Leader-member relations as a function of rapport management.

Leader-member interaction is important to organizations. Unfortunately, such exchanges can also be a leading cause of employee distress. Recent Research calls for leaders to develop higher quality relations with their members, which in turn will increase communication satisfaction. Scholars have also suggested additional research that focuses on interaction between leaders and members to better understand how leaders can and should manage such relationships. However, there is considerable evidence that leaders and members do not agree about the quality of their relationship. In this article, we address how leaders can build better relations with their members. Specifically, we explain how leaders might improve the quality of their relationship with members by focusing on interpersonal communication strategy. First, we focus on a competing values framework to clearly establish the importance of relations building in effective management. Second, we define communication strategies for building better leader-member relationships by borrowing concepts from rapport management in sociolinguistics. Finally, we demonstrate how our model of leadership communication (based on a synthesis of competing values and rapport management theory) explains the quality of leader-member exchanges.

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At least since 1970s, there has been clear evidence that managers spend a great deal of their time in face-to-face exchange with subordinates as part of their organizational role (Mintzberg, 1975). Unfortunately, Basch and Fisher (2000) found that:

Of all interactions at an international hotel chain that pitched

employees into bad moods, the most frequent was talking to someone

in management. Interactions with bosses led to bad

feelings--frustration, disappointment, anger, sadness, disgust, or

hurt--about nine out of ten times. These interactions were the

cause of distress more often than customers, work pressure, company

polices, or personal problems. (p. 36)

As further evidence of the discrepancy between leaders' actual and needed communication skills, a recent Academy of Management/Training magazine survey of leadership development programs find that, of all required leadership skills, communication is of most value to organizations. Unfortunately, the survey also found that, of all required leadership skills, communication showed the largest gap between importance to the organization and current competency Delahoussaye, 2001a, 2001b).

Research has established that perceived communication satisfaction is crucial to employee productivity (Clampitt & Downs, 1993), job satisfaction (Wheeless, Wheeless, & Howard, 1984), job performance (Pincus, 1986), and organizational effectiveness (Tubbs & Hain, 1979). A recent study (Mueller & Lee, 2002) finds clear evidence to support a link between employee communication satisfaction and leader-member relations. These researchers conclude that: "To increase overall level of communication satisfaction [for interpersonal, group and organization levels] among their subordinates, superiors should offer opportunities to develop and maintain higher-quality [leader-member] exchanges with as many subordinates as possible (p. 235)." Unfortunately, research has established little perceptual congruence in leaders' and members' evaluations of the quality of their mutual relationship (Boyd & Jensen, 1973; Gerstner & Day, 1997; Schnake, Dumler, Cochran & Barnett, 1990). Given this situation, precisely how can leaders build better quality relations with all of their members?

Our goal in this article is to answer this important question by explaining how leaders can improve their relationships with members by focusing on interpersonal communication strategy. To do so we first focus on a competing values framework to clearly establish the importance of relationship building in effective management. Second, we define communication strategies for building better leader-member relationships by borrowing concepts from rapport management in sociolinguistics. Finally, we demonstrate how these communication strategies apply in leader-member exchanges.

Perspectives on Leader Communication

The predominant perspective on leadership communication is one in which persuasion is key. For instance, in his interviews with 200 organizational leaders, Bass (1990) found that effective leaders/managers actively sought information from others and possessed the persuasive skills required to convince others of the quality of their ideas. Similarly, in The Language of Leadership, Soder (2001) demonstrate the central role of persuasion in conceptions of effective leadership from Greco-Roman through modern times. He argues that "without the ability to persuade, leaders will have no following" (p. 25). Soder emphasizes persuasive language use by charismatic public leaders like Winston Churchill. In The Art of Framing: Managing the Language of Leadership, Fairhurst and Sarr (1996) emphasize the language of everyday leaders in organizations and argue that their effectiveness likes in their ability to manage meaning by framing: "a quality of communication that causes others to accept one meaning over another" (p. xi). Yukl and his colleagues (e.g., Yukl & Falbe, 1990; Falbe & Yukl, 1992; Yukl, Guinan & Sottolano, 1995) have identified nine influence strategies used by managers, and have tested the relative effectiveness of those strategies, as well as directional differences in tactic use among dyads involving subordinates, peers and superiors.

Despite the differences in their approaches to leadership communication, these authors posit leadership communication skill as a means by which leaders expertly control members in order to manipulate (i.e., "persuade," "influence," or "direct") them to achieve the leader's/organization's goals. While we agree that persuasion is important in describing leadership effectiveness, it is crucial to recognize the importance of relationship-building (seeking to achieve human commitment to the organization). It is commonplace in leadership theory not only to differentiate between leadership behaviors that are task-focused and those that are relationship-focused, but also to include interpersonal as well as persuasiveness skills under relationship-focused behaviors (see Table 1).

Some have called discourse that builds relationships supportive communication (e.g., Bass, 1990; Whetton & Cameron, 1995). Fairhurst and Chandler (1989) note differences in supportive communication between in-group, mid-group, and out-group members using the Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) model (Graen & Cashman, 1975). Leaders do not interact with all members on an equal basis; higher quality LMXs involve greater levels of information exchange and members have more opportunities for participation in the decision making process (Mueller & Lee, 2002). In contrast, lower quality LMX relationships involve more formal supervision and fewer interactions between leader and member. Our approach in this article extends this body of work by placing relationship-building within the context of all management communication behaviors in a competing values model.

Researchers have extended the competing values management model to argue that effective management messages must reflect multiple value quadrants (i.e., competing goals) to be effective (Quinn, Hildebrandt, Rogers & Thompson, 1991) (see Figure 1).

Those researchers provide the following example:

A presentation ... that is high on all the descriptors associated

with the informational quadrant and yet possesses none of the

characteristics associated with the transformational communication

quadrant may be so boring and monotonic as to receive virtually no

consideration. (Quinn et al., 1991, p. 226)

Face-to-face interaction between a leader and member can also be described within a competing values framework:

Leader: Where are we on the system upgrade plan?

Member: We had hoped to finish our analysis last week but we are

concerned about potential impacts to the security team. Bill

noticed ...

Leader: [interrupting] Our report has to be ready next week.

Member: I think we need information before we recommend

changes to the system.

Leader: More information won't make this problem easier to solve.

In this exchange, the leader's language rates high on instructing (right, lower quadrant of Figure 1) and informing (left, lower quadrant) but low on building a relationship with the member (left, upper quadrant). We suspect that this type of interchange exemplifies those that lead to member frustration rather than satisfaction. Moreover, we can be virtually certain that both communication satisfaction and the quality of the leader-member exchange are low when enough of these interchanges occur.

Not surprisingly, managerial leaders show strong preferences for communication styles typified by a certain value quadrant in Figure 1. For instance, a leader might be predisposed to communicate in a way that emphasizes adaptation--she seeks opportunities for change and growth by soliciting ideas from members within her organization. Although this communication style may sometimes be effective, research tells us that leaders who are able to focus on all for value quadrants achieve higher levels of performance (e.g., Hart & Quinn, 1993). Thus, a leader must recognize not only when and how to seek opportunities for change and growth, but also when and how to establish clear standards for internal processes, and when and how to build human commitment.