Skip to main content icon/video/no-internet
icon backReturn to Entries

Leadership

Leadership is an increasingly popular area of study and is currently being investigated by communication scholars in addition to researchers in management, organizational behavior, and psychology. Because many people have conceptualized leadership as a web where the relationships of a leader and their members are delicately yet inextricably intertwined, researchers can explore a variety of communication topics ranging from the traits and behaviors of leaders themselves, to how they interact with and develop relationships with each follower, and how individual leader–member relationships impact the collective functioning of the group. Communication researchers in particular have found this a fruitful area of inquiry because of the communication-rich areas of leadership, such as relationship development and maintenance and how verbal and nonverbal communication strategies are employed to make meaning, to advocate for one’s self, to exert authority, and to problem solve. Similarly, this area is also particularly attractive as communication researchers have found success in utilizing quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods to conduct leadership research.

This entry discusses leadership-based communication research commencing with a view of the research process, techniques for generating relevant research questions and/or hypotheses, suggestions for conducting impactful literature reviews by presenting traditional theories, and methods used in this regard. This entry also explores commonly employed methods for data analysis, ideas for publishing findings, and tips for conducting ethical research. The entry concludes with a section that explores challenges and opportunities for conducting leadership research, acknowledging how specific trends such as globalization and the increase of virtual teams may impact this area of study.

Research Process

There are a variety of ways that communication researchers approach the area of leadership. Some communication researchers may be more likely to utilize a social scientific approach where scholars seek to study leadership in a way where they can draw generalizable conclusions about leaders and leadership constructs to apply broadly. In contrast, others may assume a discursive leadership approach. This perspective suggests that leadership is negotiated in relationship with various actors within the leadership context, which is socially constructed through communication. Neither approach is right or wrong, but instead, will align with one’s research philosophy (i.e., reference entries on epistemology, ontology, and axiology). That is, researchers make assumptions about human nature that carry over to the way in which they perceive and understand leadership. Thus, basic assumptions about the ways in which leadership is enacted—how relationships develop and are maintained, and the role of communication within these contexts—impact the questions researchers ask (or the hypotheses they forward), the methods they adopt, and the interpretation of findings. The following sections discuss how communication scholars may employ various theories and methods for creating research questions and hypotheses, noting how scholarship within this area may differ substantially based on one’s individual perspective of leadership.

Conducting a Literature Review

Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus suggest that leadership is among the most studied and least understood concepts. This observation may have developed because there are seemingly endless trajectories to explore within leadership research. At its core, leadership has two primary ingredients: the people and the tasks. However, if one dissects this further, then one can easily see how in regard to the people, one may consider leaders and followers. With tasks, one may consider job-related needs, such as deadlines and production, but one may also look at the relational responsibilities nested within leading and following. It is possible to narrow within these categories even more—for example, by looking at different leadership styles and their impact on various aspects of the organization (e.g., productivity, satisfaction) thus helping to demonstrate why there are so many options for conducting a literature review. In an effort to provide concrete tips for those new to leadership research, common search terms will be discussed and tips for assessing the credibility and applicability of research findings will also be forwarded.

...

  • Loading...
locked icon

Sign in to access this content

Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL

  • Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life
  • Read modern, diverse business cases
  • Explore hundreds of books and reference titles

Read next

More like this

Sage Recommends

We found other relevant content for you on other Sage platforms.

close

Have you created a personal profile? Login or create a profile so that you can save clips, playlists and searches

close
close
close Signed In to profile You are signed in as:
close
Logged in Institution Institution