Megan King

2/6/14
HCOM 3364
Article Abstract: Leadership = Communication?
The question this article strives to answer lies in its title. Can leadership be considered a
communicative process? The two main leadership styles they consider are human-oriented
leadership and task-oriented leadership. The study was conducted at the Dutch Ministry of
Education, Culture and Science on 279 participants, 52% of which were male. The survey was
computerized and consisted of 16 background questions and 138 items to determine leadership
styles effects on perceived effectiveness, satisfaction, and perceived communicativeness. There
were 6 main dimensions of a leaders communication that the study focused on: verbal
aggressiveness, expressiveness, preciseness, assuredness, supportiveness, and argumentativeness.
The researchers ran a statistical analysis on the results of the survey with relation to
human-oriented leadership, task-oriented leadership, and a third type of leadership- charismatic
leadership. The results found that charismatic leadership was communicative (although the
authors claim there is little background research on this type of leadership) due to its need for
verbal communication to appeal to subordinates in a specific way. The results also concluded
that human-oriented leadership is communicative in an interpersonal sense, while task-oriented
leadership is much less concerned with communication and more concerned with dominance and
dependence. While all types of leadership require communication, human-oriented (relational-
based in our courses jargon) and charismatic leadership are much more communicative in an
interpersonal way than task-oriented leadership.
When I began to read this article, there were immediate connections to our course
material (even though we have not gotten too far into it yet). We have already discussed various
leadership and communication styles, and the two main styles we have discussed (task- and
relational-oriented) were the main focus of this study. Another connection to our course
materials so far could be found in the language they used. They differentiated greatly in the way
they named the leadership styles as they were explaining them (the different names have the
same meaning); the terms I recognized from our text were the dimensions of consideration and
initiating structure, as mentioned in the section about the Ohio State Leadership Studies.
Communication and leadership styles were the main focus of our Chapter 2 discussions, and this
study shows how the course material can be applied in a research context.
The study is related to our course more generally because it considers what we will be
considering all semester: the connection between communication and leadership, particularly
effective leadership (according to the perceptions of followers). This brings up an important
question we should consider in class as well, which is, Is effective leadership always defined by
the follower and his/her perceptions? I had not thought deeply about this until reading this
article, and I think it would be interesting to get the classs take on the subject. People outside the
system may see a leaders communication style in a certain light, but followers working directly
with the leader may see and perceive it differently. So that brings me to the question, What
makes an effective leader? We have been working on a definition of leadership in class for a
while, and this question connects perfectly to that discussion from earlier in the semester.
Overall, this article connected extremely well with the material covered in our course so far and
even connects to some of the material to be covered later in the semester. It uses a researchable
question to make connections between leadership and communication that makes our course
material applicable to the real world. Using data from real respondents shows that the work in
this discipline can be useful in training future leaders and in keeping their followers satisfied.
While this article was strong in concrete, statistical evidence in order to support its
claims, it only worked with respondents from one organization, and in that organization an
overwhelming majority of its leaders were males. I would have liked to see a more even split in
the gender breakdown of the leaders being evaluated; I would have also liked to see more than
one group being evaluated. With a sample coming from only one source, there can be quite a bit
of groupthink in terms of what opinions should be expressed. Respondents may feel the need to
respond in the same way as others from their organization, and that may skew the results of the
study. Instead, they could have opted for more respondents in different leader-follower
relationships to see how they differ and to get a more accurate view of the data they were looking
for.
This article is strong in that it gives tables of exact statistical values that were used in the
data analysis. The problem with this part is, though, that if the reader does not understand
statistics, he/she simply has to take the researchers word for it. While it is clear that this is a
scholarly study meant for a certain audience (most likely with a sense of how statistical analyses
work), I would have liked to see the results explained more thoroughly in plain speech so that the
conclusions could be well understood and supported by a larger audience. It was nice to have the
data to back up their claims and hypotheses, but the data is not necessarily what I was looking
for; it would have been more helpful to have a thorough explanation of all of the figures
presented in the article.
One strength of this article was the fact that all of the concepts they were studying were
well-defined for the reader. While this may not have been the case for the statistical evidence,
there was a great deal of background information on the concepts being referenced in the study
before it jumped in to the participants and the methodology. This helped me as a reader to get on
the same page as the researchers, fully understand their topic, and follow along with their
hypotheses and conclusions. They used multiple names for concepts so that readers could relate
the terminology they use with the study, and for the most part it was written in a less formal and
more understandable tone. This makes the material more relevant and accessible to everyday
readers that may not have a base knowledge in communication or leadership theories.
Overall, this article is interesting and very applicable to what our course is all about:
communication and effective leadership. The researchers make valid and measureable
hypotheses, explain their procedure well, and detail their results through both statistical figures
and a written out concluding section. While there are some weaknesses based on what could
have made the study even more compelling and effective, the points made are clear and well-
supported. The study makes our course material seem very applicable to real-life leadership
situations, and the conclusions that were made were a useful supplement to our course readings
and discussions.
References
De Vries, R. E., Bakker-Pieper, A., & Oostenveld, W. (2010). Leadership = Communication?
The Relations of Leaders Communication Styles with Leadership Styles, Knowledge
Sharing and Leadership Outcomes. Journal Of Business & Psychology, 25(3), 367-380.
doi:10.1007/s10869-009-9140-2