence, determination, integrity, sociability, high energy knowledge,

expertise, honesty, neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness among

the others. The approach focuses on identifying the personal characteristics that cause effective

leadership. The researchers thought that effective leaders must have certain qualities that will

always separate them from the ones they lead or from the ineffective leaders. Below are some of

the traits.

According to Zaccaro et al. (2004) Intelligence is positively related to leadership based on their

analysis of a series of recent studies on intelligence and various indices of leadership. Having

strong verbal ability, perceptual ability and reasoning capabilities. The leaders Intelligence

Quotient (IQ) is very different from that of the followers

Self-confidence is another trait that helps one to be a leader. It includes a sense of self-esteem

and self-assurance and they believe that one can make a difference. Leadership involves

influencing others and self confidence allows the leader to feel assured that his or her attempts to

influence others are appropriate are right.

Determination is another trait that leaders exhibit. It is the desire t get the job done and it

includes characteristics such as initiative, persistent, dominance, ad drive. Being determined is

showing dominance at times and in situations where followers need to be directed.

Leadership and Organizational Communication

5

Integrity is another important leadership trait. It is the quality of honesty and trustworthiness.

Leaders with integrity inspire confidence in others because they can be trusted to do what they

say they are going to do. Basically integrity makes a leader believable and worth of trust from

the members in a certain organization.

Sociability is a leader’s inclination to seek out pleasant social relationship they are the leaders

who are friendly, courteous, tactful, and also diplomatic they are sensitive to others needs’ and

will always show concern for their well being. They also have good interpersonal skills and

create cooperative relationships with their followers.

In conclusion, trait approach is very different from others including the situational approach,

style approach, skills approach, psychodynamic approach among many others in the sense that it

focuses exclusively on the leader and not the followers or the situation. This makes it

theoretically more straight forward than other approaches. It is concerned with what traits leaders

exhibit and who.

Implications of trait approach of leadership in organization communication

It suggests that organizations will work better if the people in the managerial positions have

designated leadership profiles. For an organization to find the right people, it is important to use

the personality assessment instruments. The secret behind this is that the right people will always

increase effective leadership.

It is used for personal awareness and development. By analyzing their own traits, leaders can

gain an idea of their strengths and weakness and can get a feel for how others in the

organizations.

It gives individuals a clearer picture of who they are as leaders and how they fit in the

organizational hierarchy in areas where the ideas are lacking. Leaders can try to make changes in

what they do or where they work to increase the traits’ potential impact.

Leadership styles

Leadership styles refers to the specific ways in which a manager chooses to influence other

people, ways that shape up the manager approaches to planning, organizing and controlling.

Leadership and Organizational Communication

6

Fiedler (1964) Leaders in various organizations have different ways of leading their subordinate

staffs and this will not only determine that, but also other leadership tasks. Determining

leadership style is always a challenge and it is always exacerbated when time is tough. The styles

might be task-motivated which primarily help with reaching a goal or relationship- motivated

where by the leaders are concerned with developing close interpersonal relationships. They vary

not only among individuals but also among the countries or the culture.

It has also been noted that despite the leadership style of a leader; power can also affect other

people’s behavior and get them into certain direction. Most leaders employ the power as their

key factor hence making sure that they will always take steps to ensure that they use all they

have sufficient levels of each type for their beneficial manner. Legitimate, reward, coercive, and

expert are the types of power.

a. Transformational style of leadership

This style of leadership was first studied by Downton (1973) later on done also by Burns (1978)

in his book titled leadership. Transformational style of leadership is the process whereby a

person engages with others and creates a connection that raises the level of motivation and

morality in both the leader and the follower. The leader becomes attentive to the needs and

motives of the followers and tries to help them reach their fullest potential.

Transformation is concerned with the emotions, values, ethics, standards, and long term goals. It

also includes assessing followers’ motives, satisfying their needs, and also treating them as full

human beings. It involves an exceptional form of influence that moves followers to accomplish

more than what is usually expected of them. It is a style of leadership in which, the leader

identifies the needed change, creates a vision to guide the change through inspiration, and

executes the change with the commitment of members of the group, hence can inspire positive

changes to those who follow. It often incorporates charismatic and visionary leadership. The

following are the components of transformational leadership.

Leadership and Organizational Communication

7

Components

Intellectual Stimulation: This leader does not challenge the status quo; they encourage

creativity among their followers and also encourage them to explore new ways of doing things

and new opportunities to learn.

Individualized Consideration: This involves offering support and encouragement to individual

followers, keep lines of communication open so that followers feel free to share ideas and so that

leaders can offer direct recognition of the unique contribution of each follower.

1. Inspirational Motivation: The leaders have a clear vision that they are able to articulate to

followers by helping them experience the same passion and motivation to fulfill the set goals.

This component is descriptive of leaders who communicate high expectations of followers,

inspiring them through motivation to become committed to and a part of the shared vision in the

organization leaders use symbols and emotional appeals to focus group members’ effort to

achieve more than they would in their self-interest and spirit us enhanced here.

2. Idealized / charisma Influence: The leaders serve as role models to followers. This is

because; the followers trust and respect the leader who then they emulate and internalize ideas

from this are the leaders who act as role models for followers. They always have high standards,

moral and ethical conduct and can be counted on to do the right thing.

In the transformational leadership, the leaders are charismatic, they intellectually stimulate

subordinates, and they engage in development consideration, they have increased awareness of

the importance of their jobs and high performance.

b. Transactional style of Leadership

Kuhnert (1994), It is a style of leadership which is based on setting of clear objectives and goals

for the followers as well as the use of either punishment or rewards in order to encourage

compliance of the set goals. It focuses on the basic management process of controlling,

organizing and short term planning. It involves motivating and directing followers primarily

through appealing to their own self-interest. The main goal of the follower or the subordinates is

to obey the instructions of the leader. The leader believes in motivating through a system of

rewards and punishment; that is, if a subordinate does what is desired, a reward will follow and if

Leadership and Organizational Communication

8

he or she does not, a punishment will follow; thus there is exchange between the leader and the

subordinate which is of four dimensions namely

Contingent Rewards: Transactional leaders link the goal to reward, clarify expectations,

provide necessary resources, set mutually agreed upon goals and provide various kinds of

rewards for successful performance. According to Fiedler

Active Management by exception: Transactional Leaders actively monitor the work of their

subordinates watch for deviations from rules and standards and taking corrective actions to

prevent mistakes.

Passive Management by Exception: Transactional style f leadership intervenes only when

standards are not met or when the performance is not at par as per the expectation. It may even

use punishment as a response to unacceptable performance.

Laissez-faire: Leaders provides an environment where the subordinates get much opportunity to

make decisions. The leader him or her abdicate or renounces responsibilities and avoids making

decisions and therefore, the group lacks direction. This is viewed as insufficient, but is no bad, in

developing the maximum leadership potential.

Servant leadership

According to Greenleaf (1970) Servant Leadership Servant leaders begin with the natural

feeling that they want to serve first, and then make a conscious choice to lead, that is, servant

leader lead by serving their followers. Servant leader is the valuing and development of people,

building of community, and the practice of authenticity; it also promotes the sharing of power

between leaders and followers as means to benefitting each individual, the total organization and

the broader community.

The following are the ten characteristics of a servant leader according to Spears (2002) that

he derived from Greenleaf’s writings.

Listening. This is the communication between leaders and followers as an interactive process

that includes receiving and sending messages. Servant leaders recognize that listening is a

learned discipline that involves hearing and being receptive to what others have to say.

Leadership and Organizational Communication

9

Empathy. This means “standing in the shoes” of another person and attempting to see the world

from that person’s point of view. Empathetic servant leaders demonstrate that truly understand

what followers are thinking and feeling. Hence this makes the follower feel unique.

Healing. To heal makes to make whole. Servant leaders care about the well-being of their

followers. They support their followers by helping them overcome their personal problems.

Greenleaf argues that the process of healing is a two-way street; in helping followers become

whole; servant themselves are healed.

Awareness. According to Greenleaf awareness is a quality within the servant leaders that makes

them acutely attuned and receptive to their physical, social, and political environments. It

includes understanding oneself and the impact one has on others. Servant leaders are able to step

aside and view themselves and their own perspectives in the greater context of the situation.

Persuasion. It is a clear and persistent communication that convinces others to change.

Persuasion creates change through the use of gentle non-judgmental argument.

Stewardship. It is all about taking responsibility for the leadership role entrusted to the leader.

Servant leaders take the responsibilities to carefully manage the people and the organization they

have been given to lead.

Commitment to the growth of the people. Servant leaders are committed to helping each

person in the organization whether professionally or personal growth. Commitment can also take

many forms for example providing followers with opportunities for career development; help

them develop new work skills, taking a personal interest in their ideas and involving them in

making decisions (Spears, 2002).

Conceptualization. It involves to an individual’s ability to be a visionary for an organization,

providing a clear sense of its goals and direction. It also equips servant leaders to respond to

complex organizational problems in creative ways, enabling them to deal with the intricacies of

the organization in relationship to its long-term goals.

Foresight. Foresight encompasses a servants’ ability to know the future. It is an ability to predict

what is coming based on what is occurring in the present and what has happened in the past. For

Greenleaf foresight has an ethical dimension because he believes. Leaders should be held

Leadership and Organizational Communication

10

accountable for any failures to anticipate what reasonably could be foreseen and to act on the

understanding.

Building community. Servant leadership fosters the development of the community. They build

a place where followers feel safe and connected with other and also free to express their own

individuality.

In conclusion, Graham, (1991) servant leadership results in the community and societal change.

Individuals within an organization who care or each other become committed to developing an

organization that cares for the community. Organizations that adopt a servant leadership culture

are committed to helping those in need who operate outside of the organization.

In conclusion, there will be no coordination in an organization without leadership since they are

inter-related. Leaders send information to the employees, they monitor activities and

performances, and they stimulate, foster and encourage them to achieve the targeted goals.

Providing a culture of openness and interpersonal relationships will create an environment of

trust and the ability to rid the organization of its dysfunctional ways, thus providing a true ability

to communicate amongst others at every level of the organization.

If a leader is willing to take risks and understands his own personal goals, he can create the norm

for the environment; an environment where candor and the search for information from others

are both understood and rewarded. The organizational culture, as well as personal and corporate

philosophies, will reflect the quality of the relationships existing among those who create it.

Leadership and Organizational Communication

11

References

A Meta-Analysis of Situational Variables Expected To Moderate Participation-Outcome

Bass, B. M. (1990). Bass And Stogdill’s Handbook Of Leadership: A Survey Theory of Research.

New York: Free Press.

Bennis, W. G., & Nanus, B. (1992). Leaders: The Strategies for Taking charge. New York:

Harper & Row.

Burns, J. A. (1992). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row.

Northouse, G. P. (2013) Leadership: Theory and Practice Sixth Edition. Los Angeles. Sage

Publications.

Relationships. Academy of Management Journal, 30,524–541.

Wagner, J. A., & Gooding, R. Z. (1987). Shared Influence and Organizational Behavior: