the moral leader's communication style and its effect on employee job satisfaction

Running head: COMMUNICATION AND THE MORAL LEADER 1

The Moral Leader’s Communication Style and

its Effect on Employee Job Satisfaction

Kimberly D. Bynum

Jacksonville University

Author Note

Kimberly D. Bynum, Davis College of Business, Jacksonville University

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kimberly Bynum.

Contact: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

COMMUNICATION AND THE MORAL LEADER 2

Abstract

Previous research on communication styles and leadership styles and their effects on leader

outcomes has identified dominant communication-leadership style pairings as well as specific

impacts on leadership outcomes. However, these studies have failed to explore the actionable

communication behaviors of moral leaders. This paper briefly reviews the research on

communication and leadership style pairings, with a focus on moral leadership and its associated

communication style. Moral leadership is defined, its associated communication behaviors

identified, and the effect on employee job satisfaction discussed. Implications for future areas of

research are presented.

Keywords: communication, moral leadership, employee job satisfaction


The Moral Leader’s Communication Style and its Effect on Employee Job Satisfaction

Introduction

Leadership theory continues to evolve in response to the current social context in which

academic researchers find themselves. The bridge from transactional to transformational

leadership spanned from our fixation on charismatic personalities in the 1980’s and 1990’s,

while the ethics scandals of the past two decades have led researchers to integrate an ethical or

moral component into leadership theory. By modeling ethical behavior through personal

example, communication and personality characteristics, the moral leadership construct

integrates and transcends previous leadership constructs (Brown & Trevino, 2006).

Although a robust discourse on ethics, morality and leadership is beyond the scope of this

paper, a focused look at how the moral leader communicates his or her ethics and values to

employees serves as a practical starting point in better understanding how communication and

negotiation skills moderate the relationship between the moral leader and stakeholder

satisfaction. While this paper explores employee job satisfaction as one specific moral

leadership outcome, future research within this framework might examine additional leadership

outcomes relating to stakeholder satisfaction such as job productivity, profitability, customer

satisfaction, etc.

Literature Review

Moral Leadership’s Place in the Evolution of Leadership Theory

The development and evolution in management theory during the past several decades is

illustrated in the paradigmatic shifts from an analytical approach, to a systems approach, to an

actor’s approach (Lowder, 2009). Contemporary leadership models include transactional,

charismatic, transformational, servant and most recently, moral. Transactional leaders engage in


a process of social exchanges involving a number of reward-based transactions with followers

(Avolio & Bass, 1999; Bass, 1990). Trevino & Brown (2006) noted that ethical leaders use a

transactional leadership process when holding themselves and subordinates accountable for

conducting themselves in an ethical manner. Transactional leaders are task-oriented thus much

less communication-dependent than other leadership constructs. This leads some scholars to

classify transactional leaders as managers rather than leaders. (DeVries, 2010). Charismatic

leaders exemplify extraordinarily powerful leadership characteristics that inspire and direct

followers by building their commitment to a shared vision (Hoogh et al., 2004; Mannarelli,

2006). Third, transformational leaders inspire followers to share a vision and empower them to

attain the vision by providing the necessary resources to develop their full personal potential

(Bass, 1990, 1999; Bass & Avolio, 1993). Burns (1978) equated transformational and moral

leadership because both leadership constructs focus on working together for the collective good.

However, other researchers argued that transformational leadership could result in ethical or

unethical outcomes delineating between the two leadership constructs. Next, servant leaders

place their follower’s interest before their own, emphasize their follower’s personal

development, and empower their followers (Banutu-Gomez, 2004; Covey, 2006; Rowe, 2003;

M. Wheatley, 2004). Fifth and finally, moral leaders consider the viewpoints and needs of all

who have an interest in a decision's outcomes, rather than simply the most powerful. Moral

leaders distinguish themselves by making decisions in the service of long-term benefits that may

be inconvenient, unpopular, and even unprofitable in the short-term. In practice, moral leaders

show stakeholders how to understand the conflict between competing values, the inconsistencies

between public/private espoused values and personal/corporate behavior. The moral leader

develops methods to align values, positively change behavior, and ultimately transform the


organization (Maldonado & Lacey, 2001, pg. 81). The hallmark of moral leadership can be

found in the propensity to apply the same moral standards to others that they hold for themselves

and behave in accordance with such standards consistently (Colby & Damon, 1992). The

compelling difference between ethical leadership and other leadership constructs can most

precisely be identified as the ability of a leader to create conditions that enable people to achieve

their goals and advance their interests in cooperative ways. Krebs & Denton (2005) explained,

“Behaving morally entails advancing one’s interests in ways that advance the interests of others

by upholding mutually beneficial systems of cooperation” (p. 646). Morality, and hence ethical

leadership, prevails when societies conduct themselves in a manner which ensures cooperation is

more beneficial than immoral behavior.

Although the relationship between ethical leadership and other leadership constructs is still

debated, Brown & Trevino (2006) stated that “empirical research tends to support the view that

transformational leadership…does describe a leader with an ethical orientation… and has been

found to be positively related to perceived leader integrity” (pg. 598-599). Furthermore, Trevino

& Brown (2006) argued that transformational leadership is the “existing leadership construct that

is conceptually closed to ethical leadership” (pg. 597). The relationship between the two

leadership constructs helps to bridge the gap between transformational leadership, which has

been more widely studied than the more recently introduced ethical leadership construct.

Antecedents (Indicators) of Moral Leadership

Social learning theory is relied upon heavily to explain the antecedents of moral leadership:

personal characteristics, role modeling and clear communication of ethical expectations. This

theory purports that individuals tend to emulate the “attitudes, values and behaviors of attractive

and credible models” (Brown & Trevino, 2006). Moral leaders are seen as attractive and credible


role models based on their personal characteristics including fairness, caring and concern,

trustworthiness, and consistency (Brown & Trevino, 2006). Leaders, who treat employees with

consideration, encourage participative decision-making, are fair, and care for others, were found

to foster higher organizational commitment among employees than those that do not (Cullen,

Praveen Parboteeah, & Victor, 2003; Walumbwa & Lawler, 2003; Zhu et al., 2004). These

characteristics are attributes of moral leaders. Moral leaders display moral traits such as honesty

and integrity, additionally they reinforce ethical behavior in the accepted practices and policies

of their organizations as a sign of commitment to those values. Furthermore, moral leaders

practice what they preach by actively modeling ethical conduct in both their personal and

professional lives. Finally, moral leaders set clear ethical guidelines though a transactional form

of leadership which uses rewards and punishments to ensure ethical guidelines are followed.

From a business perspective, the true antecedent to a “moral” business leader is derived

from the legal concept of fiduciary responsibility (Johnston, 2005). This fiduciary principle

includes duties of corporate managers to the corporation and its shareholders. As defined by Dr.

Alfred Scott in his 1949 study of trust law, the term fiduciary can be defined as “a person who

undertakes to act in the interest of another person (Johnston, pg. 28).” The moral business leader

typically finds himself responsible to a business entity to make prudent choices that sustain the

financial health of the organization and engender the trust vital to sustaining the beneficial

relationships required for growth and a sound financial basis. Leaders do not do this alone,

employees must also engender this mentality and do so based on the guidelines and expectations

set for them. A leader must communicate both a belief in and demonstrate the practice of moral

behavior for the values of a business or organization to be realized.


Relationship of Communication Styles and Leadership Models

DeVries etal (2010) expanded the study of communication styles by practically

applying their work to a leadership context. Up to this point, scholars has focused on just two

communication style dimensions, Friendliness and Dominance, because these dimensions were

most relevant for interpersonal communications. However, results of DeVries’ lexical study

discovered seven dimensions of communications style: Expressiveness, Preciseness, Niceness,

Supportiveness, Verbal Aggressiveness (Expressed), Emotional Tension (or, reversed,

Assuredness), and Argumentativeness (DeVries, etal (2009). With a more robust understanding

of communication styles, DeVries, etal set out to apply their work in a leadership setting. The

purpose was to better understand the relationship between communication styles and leadership

styles, and their impact on leadership outcomes. Charismatic, human-oriented and task-oriented

leadership styles were considered. Results of the study showed the following communication

style leadership style pairings are outlined in Table 1.

Table 1

Leadership Style and Communication Style Pairings

Supportiveness and Verbal Aggressiveness showed the strongest correlations for

Charismatic and Human-Oriented leadership styles, which appears to be an intuitive result. It is

interesting to note that Task-Oriented leadership has no correlation to Supportiveness and an

Leadership Style Communication Dimension Correlation

Charismatic Supportiveness, Assuredness Strong Positive Correlation

Verbal Aggressiveness Medium Negative Correlation

Human-Oriented Supportiveness Strong Positive Correlation

Verbal Aggressiveness Strong Negative Correlation

Task-Oriented Preciseness, Assuredness Strong Positive Correlation

Verbal Aggressiveness Weak Positive Correlation


opposite relationship with Verbal Aggressiveness than the other leadership styles. DeVries, etal

(2010) explained, “…may be that items pertaining to task-oriented leadership, more than items

pertaining to human-oriented leadership and charismatic leadership, reflect content (e.g., rules,

planning and goal-setting) instead of style (e.g., friendliness, trust and inspiration)” (p. 377).

Although moral leadership was not one of the leadership styles included in the study, one

can extrapolate expected communication style pairings and relationships based on how moral

leadership characteristics compare to charismatic, human-oriented and task-oriented leadership

styles. As defined, moral leadership is most closely aligned with transformational leadership,

has some components of charismatic leadership and has opposite attributes of task-oriented

leadership. Based on this reasoning, the following hypotheses are proposed:

Proposition 1a: Supportiveness and Assuredness will be positively and strongly correlated to moral

leadership.

Proposition 1b: Aggressiveness and Argumentative will be negatively and strongly correlated to

moral leadership.

Proposition 1c: Preciseness and Niceness will be positively correlated to moral leadership, but not

as strongly correlated as the other communication style dimensions.

Employee Job Satisfaction

The definition of employee job satisfaction has evolved almost in parallel to leadership

theory. Taylor (1970) suggested that worker satisfaction may be attributed to the highest

possible earnings with the least amount of fatigue, whereas Locke (1976) defined job satisfaction

from an employee’s standpoint as “a pleasurable or positive emotional state from the appraisal of

one’s job or experiences” (p. 1297). For the purposes of this paper, this is a very relevant

description. The moral leader is expected to shape those job values and align them with the

organizations. Recent studies have found that job satisfaction has been associated with


motivation, employee behavior, and improved employee productivity (Piccolo, Greenbaum, Den

Hartog, & Folger, 2010; Saari & Judge, 2004). Leaders, who treat employees with

consideration, encourage participative decision-making, are fair, and care for others, were found

to foster higher organizational commitment among employees than those that do not (Yates,

2014).

In more recent studies, additional factors found to mediate job satisfaction include

communication satisfaction (Hilgerman, 1998) and supervisors’ communication style

(Richmond, McCroskey, Davis, & Koontz, 1980). Madlock (2008) studied the relationship

between a manager’s leadership styles (task or relational), communication competence, and

employee job satisfaction. His findings indicated that the communication competence of

managers served to be the greatest predictor of employee job satisfaction followed by relational

leadership style. Madlock’s (2008) findings indicated that supervisor communicator competence

accounted for 68% of the variance in subordinate communication satisfaction and nearly 18% of

the variance in subordinate job satisfaction. The literature reviewed supports the idea that

communication between employees and supervisors has an influence on the employees’ job

satisfaction. With communication shown to influence employee job satisfaction, a closer look at

the relationship between communication and leadership styles is warranted.

Communication Style as a Moderator

Research on communication behaviors and leadership models and their effects on leader

outcomes has identified dominant communication-leadership style pairings as well as specific

impacts on leadership outcomes. This paper explores the moderating effect of a moral leader’s

communication style on an employee’s job satisfaction.


Figure 1. Communication Style as a Moderator of Moral Leadership and Job Satisfaction Model

DeVries etal (2010) identified Supportiveness as the main communication style positively correlating

to leadership outcomes which included knowledge sharing, leader’s perceived performance,

satisfaction with the leader and subordinate team commitment. Conversely, Verbal Aggressiveness

and Argumentativeness had the lowest correlation with said leadership outcomes (p.373). Based on

Propositions 1a and 1b, moral leadership’s communication dimension correlations of Supportiveness,

Aggressiveness and Argumentativeness support desirable leadership outcomes, thus the following is

hypothesized:

Proposition 2: A moral leader’s communication style will increase the positive relationship between

moral leadership and employee job satisfaction.

Outcome

Employee Job Satisfaction

Moral leaders display moral traits such as honesty and integrity, additionally they

reinforce ethical behavior in the accepted practices and policies of their organizations as a sign of

commitment to those values. It is plausible that this form of leadership behavior and positive

environment found in moral leadership is consistent with increased employee organizational

commitment. Furthermore, based on literature reviewed for this study which found

communication between leaders and subordinates has a direct impact on employee’s job

satisfaction and considering the communication style leadership style pairing of moral leadership

Moral

Leadership

Employee Job

Satisfaction

Antecedents

of Moral

Leadership

Communication

Style


to supportive, non-aggressive, non-argumentative communication dimensions, it is proposed that

there will be a positive and direct link between moral leadership and employee job satisfaction.

How this moral sense is communicated to employees may vary, but research does demonstrate a

correlation between moral leadership that encourages employee job satisfaction (Brown &

Trevino, 2006). Therefore, the following is asserted:

Proposition 3: Moral leadership will be positively and directly linked to employee job satisfaction.

Discussion and Implications

This paper describes the moderating effect of a moral leader’s communication style on the

leadership outcome of employee job satisfaction; however, the ripple effect of this finding is

much further reaching. Social learning theory explains that followers pattern their attitudes,

values and behaviors after credible leaders. Moral leaders, are by definition, deemed credible

based on their personality traits, modeling of ethical behavior and most important for purposes of

this study, by their communication. It follows, then, that followers will emulate the moral

leader’s personality traits, ethical behavior and communication style.

Through this transference of attitudes, values and behaviors, a culture of morality will soon

develop, in which self-interests are advanced most effectively when working in concert for the

collective good of all stakeholders. A moral culture will result throughout the organization,

leading to improved leadership outcomes in all areas, not just employee job satisfaction.

Organizations who recognize the power of this transference will actively seek leaders who

exemplify the moral leader’s communication and leadership styles.

The effect of a moral leader’s communication style on employee job satisfaction is

considered a very specific example of the desirability of moral leadership within an organization.

The information presented here may lead to a more in-depth look at how moral leaders can be

identified and/or developed in organizations as constrained resources, increased competition and


globalization force us to discover innovative areas to achieve competitive advantage. Specific

areas of research might include measuring moral propensities, developing moral behaviors, and

training leaders in moral leadership.

Conclusion

Understanding how communication styles impact leadership outcomes may be helpful in

achieving desired results in a corporate environment. This paper explored the moderating effect

of a moral leader’s communication style on the specific leadership outcome of employee job

satisfaction. Through improved self-awareness and targeted training, one can adopt

communication styles that correlate to moral leadership, thereby positively impacting employee

job satisfaction and, as a direct result, perhaps the company’s bottom line.


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