COMMUNICATION IN MANAGEMENT

Communication in Management Structure

Communication in Management Structure

Introduction

Leadership and communication are inextricably linked. Consistent with an array of definitions, leadership is a communicative practice. Communication scholarship is necessarily germane to understanding the practice and development of leadership.

This chapter discusses two particular intersections of communication and leadership research, highlighting how communication scholarship contributes to leadership studies. First, communication research is used to identify how leaders can become more effective communicators so they can lead better. This can be done either by studying behaviors of successful leaders or by testing hypotheses about effective communicative leadership practices. The intent, in this case, is to improve the practice and effectiveness of individual leaders. Second, communication research is useful for exploring how leadership operates as an interactive social process among people. This can be achieved through analysis of leadership discourse or by studying cultures or social systems, such as organizations, teams, or communities, in an attempt to understand how leadership happens and what impact it has. This approach extends the focus beyond individual leaders to an examination of the larger phenomenon of leadership as a process among people in complex systems.

The fields of leadership and communication are both interdisciplinary. Multiple sources of communication scholarship include theory and research from the disciplines of social psychology, psychology, rhetoric, and linguistics. Communication scholarship is not a cohesive set of studies from a single realm. Instead, it is interwoven across several domains. Attempting to cleanly overlay communication scholarship with leadership research is not neat or simple. The many strands can quickly become entangled and could be woven into a myriad of possible patterns, only some of which are presented in this chapter. The intention of this chapter is to provide readers with an overview of communication scholarship that informs the study and practice of leadership.

A Leader as an Effective Communicator

The field of communication serves as a fruitful lens through which to examine the behaviors and practices of the effective leader. This lens can be applied at several angles. First, leadership styles and behaviors include communication skills and competencies such as influence, motivation, dialogue and feedback, group facilitation, problem solving, and decision making. Second, we can examine strategies and behaviors that come into play with different models of leadership, such as situational leadership, visionary/charismatic leadership, or transformational leadership theory. Here, the areas of rhetoric, argument, and persuasion help us understand how leaders can build credibility, articulate a vision, advocate for a course of action, inspire others, mediate crisis or tragedy, or use symbols and rituals strategically.

Social Influence

To be effective leaders, individuals must implement both task and relationship behaviors. These behaviors are used, for instance, to cultivate an environment conducive to open dialogue, an examination of alternative possibilities, or the generation of ideas and selection of possible actions among a group of people. Two core functions of leadership practice include (1) facilitating learning and awareness to secure action in service of shared interests and (2) building commitment and a sense of obligation to act in service of shared ...