Leadership in Organizations

GUOWEI JIAN
Cleveland State University, USA

GAIL T. FAIRHURST
University of Cincinnati, USA

Leadership as a concept has fascinated humankind since ancient times. From Lao Tzu’s
Tao Te Ching and Plato’s Republic to modern-day literary works, the business press, and
historical texts, leadership is often the prescription for good governing or the romanti-
cized source of triumphant collective endeavors. Its everlasting popularity has acceler-
ated since the beginning of the 20th century with its incorporation into social science
discourse, the rise of a corporate consulting industry, and compelling media fueled sto-
ries in politics, business, the military, and sports. Despite its myriad lineages, the focus
of this entry is on leadership as a social scientific subject, and we aim to provide an
account of the various ways in which scholars have been defining, investigating, and
debating leadership. Given the focus of this Encyclopedia, our particular emphasis is on
reviewing the developments in organizational communication research that contribute
to our understanding of leadership.
To begin, how should we define leadership, and how should we go about studying it
from a communication perspective? These are two deceptively simple questions. With
regard to the first of these, we take the unusual stance of not advocating a universal def-
inition. This is because leadership in an organizational context might well differ from
its role in other contexts, such as a street gang, a combat unit, a Girl Scout troop, or
a political campaign, to name just a few. Even within these contexts, leadership actors
(e.g., leaders, followers, or other stakeholders) may disagree as to whether or not leader-
ship is present. In many ways, leadership qualifies as a “blurred concept” (Wittgenstein,
1953), difficult to pin down and highly contested. Consequently, we will treat leader-
ship as a family resemblance among power and influence oriented language games (i.e.,
co-produced social routines) whose character we will try to describe throughout.
The answer to the second deceptively simple question, how best to study leadership
from a communication perspective, also has an “It depends … ” answer. If we use the
metaphor of a lens to describe scientific discourse, the definition of leadership and its
analysis vary a great deal depending on the discursive lens donned by scholars. Even
through the same lens, scholars may differ in their emphases. Although the chameleonic
appearance of leadership may seem confusing and frustrating for those who see science
as a search for the essence of things (or a right and “final” definition), we suggest using
science to create diverse ways of understanding the processes of leading and following.

The International Encyclopedia of Organizational Communication. Craig R. Scott and Laurie Lewis (Editors-in-Chief),
James R. Barker, Joann Keyton, Timothy Kuhn, and Paaige K. Turner (Associate Editors).
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118955567.wbieoc124
2 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S

Thus, the various ideas of leadership we review are nothing but a collection of wide-
ranging conceptual tools or lenses, which allow us to see leadership in creative ways
and to apply them innovatively in solving collective challenges.
Deetz (2001) calls these scientific lenses discourses, which are broad cultural patterns
of assumptions; they represent ways of thinking, doing, writing, and speaking about
scientific efforts. Researchers tend to acquire these lenses through their scientific train-
ing and often don them unconsciously. Each lens or discourse carries a set of assump-
tions regarding their goals for doing science and norms for scientific practices. Within
the context of organizational communication research, each lens also presumes a differ-
ent view toward organization and communication, which ultimately influences the way
leadership is defined and investigated. In the following, we present leadership research
through the view of four lenses: in turn, normative, interpretive, critical, and dialogical.
In each section, we first describe the general assumptions and norms associated with
each scientific discourse and the way it influences how organization and communica-
tion are conceptualized. Second, we present leadership definitions, theories, and find-
ings within that discourse. Finally, we end our review with a reflection on the challenges
and directions for future research.

Normative leadership theories and research

A normative lens refers to a way of doing, writing, and thinking about social sciences
modeled after the physical sciences. Through a normative lens, researchers see social
phenomena, including leadership and organizations, as “naturally existing objects open
to description, prediction, and control” (Deetz, 2001, p. 19). These objects are seen as
part of a natural reality, external to the mind of a researcher, which is to be discovered in
a fashion similar to the way physical objects are subject to scientific scrutiny. The goals of
normative research are to create theories in the form of lawlike propositions that define
and categorize the properties of these objects and describe the relationships between the
focal object and others. The practical aim is to control and harness the performance of
these objects in the form of social practices, such as leadership evaluation and training.
Normative leadership discourse has the longest history, and it is perhaps for this
reason that it has been the most influential in shaping the language and understand-
ing of leadership in the mind of the general public and organizational practitioners.
Since the late 19th century, industrialization and the creation of large-scale organiza-
tions have spurred the search for modern forms of management techniques. As we
describe below, normative leadership research adapted accordingly in three areas of
study: leader-centric, follower-centric, and leader–member relationship based work.
We start our review with the research that has the longest history and broadest reach in
influence: the leader-centric theories of leadership.

The trait approach

One of the earliest scientific studies of leadership focused on the individual traits
of leaders. Researchers aimed to identify a set of individual traits that differentiated
 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S 3

leaders from nonleaders, and used them to predict leader effectiveness. Thus, leadership
was largely equated with a set of qualities or characteristics of leaders. However, in the
1940s and 1950s, the trait approach lacked a coherent conceptual framework, which
was reflected in conflicting meanings for traits that could vary from study to study.
For example, early research saw traits mostly as immutable and heritable qualities,
such as height, intelligence, and integrity. Later research in the 1980s incorporated
traits that could be malleable over time but were considered relatively stable, such
as self-efficacy and self-confidence (Zaccaro, 2007). All in all, the various traits and
attributes under study have ranged from physical characteristics (e.g., appearance)
and social backgrounds (e.g., education) to psychological factors (e.g., extraversion)
and social characteristics (e.g., cooperativeness).
Since the 1970s, one particular trait that has garnered persistent scholarly atten-
tion is gender. Many studies revolved around the question, “Are men and women dif-
ferent in their effectiveness as leaders?” Decades of research have suggested that the
answer depends on the context (Eagly & Carli, 2003). Leaving aside context, scholars
did not find significant difference in effectiveness between female and male leaders.
However, in organizations with higher proportions of men and a more masculine cul-
ture (e.g., the military), female leaders are perceived as being less effective than their
male counterparts. The theory of role congruity offers a plausible explanation. Accord-
ing to the theory, people’s perceptions of gender roles and leadership roles are subject
to sex-typing. Women are expected to be nurturing and relational, while men should
be assertive and agentic. Male gender role expectations are congruent with traditional
leadership roles defined in masculine terms. Thus, in a masculine organizational con-
text, female leaders are subject to conflicting expectations. For example, an assertive
female leader could be accused of not being feminine enough, whereas a female leader
who demonstrates strong feminine traits could be accused of lacking decisiveness or
assertiveness, traits common to masculine leadership dispositions. Scholars concur that
such sex-typing in both gender and leadership roles places female leaders in a double
bind and results in significant barriers for their career advancement.
Within the trait approach, it is also worth mentioning that among the numerous
traits investigated, one relevant to communication, fluency of speech, was mentioned
in early reviews of leadership research. Although no definition was explicitly offered,
this category was used to refer to studies that examined such speech characteristics as
“talkativeness,” “duration of verbal excitation,” and “vividness and originality of expres-
sion and facility of conversation,” in relation to leadership perceptions (Stogdill, 1948,
p. 43). Leaders are believed to be more verbally skilled than followers.
Finally, multiple studies over the years point to a lack of agreement as to which
leadership traits matter the most. This inconclusiveness reflects the limitations of the
trait approach by not considering the effects of situations and the complex interactions
among traits and situations. The problems with the trait approach prompted the
development of two other leader-centric approaches: leader capacities with a focus on
cognition and leader behavioral styles.
4 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S

The capabilities approach

This genre defines leadership as the capabilities of leaders enabled by three interacting
domains of knowledge or cognition: problem, organization, and people (Mumford et al.,
2000). Problem focused cognition involves creative problem solving skills in novel and
challenging situations; organization cognition provides skills in assessing organizational
conditions and constructing solutions; and people centered cognition allows the exercise
of social judgment skills, such as perspective taking, for the purpose of communicating
change and working with others. In this model, communication is assumed to be part
of the social skill set of leaders; for example, negotiation and persuasion are considered
instrumental in solving problems during the implementation of organizational change.

Behavioral and situational approaches

Whereas leader capability theories rely on leader cognition, leadership style models
attempt to capture patterns of leader behaviors. Well known among numerous style
models are those articulated in a series of studies known as the Ohio State Leadership
Studies and the University of Michigan Studies. The common findings from these
investigations name two dimensions of leader behaviors: those oriented toward
task and structure and those oriented toward people and relationships. The former
drives the progression of work tasks, and the latter maintains the social cohesiveness
of a unit. Another well-known taxonomy of leadership behavior casts leadership
vis-à-vis democratic, autocratic, and laissez-faire styles of leadership, based on the
way power is exercised and decisions are made in groups and organizations. These
theories offered an important conceptual basis for the growth of research in small
group communication. Scholars examined communication behaviors associated
with leadership emergence (e.g., speaking early and often), group decision making,
and cohesion.
However, research findings on leader behaviors have failed to identify a universal
pattern that consistently differentiates leadership effectiveness across situations. A pro-
posed remedy and extension of the leader-centric behavioral approach is the situa-
tional leadership model. In this model, leader style is matched with followers’ level of
(psychological) maturity and competence. For example, when followers lack compe-
tence and/or maturity, a highly directive style of leader behavior is implicated (Blan-
chard, Zigarmi, & Zigarmi, 2013). Likewise, leaders are encouraged to delegate when
followers are both mature and competent. However, in spite of the commercial success
of this model as a management consulting tool, it has not garnered strong scientific
support.
Finally, research in behavioral approaches explored whether gender differences were
associated with leadership styles. In organizational studies, scholars found that female
leaders were only slightly more likely than male leaders to demonstrate a democratic
(versus autocratic) leadership style; however, female and male leaders do not differ in
their tendencies to manifest relational as opposed to task oriented behaviors.
 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S 5

Neo-charismatic theories
During the last 20–30 years of the 20th century, the effects of globalization, shifting
market conditions, and new technologies began to radically transform organizations.
New forms of leadership capable of envisioning these changes were required, and
neo-charismatic theories responded. They include visionary, charismatic, and trans-
formational leadership. These models all share similar characteristics by focusing on
winning follower support that goes beyond the terms of the employment contract.
Leaders proffer (sometimes sweeping) organizational visions designed to excite
followers and align their values and goals with those of the organization. The core ideas
are best captured in Bass’s (1985) transformational-transactional leadership theory.
As its name implies, Bass’s theory differentiates transformational leadership from
transactional leadership. Transformational leadership is defined by four factors: ideal-
ized influence (charisma), inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and indi-
vidualized consideration. Idealized influence refers to the charismatic appeal of leaders,
usually in the form of an organizational vision or through role modeling; inspirational
motivation describes leaders’ ability to instill confidence in followers, set high expec-
tations, and inspire action; intellectual stimulation is about leaders’ ability to tap into
followers’ intellectual talent, challenge their assumptions, and stimulate creative prob-
lem solving; and individualized consideration refers to behaviors that provide support
and mentoring aimed at followers’ individual development and self-actualization.
By contrast, transactional leadership achieves influence through self-interested social
and economic exchanges, including contingent reward and management-by-exception.
Contingent reward describes such leader behaviors as praising and rewarding follow-
ers for their performance accomplishments, while management-by-exception refers to
actively monitoring or passively reacting to followers’ rule violations.
While the charismatic appeal of an organizational leader in transformational lead-
ership usually resides in the form of an appealing organizational vision, charismatic
leadership theories tend to characterize charisma vis-à-vis the rhetorical and influence
oriented “gifts” ascribed to particular leaders (e.g., Martin Luther King). Other charis-
matic theories focus on the role of crises or follower dispositions as key situational
triggers of charismatic attributions, much the way former New York Mayor Rudy
Giuliani was lauded in the days following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon on September 11, 2001. However, these theories do not account for the dark
side of charisma, which explains the emergence of historical figures such as Adolf Hitler,
or cult leaders such as Jim Jones, who putatively led a mass suicide in Guyana in 1998.
In spite of their popularity, charismatic and transformational leadership models have
been criticized for lacking a clear and precise articulation of underlying influence pro-
cesses, a weakness suffered by most leader-centric theories. In other words, how trans-
formational influence works requires a great deal more investigation and theorizing.
Many scholars came to the realization that understanding the underlying influence pro-
cesses of these models requires a shift from a leader-centric view toward more follower-
centric and relationship based perspectives on leadership. Each is described below.
6 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S

The romance of leadership

The seminal work by Meindl (1995) pioneered the romance of leadership, a socially con-
structed view of leadership based on the sensemaking and attributional processes of
followers and other observers. In a nutshell, followers or others such as business press
writers or historians tend to cast leadership as the cause of great organizational suc-
cesses or failures. Leadership becomes a convenient sensemaking device or explanatory
category that people use to make causal inferences between events, leaders, and orga-
nizational outcomes in spite of the highly complex, ambiguous, and often confounding
nature of their organizational experiences. Leadership is thus “romanticized”; leaders
get undue credit for organizational successes and inordinate blame for organizational
failures.
Beyond this individual level of sensemaking and attribution, followers’ sense of lead-
ership may also be constructed at the group level through a process called social conta-
gion. Simply put, this describes the spread of leadership perceptions among followers
in a social group. It is at this level that communication and social interaction enter the
theory to explain how widespread the contagion is. Unfortunately, empirical studies
testing the social contagion model focused mostly on social network properties, such as
member proximity and group composition, instead of messages or communicative acts.

Leadership categorization theory

Lord’s leadership categorization theory offers another follower-centric cognitive theory,
which shares with Meindl the argument that followers’ social cognitive processes are a
critical part in forming leadership perceptions (see Medvedeff & Lord, 2007). The the-
ory rests on the assumption that people make sense of the world through cognitive cat-
egories, or schemas that are mental representations of knowledge gained through social
learning. Leadership is a cognitive category, known as the leadership prototype, which
people use to process social information. Followers recognize leadership by matching
informational stimuli they experience with their cognitive leadership prototype (e.g., a
leader is self-confident, sets goals, and so on). Followers also use the leadership proto-
type to infer how organizational outcomes are a consequence of certain leadership dis-
positions. As such, leadership categorization theory minimizes the impact of messages
and communicative acts, while focusing primarily on followers’ cognitive processes
concerning leaders.

Leader–member exchange
In addition to follower-centric approaches, leader–member relationship approaches
also broke away from the leader-centric approach. The most well known is
leader–member exchange theory (LMX). LMX defines leadership from the per-
spective of relationship development between leaders and “members,” or followers.
According to this theory (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1991), leaders discriminate in their
treatment of members based on the latter’s willingness to go beyond the terms of their
job descriptions or formal employment contract; in return, leaders reward members
 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S 7

with a greater share of their discretionary resources. For example, in high-quality

relationships (sometimes referred to as “in-group” relationships), leaders reward strong
contributors with more challenging tasks that can develop a member’s skillset, inside
information, greater autonomy in decision making, career coaching, and support
from the leader. In low-quality relationships (sometimes referred to as “out-group”
relationships), members typically do not go beyond the terms of their employment
contract and thus enjoy a much smaller share of the leaders’ resources. Medium-quality
LMX relationships usually fall somewhere in the middle.
The course of development from a low- to high-quality relationship constitutes
a process known as leadership making. Leadership making starts from an initial
role finding phase, in which leaders test the capabilities and motivations of mem-
bers in the first several months of new employment or job reassignment, and
members learn the expectations of leaders. Role finding evolves into the second
phase, role making, in which the relationship is individualized. For example, the
strongest members develop and display advocacy skills directed at helping the
leader do his or her job more effectively. In turn, more of the leaders’ resources
described above come their way. Role routinization is the third phase where the
maturity of a relationship is achieved through effective fulfillment of job tasks
and well-understood reciprocal norms. Interestingly, research has shown that new
LMX relationships can reach role routinization within the first three months of the
relationship.
Given the relationship focus of LMX, organizational communication scholars have
found a natural affinity with this theory and have made significant contributions to
understanding the role of communication in the development and outcomes of LMX.
Several lines of research have developed over the years. For example, one stream of
research conceptualizes leader–member communication as strategic choices where the
goal of research is to uncover the communication tactics used in LMX development.
Another line of studies investigates how differences in communication content and
style across various levels of LMX relationship quality may contribute to changes in
individual work outcomes. Specifically, past studies have revealed that person centered
communication in relation to LMX quality has positive effects on members’ percep-
tion of job satisfaction. Communication scholars have also examined the quality and
amount of communication with regard to LMX relationships. For example, members’
perceptions of higher levels of LMX are directly associated with the quantity and qual-
ity of information that members received from leaders. Most recently, communication
scholars proposed the construct leader member conversational quality with the goal of
uncovering the effects of communicative action on LMX quality and other individual
work outcomes.
So far, we have briefly reviewed key theoretical developments in the normative
discourse of leadership research. Fairhurst (2007) fittingly proposes the term leadership
psychology to capture several common features of this large body of literature. The most
distinctive is its primary concern with identifying the essence of leadership as an object
or with specifying universal lawlike statements that predict leadership emergence
or leadership effects. The explanatory mechanisms offered by this literature are also
largely psychological. Even for theories that emphasize leadership behaviors, including
8 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S

communication, behaviors are captured in research through perceptual judgments and

memory recall of past behaviors or through behavioral intentions. Since the goal of
science in normative discourse is explanation, prediction, and control, the predomi-
nant investigative methods are variable-analytic survey or experimental studies. As we
have already shown at various points, within normative leadership discourse, with a
few exceptions, communication is marginalized relative to mental stimuli, perceptions,
or other cognitive operations. Overall, organizational communication research within
this discourse has maintained a peripheral position.
In recent decades, however, normative leadership discourse has been seriously con-
tested, as other leadership discourses gathered force to reveal its weaknesses. Fairhurst’s
(2007) critique of leadership psychology summarizes these weaknesses by suggesting
that the psychological reduction of leadership overlooks communication as a primary
constitutive process of meaning making. The normative approach often undertheorizes
agency in spite of the prevailing “heroic” leadership assumption and claims. In addi-
tion, the tenacious search for the essence of leadership and generalizable relationships
across contexts loses sight of complex social and organizational processes, including the
ways in which culture influences leadership processes. As a result, normative psycho-
logical approaches are inadequate to account for the processes in which text, context,
and local knowledge work together to produce leadership phenomena. It is precisely
in these areas that other approaches to leadership research, including the interpretive,
critical, and dialogical lenses, have flourished in recent years.

Interpretive leadership theories and research

With an interpretive lens, leadership is constructed in communication and through

discourse. In marked contrast to the normative lens, which essentializes leadership
by locating it in the person or context, leadership is in the eye of the beholder with
an interpretive lens. If people differ in their attributions of leadership, the interpretive
lens sets out to study how these conflicting claims came about and might even coexist.
Also in contrast to the normative lens, the interpretive lens adopts a meaning centered
view of human communication; however, leaders are not the only or (necessarily)
primary symbolizing agents. Leaders and followers are co-managers of meaning, which
becomes necessary to understand how leadership may shift and distribute itself among
a number of individuals in a collaborative setting. As organizations have become
flatter through team based systems in more globalized environments, it has become
increasingly necessary to untie “leadership” from a hierarchical role and focus more
on those who advance the task and on how this might be done. Thus, we also see a
much more relational view of leadership being adopted by the interpretive lens, which
eschews the heavy focus on leaders within the normative lens, because leaders and
followers are, by definition, interdependent. The interpretive lens has several research
streams; they include a focus on sensemaking and framing, aesthetics, and influential
acts of human and material organizing.
 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S 9

Sensemaking and framing

Leaders and followers act and form their identities based on the ways in which they
construe the situations that befall them. However, sensemaking is not just a think-first,
act-second rational sequence of moves. Sensemaking may be retrospective, as in Weick’s
(1979) notion of “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” In other words, we
may act into a situation and make sense of it later on. It may also be collective, as when
the meaning of a situation is debated and decided through a co-created definition of
“the situation here and now.” Note that leadership attributions are often given to those
who can help others confidently sort through the uncertainty or undecidability of a
situation (Fairhurst, 2011). Nevertheless, sensemaking can be individual or collective,
prospective or retrospective.
When leaders or followers try to influence each other’s views of the world to help
them make sense of it in particular ways, this is often called framing. Frames are the
cognitive meaning structures that we possess (e.g., an optimistic versus pessimistic out-
look), while framing is the act of influencing those structures (e.g., “Can’t you see that
your glass is half full, not half empty?”). We also often define ourselves, individually
and collectively, from within these structures (e.g., “Who am I in this context? Who
are we?”); thus, the study of individual and collective identity is also tied to leadership
sensemaking and framing activities.
When interpretive scholars study leadership sensemaking, they often interview lead-
ers and followers. They may want to know how, through framing, leaders and followers
introduce, understand, or adopt a new organizational change initiative. They may also
want to contrast its framing by multiple stakeholders to reveal how frames conflict and
coincide. Finally, they may want to understand the identity work of leaders and fol-
lowers as they try to reconfigure new individual and/or collective selves from within a
change initiative; such identity framing may signal how much they are identifying with
the requested change and thus likely to adopt it.

Leadership aesthetics
The study of framing is not unrelated to leadership aesthetics, the second category of
interpretivist research. As Riley (1988) observed, “The notion of charisma, vision, and
culture all share a sense of the aesthetic – the art form of leadership … This requires
forms of analysis … sensitive to style, to the creation of meaning, and to the dramatic
edge of leadership” (p. 82). Analysts might study discourses, narratives, storytelling,
metaphors, ambiguity, or other language forms to understand the ways in which lead-
ers or followers in performative fashion persuasively define context, display authenticity,
create a sense of purpose, win ethical commitments, or trigger emotions. The aesthetics
genre is also much more likely to consider leaders’ and followers’ bodies, including gen-
dered bodies, in addition to the words and symbols invoked. Interpretivists criticize the
normative lens for too much reliance on the cognitive and symbolic to the neglect of
body possibilities (e.g., gesturing), artifacts (e.g., clothing, technology), and even emo-
tions (e.g., contagion) that affect attributions of leadership, but often in ways too difficult
10 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S

to measure. However, the study of evanescent leadership qualities, like presence, takes
on new meaning when such elements can be considered.

Influential acts of human and material organizing

Quite simply, these are the influential moves, turning points, or passage points in social
interaction in which collective action is made possible. Within this genre, the organi-
zation is considered in a constant state of becoming; that is, the organization is made
possible only through the actions of its agents. Clearly, leaders are central, although
certainly not the only ones involved in the organizing process. With this orientation in
mind, interpretive researchers want to know the kinds of interactional moves that, for
instance, help mobilize collectives, define leadership relationships, or enact organiza-
tional strategy.
Regarding mobilizing collectives, analysts study how leaders facilitate consensus,
move discussions toward closure, and spur decision making. They note the ways in
which leaders bond with followers (e.g., through use of the collective “we”) to create
collective identities, win commitments from them, or reinforce their obligations.
Regarding relationships, analysts typically study the language games leaders and fol-
lowers play together that ultimately create the high-, medium-, and low-quality rela-
tionships described above in leader–member exchange theory. For example, analysts
might note the ways that leaders and followers form tight bonds in high-quality rela-
tionships. The relative lack of status differences in high-quality LMX relationships might
make it very difficult to distinguish who were the leaders and who were the followers
based on shared control patterns. By contrast, in a low-quality leader–member relation-
ship, followers typically meet minimum standards, while leaders clearly demarcate their
respective roles through, for example, heavy performance monitoring of them or more
formalized communication – suggestive of distance, not closeness, between leaders and
followers. Middle group or medium-quality relationships could be some combination
of the first two.
Finally, analysts might study the ways in which organizational strategy is forged and
diffused by senior managers or taken up by middle managers and the rest of the organi-
zation. Analysts might study the ways in which senior managers bring the organization’s
history into “strategy talk,” how they invoke a moral order, or use organizational knowl-
edge. Alternatively, they might want to see how strategy talk finds its way into the
average performance appraisal to note the ways in which middle managers guide their
followers to organizational priorities.
The aforementioned studies all deal with acts of human organizing by leaders or fol-
lowers. However, a growing subgenre of studies from an interpretivist lens also involves
acts of human material organizing. By this, we mean leaders or followers are seen as
creating hybrid and networked relationships with material objects in their environment
(e.g., specific organizational texts like a mission statement, types of technology, other
bodies, locales, and so on). Hybrids suggest a partnership, so analysts try to show how
both humans and objects are made different by each other (e.g., consider the time and
 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S 11

space affordances of email or other technologies; however, those affordances do not sur-
face without human intervention to activate them). Networks suggest a string of objects
with which to form hybrid relationships.
For example, during an environmental catastrophe, a wise leader will form hybrid
relationships with key forms of technology (e.g., social media) in order to get the word
out faster than by traditional means; however, that person will also want to network with
a range of very specific objects, sites, and other materials such as evacuation centers,
medical supplies, first responders, and so on. Leadership effectiveness is judged based
on the degree to which leaders help create and mobilize these networks, much the way
former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was lauded for his hands-on management of
evacuation efforts and efficient use of technology during some of the California wild-
fires, while former Governor Kathleen Blanco took a lot of criticism for her handling of
Hurricane Katrina.
To summarize, the interpretive lens wants to understand how leadership is socially
constructed primarily (though not exclusively) through language and communication.
In contrast to the normative lens, it emphasizes a meaning centered view of
communication that often manifests itself with a focus on sensemaking and framing,
aesthetics, and influential acts of human material organizing. All in all, leadership can
vary widely within this lens as long as leaders, followers, or analysts see fit to make an
attribution of it; the task is to figure out how and why such attributions emerge.

Critical leadership theories and research

The critical lens is easy to understand if one takes all the sensibilities of an interpretive
lens and adds power to the mix. Most interpretive researchers leave open the possibility
of power and politics (e.g., waiting for one or more leadership actors to make an issue of
them); critical studies take them as their starting point and foreground them. However,
they do so in various ways. For example, Marxist or neo-Marxist perspectives focus on
forms of control that privilege elites such as managers, owners, or shareholders. They
might dismiss the term leadership altogether, or cast it as a form of domination, cit-
ing the normative lens, consultants’ business books, or consulting forays designed to
advance the latest and greatest new form of leadership. Similarly, postcolonial leader-
ship studies critique the dominance of Western views of leadership in a global business
context. They probe the undue influence of the United States, in particular, for presum-
ing universal standards by which other non-US locales are judged to be effective and
efficient without regard to local conditions and circumstances.
However, the largest category of critical leadership studies stems from poststructural-
ism. Much of this work is influenced by Michel Foucault’s sociological conception of
power and influence, which is more encompassing and likely to assume a variety of
positive and negative forms. For example, power shows itself in the ways we discipline
ourselves to behave in certain ways (e.g., to adopt a specific form of speech, dress code,
or demeanor), but it also supplies us with a toolbag – i.e., ways of thinking, speaking,
and acting to help us communicate. This means that leaders, not just followers, are pas-
sive receptors of meaning as much as they are managers of meaning. Finally, power and
12 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S

resistance co-occur; one follows on the heels of the other, so we must often attend to
the struggle between the two. Two major areas of poststructuralist study are relevant to
critical leadership studies; they include denaturalization and dialectics.

Denaturalization
This genre tries to understand how certain leadership situations appear “natural” or “the
way things are.” Power operates diffusely and under the radar in this genre as a result.
Particular emphasis is given to discursive practices involving language systems, texts,
or ways of talking along with such nondiscursive practices as institutionalized struc-
tures, social practices, or techniques regulating what appears normal or natural. For
example, discursive leadership examines the intersection of “little d” discourse language
practices (e.g., how leaders and followers take turns in social interaction, invoke or cre-
ate social categories in talk, use forms of address, and so on) with big “D” Discourses
that are more enduring sociohistorical systems of thought that supply communicating
actors with linguistic repertoires of terminology, habitual forms of argument, concepts,
categories, and so on (e.g., leadership style discourses like the one minute manager or
charismatic leader).
Such an approach enabled Fairhurst (2007) to interrogate executive coaching
leadership Discourses for the ways in which they discipline alpha male leaders to
control their emotions. Simultaneously, however, these Discourses also treated males
as the “norm” for senior leaders, thus leaving women out of the equation altogether
and making them appear as the “other.” Similarly, Parker (2005) wrote about the
ways in which Discourses of race neutrality impact African American women leaders
through unquestioned assumptions of superiority and inferiority directed toward
them. Organizational scholars have studied Discourses involving positive thinking and
corporate mothering, but also police and fire fighters, management trainees, and new
age leadership models (e.g., therapist) for the ways in which these Discourses make
certain form of leadership appear natural and neutral, yet discipline willing subjects
and often reinforce the status quo.
Some within the denaturalization genre critique the mainstream leadership Dis-
courses of the normative lens for hyping the practice of leadership when, in actuality,
it may involve a great deal of mundane work that does not match the romanticized
rhetoric of many popular leadership Discourses. These critical researchers believe
managers are too susceptible to inflating their jobs, although other critical scholars
challenge this argument. If leaders, followers, or any other constituency are using the
term leadership, the power- and influence-oriented language games they are playing
deserve investigation even though they may share only a family resemblance. Contra
traditional views of science and the normative lens, there is no right and final definition
of leadership to be had. This mirrors the view of the interpretivist lens; however, the
critical lens goes a step further by casting each attempt to define leadership as an
exercise in power.
 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S 13

Dialectics
Continuing with the theme of investigating power in complex and subtle ways, this
category of critical leadership scholarship argues that issues of control and resistance
are never a simple either/or choice. In leadership situations, these poles may fold into
each other, operate at more than one level, or mask each other’s effects. Tensions like
control and resistance often take on paradoxical qualities for these reasons; thus, it is
better to cast their intertwined relationship as one of struggle. This, of course, contin-
ues to redefine leadership less in terms of hierarchical position and more in terms of
situating leaders and followers at the intersection of these tensions and their ability to
manage them.
Following Giddens’s (1979, 1984) structuration theory, complex organizations are
always marked by an “antagonism of opposites” and the dialectic of control where
the less powerful exert a measure over the powerful. Many communication scholars
have used such a lens to understand leadership within military and prison settings,
innovation contexts, downsizings, and other organizational change situations. For
example, Jian (2007) used a structuration lens to study the unintended consequences
of a planned organizational change. Demonstrating the dialectic of control through
conflictual relationships between a variety of management and employee groups, orga-
nizational leaders needed to shift from monologues to dialogues to more substantively
ground the organizational change and minimize unplanned outcomes.
However, a structuration lens has been just one of the theories used to investigate
the complexity of leading and following in turbulent environments due to dialectical
tensions. Also, besides control/resistance, many such tensions have been researched,
including order/disorder, rationality/irrationality, overt/covert, dissent/consent,
predictable/unpredictable, men/women, reason/emotion, exploration/exploitation,
stable/fluid, and many more. Increasingly, the process of organizing appears to emerge
from the collision of these forces; they have become the new normal rather than
anomalies or system breaches. The routine processes and discourses of organizing that
leadership must confront are now defined by dilemmas, dissonance, and irrationali-
ties – oftentimes the product of multiple and interrelated tensions – that characterized
complex and rapidly changing environments. It should be noted that some foreground
power processes more than others.
If leadership is defined by the ability to manage such tensions, are leaders and follow-
ers up to the challenge of managing them? A number of tension management strategies
have been articulated in the literature; for example, Tracy (2004) has described them in
three ways:

1. “Either/or” strategies suggest choosing one pole (e.g., exploitation) to the neglect
of the other (e.g., exploration); however, much of the literature encourages leaders
to avoid such simplistic thinking.
2. “Both/and” strategies suggest finding creative ways to address both poles simulta-
neously (e.g., exploration and exploitation through resource allocation), and much
of the literature hails such ambidexterity by leaders.
14 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S

3. “Impossible choice” strategies suggest double binds and paralysis (“damned if you
do, damned if you don’t”).

The task of a lot of the research in this area is to understand why some leaders find
room to maneuver within such paradoxical situations, while others are hopelessly
stymied.
In sum, critical leadership scholars pay attention to the interests of multiple stake-
holders in tension management, voices privileged or silenced, and the unintended con-
sequences of action. All these value commitments reflect their interests in power and
politics and a desire to emancipate those who are at the margins.

Dialogical leadership theories and research

One of the latest developments in leadership research is anchored in a dialogical view of

leadership. Dialogical here does not simply refer to dialogue in its literal sense between
leaders and followers, but also a metaphorical sense of being relational – that is, answer-
able and responsive to each other (Bakhtin, 1984). Dialogical refers to the idea that
meaning gets created not simply in the heads of individuals, but in the interactions
among individuals and between discourses within social, relational contexts. Yet, it is
different from interpretive and critical approaches in that the dialogical approach has a
strong focus on praxis – that is, matters of practice or application.
To understand the dialogical approach, first, it is important to appreciate the
concept of relationality, which is an ontology of being that breaks away from the
individualist view of human existence that we have inherited since the Enlightenment
era. Second, the dialogical approach associates itself with leadership praxis and a line
of inquiry known as practical theory, which uses leadership theory and research as a
developmental tool. Third is the art of leadership conversation, which sensitizes actors
to the ways in which conversational moments can inspire change, renewal, and moral
accountability. Finally, reflexivity encourages the building of a critical and conscious
awareness through the art of conversation or dialogue to encourage more morally
responsive and responsible organizational and leadership actions. In the following we
elaborate on each of these four aspects.

Relationality
Arguably, how we study leadership is largely decided by a basic assumption about what
defines our very being. The dominant assumption has been that we exist as autonomous
beings with our own individual characteristics, feelings, thoughts, will, and intentions.
We can call this an atom-like or individualist view of self. We typically take this as our
natural state of existence. It is not coincidental that a leader-centric approach to leader-
ship research has prospered for more than a century because it matches and appeals to
our individualist view of being. However, this seemingly commonsensical assumption
has been challenged and its flaws and limitations exposed. In its stead, a relational being
has been proposed (Gergen, 2009).
 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S 15

A relational being means that multiple relationships constitute who we are. Those
individualistic features that we assume we own, such as our individual thoughts and
emotions, are, in fact, created relationally with others. Leadership is no exception.
This relational leadership view is different from the LMX theory we reviewed earlier
within the normative discourse. Although it focuses on leader–member relationship
building, LMX sees leadership as part of a tripartite system constituted by the leader,
members, and the relationship; the relationship is extracted and abstracted from
individual psychological perceptions and thought to feed into individual (leader or
member) cognitive and affective states. Thus, LMX is still based on the individualist
view of being.
By contrast, leadership informed by a relational ontology is defined as “a way of being
and relating with others, embedded in everyday experience and interwoven with a sense
of moral responsibility” (Cunliffe & Eriksen, 2011, p. 1432). Being a relational leader
means being morally responsible and accountable to all those who help define that rela-
tionship. Being relational means being sensitive to the potential for dialogue with others
with whom we relate. However, we can unpack the notion of leadership praxis based on
a relational ontology further by understanding a particular strand of leadership theory:
practical theory.

Practical theory of leadership

The dialogical approach to leadership draws upon practical theory and assumes a reflex-
ive relationship between theory and practice. Other discourses of leadership research
tend to suffer a dualistic bias, which is to separate theory from practice and prioritize
one over the other. For example, in normative leadership discourse, the primary pur-
pose of leadership research is to build leadership theories that help explain, predict, and
control leadership practice. Thus, theory is primary and practice secondary. In critical
discourse, the primary purpose of leadership research is for social and organizational
change through critical reflection of leadership practice; however, theory commands a
greater role in enabling critical analyses. Critical leadership researchers tend to assume
an elitist critical position over practice, the latter of which is to be transformed by the
former. In the interpretive tradition, leadership practice is given priority over theory
by emphasizing the importance of local knowledge and an organizational context that
renders leadership practice unique.
By contrast to all these preceding scientific discourses, a practical theory of leader-
ship eschews a dualistic and hierarchical relationship between theory and practice and
embraces a reflexive one instead. In this way, leadership theory and practice provide a
source of growth for each other. Drawing upon work by Barge (2001), leadership the-
ory is grounded in practice and judged by its usefulness in practice, whereas practice
is guided, but not dictated, by theory and always maintains its spontaneity and respon-
siveness to local contexts and relational needs. A practical theory of leadership gives
attention to two related leadership practices: leadership conversation and reflexivity.
We describe these below.
16 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S

The art of leadership conversation

Drawing on Russian theorist Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism (1981), leadership process
has to be understood as it is actually experienced and practiced, that is, as living con-
versations among leadership actors. A conversational focus is critical because (1) our
perceptions about leadership are constructed in conversations; (2) we act and progress
our tasks as a collective, literally, in conversations; (3) in conversations we continuously
affirm, negotiate, or alter our relationships and our moral commitments to each other;
and (4) conversations unfold in an emergent and improvisational manner at any given
moment, which opens up opportunities for change.
Cunliffe and Eriksen (2011) argue that leadership is about cultivating the practical
wisdom of managing leadership conversations by creating open dialogue, noticing and
being responsive to moments of difference, and creating new paths in conversations.
Extending Karl Weick’s concept of sensemaking and the social constructionist view we
discussed in the interpretive discourse, Barge and Fairhurst (2008) offered a practical
theory of leadership, known as systemic social constructionism. The theory gives direct
attention to how leadership conversations help create meaning at both individual and
collective levels, develop order and positions of difference, and generate energy and
opportunities for change.
Attention to the praxis of leadership conversation also has an inherent moral dimen-
sion. Unlike the universal moral principles in critical leadership research or the kind
of heroic moral behaviors promoted in the normative discourse of leadership, practical
theories of leadership explore the morality of leadership action in relational contexts
and lived situations. Being in a conversation or dialogue means that we are morally
bound to be responsive to the other and to the present context that connects the past
and future. Leadership actors are required to be sensible and answerable to such moral
demands in the continuous and unfolding stream of conversation. In addition to such
moral demands exerted by conversation or dialogue itself, Barker (2005) argued that
rhetoric in the form of reasoned arguments in dialogue could help locate more ethi-
cal positions in decision making. In his discussion of the ethics of control, he illustrated
how a discursive process allows leadership actors to deduce ethical value configurations
that are answerable to a practical reality.

Reflexivity
Reflexivity in leadership praxis refers to conversations between leaders and members
that collectively and critically reflect on the interconnectedness among action (includ-
ing communicative action), meaning, assumptions, and context (Barge, 2004). Reflex-
ivity goes beyond cognitive self-reflection by a leader, which is an individual-based
introspective activity regarding a leader’s own characteristics and biases. By contrast,
reflexive practice takes place in conversations often initiated by a leader as a form of
collective self-observation with the goal of bringing attention to hidden cultural biases
and logics of action, layered contexts, and diverse interpretations of events and actions.
It draws from a relational ontology discussed earlier that conceptualizes humans as rela-
tional beings (instead of autonomous selves) and relationality as an inherent part of
human action. Though often overlooked, whatever we do has relational implications
 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S 17

and impacts the views of social reality that we co-construct. Reflexive practice stresses
the importance of the relational responsiveness of action. This practice is not just about
understanding the past or present but also about co-creating opportunities and possible
futures through morally guided conversations. To bring change to the present, reflexive
practice is expected to empower both leader and members in coauthoring a course of
action with greater legitimacy and commitment.

Current trends and future directions

In our brief journey through the vast expanse of leadership research landscape, we have
witnessed how scholars conceptualize and investigate leadership from various vantage
points. By juxtaposing the four discursive lenses, from the normative and interpretive to
the critical and dialogical, a few trends stand out across these streams of research. First,
a shift becomes clear: we are moving from a dominant masculine and leader-centric
view of leadership to a distributed perspective in which a variety of leadership actors
have agency and coauthor social or organizational change.
Second, capitalizing on the momentum of the linguistic turn that impacted philoso-
phy and social sciences a few decades ago, a communicative turn in leadership research
has been gradually taking hold (Fairhurst & Connaughton, 2014). As we have seen
in this gradual shift, communication has been elevated from a secondary component
of psychological theories to become the central explanatory mechanism that stitches
together the psychological, sociological, and historical threads in the leadership process.
Third, related to this communicative turn, we have observed a deepened understand-
ing of communication itself in producing leadership effects. In the normative tradition,
communication is largely understood as representational and transmissional of thought
processes. From the interpretive lens, we learn that communication is at the center of
meaning making. Through the critical lens, we begin to grasp the potent power effects
of communication. Finally, it is through the dialogical lens that we learn to appreciate
the performative, historical, and improvisational nature of leadership conversation and
its potential in shaping relationships and driving change.
Finally, we have observed a growing concern with morality, which earlier leader-
ship research did relatively little to develop (e.g., neo-charismatic theories see morality
from a leader-centric view as innate or developed in the personal integrity or character
of leaders). Critical scholars not only go beyond individual moral character, but also
expose the systemic, sociocultural processes that influence moral decisions and grow
both the positive and the deviant, dark side of leadership. More recent developments in
dialogical scholarship highlight the relational nature of morality as infused in the every-
day practice of leadership conversations. Morality is not seen as a collection of abstract
principles or heroic leaders’ personal quality. Rather, as we discussed earlier, morality
is exhibited in leadership actors’ relational responsiveness to others in situated social
interactions.
In spite of the tremendous advancement made by scholars in nearly a century, the
field of leadership research still holds countless opportunities for further growth. First,
emerging technologies engender new platforms for organizing, authoring, relating, and
18 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S

influencing in innovative ways. As the Internet and new technologies continue to trans-
form our conventional work design and as social media redefine voice and social influ-
ence, the next generation of leadership research has to be responsive to this shifting
technological environment. In particular, leadership theories need to better account
for the human material/technology connection in achieving leadership effects.
Second, existing leadership theories are largely authored by scholars from the West
and drawn from the contexts of industrialized societies. Against the backdrop of the
globalization of commerce, education, and human migration, it is imperative to under-
stand leadership in non-Western societies and in multicultural/national contexts. In the
last decade or so, we have only begun to see empirical studies emerging that address
leadership in China, Southeast Asia, and South America. The GLOBE project (House
et al., 2004) represents another ambitious attempt in this direction. Part of the project
was designed to compare values and ideals for outstanding leaders across national cul-
tures. In spite of its leader-centric approach and heavily normative discourse, the project
offers valuable information on an unprecedented global scale.
Third, organizational and social problems have become increasingly complex,
intractable, and interdisciplinary. They are often imbued with moral dilemmas and
contradictions and defy ready-made solutions. Yet, existing leadership theories are
woefully inadequate to account for such complex leadership processes, which call for
more holistic and nonlinear solutions.
Finally, leadership research could benefit from greater innovation in methods. The
complexity of leadership processes calls for innovative research designs that employ
mixed methodologies and multilevel analyses. This would require students of leadership
to be versed in more than one particular scientific discourse. Cross-pollination across
these discourses in both theory and method holds the promise of a brighter future for
leadership research.

SEE ALSO: Contradictions, Tensions, Paradoxes, and Dialectics; Critical Approaches;

Dialogic Perspectives; Discursive Construction; Influence; Interpretive Approaches;
Sensemaking; Structuration Theory; Supervisor–Subordinate Communication

References

Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). Discourse in the novel. In M. Holquist (Ed.), The dialogic imagination:
Four essays by M. M. Bakhtin (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans., pp. 259–422). Austin, TX:
University of Texas Press.
Bakhtin, M. M. (1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics (C. Emerson, Ed. and Trans.). Minneapo-
lis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Barge, J. K. (2001). Practical theory as mapping, engaged reflection, and transformative practice.
Communication Theory, 11, 5–13. doi:10.1093/ct/11.1.5
Barge, J. K. (2004). Reflexivity and managerial practice. Communication Monographs, 71(1),
70–96. doi:10.1080/03634520410001691465
Barge, J. K., & Fairhurst, G. T. (2008). Living leadership: A systemic constructionist approach.
Leadership, 4(3), 227–251. doi:10.1177/1742715008092360
Barker, J. R. (2005). Toward a philosophical orientation on control. Organization, 12(5), 787–797.
doi:10.1177/1350508405055949
 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S 19

Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York, NY: Free Press.
Blanchard, K., Zigarmi, P., & Zigarmi, D. (2013). Leadership and the one minute manager: Increas-
ing effectiveness through situational leadership®II . New York, NY: William Morrow.
Cunliffe, A. L., & Eriksen, M. (2011). Relational leadership. Human Relations, 64(11), 1425–1449.
doi:10.1177/0018726711418388
Deetz, S. (2001). Conceptual foundations. In F. M. Jablin & L. L. Putnam (Eds.), The new hand-
book of organizational communication: Advances in theory, research, and methods (pp. 3–46).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Eagly, A. H., & Carli, L. L. (2003). The female leadership advantage: An evaluation of the evi-
dence. Leadership Quarterly, 14, 807–834. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2003.09.004
Fairhurst, G. T. (2007). Discursive leadership: In conversation with leadership psychology. Thou-
sand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Fairhurst, G. T. (2011). The power of framing: Creating the language of leadership. San Francisco,
CA: Jossey-Bass.
Fairhurst, G. T., & Connaughton, S. (2014). Leadership: A communication perspective. Leader-
ship, 10, 7–35. doi:10.1177/1742715013509396
Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. Oxford, UK: Oxford University
Press.
Giddens, A. (1979). Central problems in social theory. Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press.
Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Graen, G. B., & Uhl-Bien, M. (1991). The transformation of professionals into self-managing
and partially self-designing contributors: Toward a theory of leadership-making. Journal of
Management Systems, 3, 25–39.
House, R. J., Hanges, P. J., Dorfman, P. W., & Gupta, V. (Eds.). (2004). Culture, leadership, and
organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Jian, G. (2007). Unpacking unintended consequences in planned organizational change:
A process model. Management Communication Quarterly, 21, 5–28. doi:10.1177/
0893318907301986
Medvedeff, M. E., & Lord, R. G. (2007). Implicit leadership theories as dynamic processing struc-
tures. In B. Shamir, R. Pillai, M. C. Bligh, & M. Uhl-Bien (Eds.), Follower-centered perspectives
on leadership: A tribute to the memory of James R. Meindl (pp. 19–50). Greenwich, CT: Infor-
mation Age Publishing.
Meindl, J. R. (1995). The romance of leadership as a follower-centric theory: A social construc-
tionist approach. Leadership Quarterly, 6(3), 329–341. doi:10.1016/1048-9843(95)90012-8
Mumford, M. D., Zaccaro, S. J., Harding, F. D., Jacobs, T. W., & Fleishman, E. A. (2000). Leader-
ship skills for a changing world: Solving complex social problems. The Leadership Quarterly,
11(1), 11–35. doi:10.1016/s1048-9843(99)00041-7
Parker, P. (2005). Race, gender, and leadership. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Riley, P. (1988). The merger of macro and micro levels of leadership. In J. G. Hunt, B. R. Baglia,
H. P. Dachler, & C. A. Schriesheim (Eds.), Emerging leadership vistas (pp. 80–83). Lexington,
MA: Lexington Books.
Stogdill, R. M. (1948). Personal factors associated with leadership: A survey of the literature.
Journal of Psychology, 25, 35–71. doi:10.1080/00223980.1948.9917362
Tracy, S. (2004). Dialectic, contradiction, or double bind? Analyzing and theorizing employee
reactions to organizational tensions. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 32, 81–88.
doi:10.1080/0090988042000210025
Weick, K. E. (1979). The social psychology of organizing (2nd Ed.). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Zaccaro, S. J. (2007). Trait-based perspectives of leadership. American Psychologist, 62(1), 6–16.
doi:10.1037/0003-066X.62.1.6
20 LE A D E R S H I P IN OR G A N I Z AT I O N S

Further reading

Bakar, H. A., Dilbeck, K. E., & McCroskey, J. C. (2010). Mediating role of supervi-
sory communication practices on relations between leader–member exchange and per-
ceived employee commitment to workgroup. Communication Monographs, 77(4), 637–656.
doi:10.1080/03637751.2010.499104
Browning, B., & Boys, S. (2015). An organization on hold and interim leadership in demand: A
case study of individual and organizational identity. Communication Studies, 66(2), 165–185.
doi:10.1080/10510974.2014.904810
Fairhurst, G. T., & Grant, D. (2010). The social construction of leadership: A sailing guide. Man-
agement Communication Quarterly, 24(2): 171–210. doi:10.1177/0893318909359697
Gardner, W. L. (2003). Perceptions of leader charisma, effectiveness, and integrity: Effects
of exemplification, delivery, and ethical reputation. Management Communication Quarterly,
16(4), 502–527. doi:10.1177/0893318903251324
Grint, K. (2010). Leadership: A very short introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Jian, G., Shi, X., & Dalisay, F. (2014). Leader–member conversational quality: Scale development
and validation through three studies. Management Communication Quarterly, 28 (3), 375–403.
doi:10.1177/0893318914533201
Krone, K. J., Chen, L., Sloan, D. K., & Gallant, L. M. (1997). Managerial emotionality
in Chinese factories. Management Communication Quarterly, 11(1), 6–50. doi:10.1177/
0893318997111002
Levine, K. J., Muenchen, R. A., & Brooks, A. M. (2010). Measuring transformational and
charismatic leadership: Why isn’t charisma measured? Communication Monographs, 77(4),
576–591. doi:10.1080/03637751.2010.499368
Liu, H. (2010). When leaders fail: A typology of failures and framing strategies. Management
Communication Quarterly, 24(2), 232–259. doi:10.1177/0893318909359085
Tourish, D. (2013). The dark side of transformational leadership: A critical perspective. London,
UK: Routledge.

Guowei Jian is associate professor in the School of Communication at Cleveland State

University, USA. His research interests include organizational communication, lead-
ership, and intercultural communication. He also studies work participation and civic
engagement. His research appears in Communication Research, Communication Mono-
graphs, Organization, Management Communication Quarterly, International Journal of
Business Communication, Discourse & Communication, and The Handbook of Business
Discourse, among others.

Gail T. Fairhurst is professor of organizational communication at the University of

Cincinnati, USA. Her research and writing interests are in organizational communi-
cation, organizational discourse, and leadership processes, including problem centered
leadership and framing, and organizational discourse analysis. She has published more
than 70 articles and chapters in communication and management journals and books.
She is the author of three books: The Power of Framing: Challenging the Language of
Leadership (2011), Discursive Leadership: In Conversation with Leadership Psychology
(2007), and (with R. A. Sarr) The Art of Framing: Managing the Language of Leader-
ship (1996). She is a Fellow of the International Communication Association, a Distin-
guished Scholar of the National Communication Association, and a Fulbright Scholar.