Leadership: A communicative perspective

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Leadership: A communicative perspective

Leadership 2014, Vol. 10(1) 7–35 ! The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1742715013509396 lea.sagepub.com

Gail T Fairhurst Department of Communication, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, US

Stacey L Connaughton The Brian Lamb School of Communication, Purdue University, West Lafayette, US

Abstract This paper reviews the literature on communication in organizations most relevant to the study of leadership. Although leadership communication research has a history of significant overlap with leadership psychology, the value commitments of a communicative orientation now find expression in a large body of extant literature that this paper reviews. These value commitments, which cross several theoretical paradigms, serve as the organizing framework for this paper. The paper concludes with a research agenda for future leadership communication research. Keywords Leadership, communication, management of meaning, sensemaking, reflexivity, relational leadership, team leadership, global leadership

Introduction Contemporary studies of leadership give meaning to the old adage, ‘‘Everything old is new again.’’ Leadership has been a topic of interest since antiquity (Grint, 2011), although it commenced in earnest in the 20th century when the dominant lens of psychology took hold and remains strong until this day, especially in North America. In the last several years, however, an increasing number of voices are challenging leadership psychology’s emphasis on a strong inner motor of leader traits, cognitions, and styles (Collinson and Hearn, 1996; Fairhurst, 2007a; Grint, 2000). These voices are clamoring to know how leadership distributes itself across time and task, site and situation, and people—along with their bodies and other leadership-making materialities (e.g., technology) (Connaughton and Daly, 2005; Gronn, 2000; Sinclair, 2005). They are also questioning the bromides of the business press This paper is based on a chapter in The Sage Handbook of Organizational Communication (2013). Putnam LL and Mumby D (eds). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Corresponding author: Gail T Fairhurst, Department of Communication, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0184, US. Email: [email protected]

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prone to reduce the complexity of leadership to common sense rules-of-thumb or the amusing anecdote (Guthey et al., 2009). Enter the field of organizational communication, European and Australasian management studies, and other social sciences greatly impacted by the linguistic turn in social theory emphasizing the constitutive role of language, discourse and communication in society and its institutions (Mumby, 2007; Rorty, 1967). Just as important has been a rapidly changing world in which the traditional bureaucratic form is quickly becoming a thing of the past. The swift and shifting tides of global market conditions, technological advance, and hyperentrepreneurialism are forcing the ‘‘rational organization’’ and its views on leadership out to sea. In its stead, we find complexity, irrationality, and continuous change—not as anomalies to be explained away, but the new normal demanding acceptance on its own terms (Trethewey and Ashcraft, 2004). In light of these observations, what exactly is a communication-centered view of leadership? What should a research agenda for a communication-centered view of leadership be? These are the two central questions guiding this review of literature. Although leadership communication research has a history of significant overlap with leadership psychology (Fairhurst, 2001), the value commitments of a distinctly communicative orientation now find expression in a large body of extant literature that this paper will review. In articulating a communication orientation, we have intentionally crossed paradigms (e.g., post-positivist, social constructionist, critical, postmodern, and so on), disciplines (e.g., management, communication, psychology, sociology and so on), countries and cultures (e.g., U.S., European, Australasian, and so on), scouring the literature for research that places ‘‘communication’’ at the center of leadership study. The discovery of these value commitments strongly suggests that there is indeed a communicative lens or, more accurately, series of lenses that, taken collectively, shows communication to be central, defining and constitutive of leadership. We certainly do not dismiss the cognitive aspects of leadership, but merely reverse the longstanding figure-ground arrangement in the literature that prioritizes the cognitive over the social. Thus, we use the communication value commitments that we have gleaned from the literature as the organizing framework for this paper. They include the following: (1) Leadership communication is transmissional and meaning-centered. (2) Leadership (communication) is relational, neither leader-centric nor follower-centric. (3) Influential acts of organizing are the medium and outcome of leadership communication. (4) Leadership communication is inherently power-based, a site of contestation about the nature of leadership. (5) Leadership (communication) is a diverse, global phenomenon. (6) Leadership communication is alive with the potential for reflexivity, moral accountability and change. This literature review makes no attempt to be comprehensive, only representative of a still emerging communicative lens. We also do not advocate a universal definition of leadership. Following Wittgenstein (1953), leadership qualifies as a ‘‘blurred concept,’’ and following Gallie (1956), an essentially contested one. Leadership is thus best conceived as a family resemblance among power and influence-oriented language games whose features are the subject of this review (Kelly, 2008; Wittgenstein, 1953).

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Leadership communication is transmissional and meaning-centered Transmissional view of communication A transmissional view of communication, with roots in industrial and organizational psychology and (post) positivistic science, has historically dominated leadership studies. Leadership was examined from the perspective of individuals with strong inner (i.e., cognitive) motors where ‘‘communication is incidental or, at best, intervening’’ (Fairhurst, 2001: 383). Some contemporary leadership scholars hold a similar view. Indeed, when the lens is individual and cognitive and the accompanying methods are surveys and experiments, there is often little choice but to view communication as a simple transmission, a process variable, or a behavioral outcome. Under these conditions, communication becomes a conduit, and researchers may examine issues pertaining to transmission and channel effects, such as message directionality, frequency, and fidelity; disruptions to effective transmission; and ways in which messages are (improperly) received (Axley, 1984). Work embracing a transmissional view of communication often sees the world in terms of inputs, processes and outputs—following Shannon and Weaver’s (1949) familiar Sender!Message!Receiver model. Communication becomes a variable(s) that may be a part of, or relate to, leadership processes or outcomes. For example, consider Neufeld et al., (2010) who conceived of communication holistically (but did not problematize issues of meaning). They examined the relationship between perceived leader performance and: (a) physical distance, (b) communication effectiveness, and (c) leadership style. In their study of 138 remote employees and 41 leaders, communication effectiveness was cast as the quality of interactions between leaders and followers as perceived by the followers. Communication effectiveness was positively related to perceived leadership performance, but physical distance had little influence on communication effectiveness or perceived leader performance. Scholars adopting a transmissional view of communication often conceive of communication as essential to team or organizational functioning, although communication may be just one of many variables studied. For example, in their experimental study, Marks et al., (2000) found that the quality and quantity of team communication processes was essential to overall team performance. Researchers interested in leadership in teams are also shifting their focus from individual leaders to leadership processes needed for team effectiveness. Morgeson et al. (2010) proposed a team leadership model of several leadership functions needed for teams to be effective. Here, too, communication becomes just one of many variables. Other scholars who adopt a transmissional view treat communication as a behavioral outcome. Shockley-Zalabak et al. (2010) and Burke et al. (2007) proposed models of trust in leadership and viewed communication not only as an input to trust in leadership, but cast upward communication as a behavioral outcome of such trust. Burke et al. (2007) nicely voiced the language of a transmission view: Taken together, by creating a sense of trust towards the team leader, communication lines will be opened up to transmit needed information to lead to innovation, error remediation/prevention, and an ever growing and reciprocated sense of trust between the team leader and the subordinate (p. 623).

Neo-charisma research. A transmissional view of communication can also be found in studies combining transformational leadership and communication. For example, Purvanova and

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Bono’s (2009) experimental study found that transformational leadership behaviors impacted virtual teams’ performance more than face-to-face teams. A simpler, transmissional view of communication assisted their advanced analytical techniques, which was to gather data at two levels of analysis and then utilize WABA1 analytic techniques to justify their aggregation decisions to determine the appropriate level of analysis for the relationships studied. By contrast, communication was cast more complexly in Balthazard et al.’s (2009) study of the traits and behaviors of emerging transformational leaders in both co-located and virtual teams. They focused on the influences of personality characteristics, activity level (frequency and timing of participation), and communication/expression quality (operationalized as idea density and grammatical complexity) on perceptions of transformational leadership. This study had all team members rate each other along several emergent leadership lines and used language sample analysis to assess the multiple aspects of communication. A number of transmissional studies can be found in the related area of vision communication. For example, Berson and Avolio (2004) studied transformational leadership and the articulation of strategic organizational goals in an Israeli communication organization. Utilizing qualitative and quantitative data, they studied whether those reporting to transformational leaders articulated goals in alignment with them, and whether transformational leaders were considered more effective communicators (e.g., whether they were open, careful listeners and transmitters, and so on). Hunter et al. (2011) tested Mumford’s charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic model of leadership and found support for eight of the 10 components of the model. One of the communicative components—use of emotions—yielded particularly strong results. Moreover, researchers have studied variables related to vision formation (Shipman et al., 2010) and vision communication (Stam et al., 2010). To summarize, a transmissional view of communication appears optimal when the researcher’s goal is to understand leadership communication amidst other relational and cognitive dynamics. Issues of meaning are problematized narrowly (if at all) even though, ironically, the shift to neo-charisma models in the 1980s cast leaders as ‘‘managers of meaning’’ (Smircich and Morgan, 1982). However, they were often the primary (read, only) symbolizing agents. The models were largely monologic, excluding a dialogic emphasis on feedback, mutual effects, and co-constructed meaning amidst possible contestation (Cunliffe, 2009; Fairhurst, 2001). In a dialogic view of the visioning process, organizational visions become products of multiple and evolving conversations, each with the capacity to maximize a vision’s fit to local conditions (Fairhurst and Sarr, 1996). Observations such as these and the linguistic turn in social theory paved the way for more meaning-centered models of leadership communication to take hold as the next section reveals.

Meaning-centered view of communication Meaning is one of the most essential components of human communication, but it took the rise of postmodernism, poststructuralism, and the so-called ‘‘linguistic turn’’ in social theory for many organizational scholars with communication interests to appreciate that language more than mirrors or represents reality, but constitutes it (Alvesson and Ka¨rreman, 2000a; Rorty, 1967). With a language focus comes a meaning-centered view of communication with its emphasis on authorship and the formative power of language (e.g., the ability to categorize and label vaguely sensed feelings and thoughts); understanding the dynamics of coconstruction including discursive struggles over meaning; and the role of the socio-historical in sourcing ways of thinking and talking (Deetz, 1992; Foucault, 1972; Shotter, 1993).

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It is also with the linguistic turn that the term ‘‘discourse’’ was popularized and, at times, conflated with ‘‘communication.’’ While the meanings of both terms are multifarious, Jian et al., (2008) distinguished them by suggesting that organizational actors operate in communication and through discourse: ‘‘In communication, there is a dynamic connection among actors, action, meaning, and context, such that actions modify and elaborate existing connections or create new ones. . .By contrast it is through discourse that language and communication meet because discourse is ‘language that is used for some communicative purpose’’’ (Ellis, 1992:84, cited in Jian et al., 2008: 314). Use of the term ‘‘discourse’’ here may mean language use in social interaction (Ellis, 1992) or thought/language systems a` la Foucault that source communicating actors (Alvesson and Ka¨rreman, 2000b). Two areas of study below have adopted a discursive and meaning-centered view of communication.

Sensemaking, framing, and identity work A meaning-centered view of communication is sine qua non to the study of leadership sensemaking, framing and identity work. Often aided by the theorizing of Weick (1979, 1995), what leadership actors (i.e., formal or informal leaders, followers, or other stakeholders) do when confronted with the uncertain or unexpected is the focus here. As Drazin et al. (1999) explained, ‘‘Meaning—or sense—develops about the situation, which allows the individual to act in some rational fashion; thus meaning—or sensemaking—is a primary generator of individual action’’ (p. 293). Leadership actors’ meanings for people and situations have also been termed frames (Bateson, 1972; Goffman, 1974), enactments (Weick, 1979), schemas (Lord and Hall, 2003), and cognitive maps (Drazin et al., 1999). Frames and framing have been particularly popular concepts, the former designated by a cognitive meaning structure, the latter a communication process (Fairhurst, 2011; Fairhurst and Sarr, 1996). ‘‘Sensemaking’’ and ‘‘sensegiving’’ have similarly been distinguished on these grounds in a leadership context (Foldy et al., 2008; Gioia and Chittipeddi, 1991). Sensemaking and identity work co-occur because actors usually locate themselves in their cause-maps of the world (Drazin et al., 1999). Identity work for individuals or collectives emerges in the categorizing and framing of linguistic activity in response to such questions as, ‘‘Who am I (in this context)?’’ and ‘‘Who are we?’’ For example, Sheep (2006) studied the dispute over the first openly gay U.S. Episcopalian bishop and found that category elasticity or ‘‘stretch’’ enabled Episcopalian leaders to embrace multiple, conflicting, and ambivalent identities in talk. There are also studies of middle managers’ identity work in their sensemaking over organizational change (Balogun and Johnson, 2004, 2005; Stensaker and Falkenberg, 2007), while Lewis (2011) examined sensemaking and stakeholder identities in strategic change. Martin (2004) revealed female middle managers’ use of humor when negotiating their identities amidst paradoxical circumstances, while other studies featured the sensemaking and identity work of employees who resisted management (Laine and Vaara, 2007; Sonenshein, 2010; Tourish and Robson, 2006). In addition, Alvesson and Spicer (2011) explored the metaphorical basis of leader sensemaking and identity work (e.g., leaders as ‘‘saints,’’ ‘‘buddies,’’ ‘‘gardeners,’’ ‘‘cyborgs,’’ and ‘‘bullies’’). Framing studies are heavily meaning-focused, which we see in Fairhurst’s (2011) treatment of leadership actors who use language and other means to create meaning and construct the realities to which they must then respond. Work by Liu (2010) and Craig and Amernic (2004) examined the ‘‘failure framing’’ strategies of U.S. leaders Al Dunlap and

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John Berardino, respectively. Berardino, in particular, peppered his testimony before the U.S. Congress with a glut of accounting details to deflect responsibility for Arthur Anderson’s role in the Enron scandal. Finally, work by Foldy et al. (2008) and Carroll and Simpson (2012) focused on framing strategies associated with problem and solution formulations highlighting planned ‘‘cognitive shifts’’ in collective identity and organizational change. Leadership aesthetics. Aesthetics is an emerging area of meaning-centered leadership research. As Riley (1988) portrayed it, ‘‘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, emphasis added). Grint (2000) likewise cast leadership as a series of art forms: philosophical, fine, martial, and performing. Eisenberg (2007) wrote about the ambiguity, contingency and aesthetics of meaning, while Harter et al. (2008) examined the tensions between aesthetic sensibilities and instrumental rationalities in the collaborative management of an arts organization. A growing emphasis on conceptualizing aesthetics vis-a`-vis the extra-linguistic, including leadership bodies, has also emerged. For instance, Cunliffe (2002) and Shotter and Cunliffe (2003) wrote about a (managerial) ‘‘social poetics’’ involving a ‘‘precognitive understanding in which poetic images and gestures provoke a response as we feel the rhythm, resonance, and reverberation of speech and sound’’ (Cunliffe, 2002: 134). For Hansen et al., (2007), ‘‘aesthetics’’ was about felt meaning, tacit knowing, and emotions integral to leading and following. For Ladkin (2008), ‘‘leading beautifully’’ required mastery of the context, coherent (authentic) message congruence between speech and actions, and a sense of purpose to display one’s ethical commitments. Finally, for Sinclair (2005), leadership researchers must begin to ‘‘hold bodies, in their fleshy version, prominent, and to focus on bodies as possibilities,’’ for example, in the ways they may interrupt systemic power (p. 388). Too often, she argued, the bodies of leaders, ‘‘disappear under the weight of theorizing’’ (p. 387). To summarize, a meaning-centered view of communication has historically been slighted in favor of a transmissional view, but that is no longer true. Leadership communication has both meaning-centered and transmissional aspects and, as a result, researchers are using them to ask very different questions about leadership. Favoring the former, Ashcraft et al. (2009) argued that what is at stake in the communication process is much greater than what a transmissional model allows. That may be true, and while meaning-centered models of leadership communication are now prominent, transmissional views continue on in post-positivist genres and in contributory ways (Craig, 1999).

Leadership (communication) is relational, neither leader-centric nor follower-centric Historically, leadership researchers neglected followers and focused on leaders as transformative agents. Gronn (2000) labeled this kind of thinking ‘‘belief in the power of one’’ and argued that it led to an exaggerated sense of agency for leaders (p. 319). More recently, however, followers have become the focus of leadership research (Stam et al., 2010; Uhl-Bien and Pillai, 2006), while LMX is one relational leadership theory that has stood the test of time (Graen, 2012; Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995). With relatively few exceptions (Coglister et al., 2009), these data are mainly individual leaders’ or followers’ perceptions collected through survey research (Fairhurst and Hamlett, 2003).

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Such data have legitimate uses, but they have also been used as a proxy for interaction process—as if a single relational reality can be presumed (Rogers et al., 1985). When interaction per se is the focus, relational patterns are inescapably co-defined (Fairhurst, 2004a). McDermott and Roth (1978) conceptualized interaction analysis as essentially relational when they said, ‘‘a person’s behavior is best described in terms of the behavior of those immediately about that person, those with whom the person is doing interactional work in the construction of recognizable social scenes or events’’ (p. 321; emphasis in the original). McDermott and Roth were actually describing a number of approaches originating in the 1970s including ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, sociolinguistics, exchange theory, and network analysis. These ideas took root in the 1980–1990s in relational control analyses of Fairhurst and colleagues (Courtright et al., 1989; Fairhurst et al., 1995) in which the ‘‘interact’’ (two contiguous control moves) was the basic unit of analysis in coded manager–subordinate interactions. It also took root in the work of Boden (1994) and other conversation analysts where the focus was on how organizational action (and, by implication, leadership or management) cohered as a sequence in social interaction. Additionally, the work of Hosking and Morley (Hosking, 1988; Hosking and Morley, 1988) lent considerable conceptual clarity to the need to study leadership interactions per se. However, current meanings for ‘‘relational’’ leadership appear to hinge on one’s philosophy of science. To understand the multifarious meanings for the word ‘‘relational,’’ Uhl-Bien et al. (2011) suggested drawing a distinction between post-positivist and social constructionist views of relationships. The former is marked by theories of leadership relationships and its qualities, such as LMX (Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995) and Hollander’s (2009) inclusive leadership. The latter focuses on relational leadership processes and practices and is often studied qualitatively, discursively, and/or ethnographically (Fairhurst and Grant, 2010; Ospina and Hittleman, 2011). We maintain this distinction below, but add to the work Uhl-Bien et al. (2011) include in these categories. Post-positivist relational study. Supervisory style, relationship development, team leadership, and methodological advances have all been the focus of recent post-positivist relational leadership research. For example, research into supervisory communication style (Sager, 2008), impression management strategies/social influence (Sosik and Jung, 2003), and tests of Situational Leadership Theory (Thompson and Vecchio, 2009) all reflected the traditional style-oriented concerns of this post-positivist genre. Sias’ (2009) literature review of supervisor–subordinate communication, informed by post-positivism, emphasized supervisor– subordinate communication functions (i.e., information exchange, feedback and appraisal, including upward and downward feedback); supervisor–subordinate relationship development; and various relational outcomes. Regarding relationship development (and the relational nature of leadership more generally), several researchers have focused on the role of communication in LMX (Sparrowe et al., 2006). For instance, drawing on LMX and assimilation research, Kramer (1995) found that the quality of the supervisor relationship significantly influenced the perceptions and job satisfaction of those transferring jobs, while Lee (2001) examined the relationships among members’ perceptions of fairness and LMX quality as well as cooperative communication. He found that members who perceived less distributive and procedural justice also tended to demonstrate less cooperative communication with other members. Members also reported fewer interactions and shared fewer ideas and resources as well as less information with

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each other. Olufowote et al., (2005) found that the quality of LMX moderated the relationship between the magnitude of role change and rationality, one of four upward influence tactics examined. Graen (2012) also recast LMX in terms of strategic interpersonal alliances. Finally, LMX researchers have demonstrated how other dyadic relationships, in conjunction with LMX, may impact various outcomes (Sluss et al., 2008; Tangirala et al., 2007). Underscoring the relationalities of leadership in teams and networks, Connaughton and Daly (2004a, 2004b, 2005) examined leadership in virtual teams. They found positional leaders in a multi-national technology organization evaluated several aspects of communication as crucial to virtual team functioning, including information adequacy, information equity, and communication frequency (at key moments), among others. These communicative features were also linked to trust, perceptions of isolation, and other process issues and outcomes. Similarly, network studies of leadership in teams and organizations also studied the relationalities among leaders and members and their impact (Dionne et al., 2010). Huffaker’s (2010) study of online leaders is particularly noteworthy as ‘‘influencers’’ were found to communicate more often, were deemed more credible and central in the network, and exhibited assertiveness and linguistic diversity in their messages. Over a two-year period, Huffaker (2010) analyzed an impressive 632,000 messages from over 34,000 participants in 16 online discussion groups, utilizing multiple methods including automated text analysis, social network analysis, and hierarchical linear modeling. Methodologically, there is a continued push to study multiple levels of analysis, including the individual (leader or member), leader-member pairings, and other dyadic relationships, teams, and organizations. Correspondingly, we are also seeing analytic methods that permit multiple levels of analysis. For example, Bakar and Connaughton (2010) used WABA I and II analytic techniques to examine supervisory communication (as informed by LMX theory) and its relationship with workgroup commitment. Constructionist relational leadership. Although relationality has a long history in the communication literature (Rogers and Farace, 1975), several management writers have joined the cause (Uhl-Bien, 2006; Uhl-Bien and Ospina, 2012). The lens is typically social constructionist (Cunliffe, 2009; Fairhurst, 2007a), for example, in the ways in which leadership actors shape and are shaped by their communication with others (Berger and Luckman, 1966); how leadership is brought off in generative processes of interaction (Bradbury and Lichtenstein, 2000; Hosking, 2007); a constructionist science heavily weighted towards discourse, meaning, and reflexivity (Barge, 2004a; Cunliffe and Jun, 2005); and a more general interest in fields of relationships, not just dyads (Foldy et al., 2008; Ospina and Sorensen, 2006). Increasingly, analysts label this work ‘‘relational leading’’ specifically to emphasize dialogue over monologue (Cunliffe and Eriksen, 2011; Uhl-Bien and Ospina, 2012). In many ways, constructionist relational underpinnings can be found in each of the value commitments that organize this chapter; however, one particular observation is crucial. In a review of the literature, Fairhurst and Grant (2010) distinguished among social constructionist leadership approaches using Pearce’s (1995) distinction between the construction of social reality and the social construction of reality. The former emphasizes the cognitive products of social construction, including categories, implicit theories, attributions, narratives, and as examined previously, frames and sensemaking accounts (Gioia and Chittipeddi, 1991; Lord and Hall, 2003; Meindl et al., 1985; Pye, 2005; Tourish and Robson, 2006). The latter emphasizes the interactions themselves, although some foreground interaction processes more than others (Biggart and Hamilton, 1987; Boden, 1994; Du Gay et al.,

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1996; Fairhurst and Cooren, 2004). Fairhurst and Grant (2010) drew further distinctions based on the treatment of power, praxis, and materialities (e.g., the body), which also can be found throughout this paper. To recap, post-positive relational leadership has focused on supervisor–subordinate communication behaviors, effective leadership communication from afar, and further LMX theorizing. In constructionist relational leadership, actors do not relate and then communicate, they relate in communication (Bateson, 1972). Constructionist views of leadership thus tend to adopt a relational ontology, further seen below in terms of the organizing potential of leadership communication.

Influential acts of organizing are the medium and outcome of leadership communication For some time now, communication-oriented scholars have embraced the ontology that organizations are communicatively and/or discursively constituted (Cooren, 2001; Fairhurst and Putnam, 2004; Taylor and Van Every, 2000). Identified as the communicative constitution of organizations or ‘‘CCO’’ perspective (Ashcraft et al., 2009), it draws from a wide, multi-disciplinary body of work spawning different streams of research (Brummans et al., in press). Two of them specifically relate to leadership study: structuration theory and the Montre´al School of organizational communication. In structuration theory, Giddens (1979, 1984) argued for the ‘‘duality of structure’’ in which both structure and agency are endemic to social practices and the (re)production of social systems. Structure, in the form of rules and resources, is the medium and outcome of action. The title of this section is a translation of this maxim using Hosking’s (1988) terminology to characterize leadership as ‘‘influential acts of organizing’’ (p. 147). Influential acts (e.g., communication surrounding an organizational mission, vision, or values), in effect, serve as both rule and resource for leadership actors to draw upon to navigate ‘‘the situation here and now’’ while reproducing or renegotiating them with each deployment. The Montre´al School of organizational communication and its scholars (Brummans, 2006; Cooren, 2001; Taylor and Van Every, 2000) draw from actor-network theory (Callon and Latour, 1981; Latour, 1994, 2005), among others, to view the organization as a plenum of agencies. These agencies can be textual, mechanical, architectural, natural and human (Cooren, 2006). When paired together, human and nonhuman agents create ‘‘hybrid agency’’ and ‘‘networks’’ with their own structuring affordances wrought by the situatedness of interaction (Cooren et al., 2008). As such, structure is not the driver of action, but something to be explained (Latour, 2002). The section to follow explains how structuration theory and the Montre´al School contribute to the study of leadership. Neither structuration theory, nor the Montre´al School is about leadership per se. Instead, they both impart a view of leadership actors-in-action describing, in effect, micro-processes and influential acts of organizing as the following sections reveal. Structurationist studies. Two themes in Ashcraft et al.’s (2009) recent review of structurationist research find relevance in leadership study: (a) structuration and discursive struggle, and (b) a structurational rendition of CCO theory. The former is based on Giddens’ (1984) ‘‘antagonism of opposites’’ view of systems and the dialectic of control in which the less powerful always maintain a measure of control over the managerial class. While the dialectic

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of control has been studied in settings involving social or organizational change (Papa et al., 1995; Putnam, 2003), more recent work uses Giddens’ insight about the antagonism of opposites in all social systems as a touchstone to examine the identification of tension, contradiction and paradox and their management by leadership actors (Jian, 2007; Real and Putnam, 2005; Sherblom et al., 2002; Sillince, 2007; Sydow et al., 2011). For example, Tracy (2004) used a structurational lens to study employee reactions to organizational tensions in a prison setting, while Fairhurst et al. (2002) adopted that lens to study leadership tensions, tension management strategies, and their unintended consequences in successive downsizings at an environmental remediation site. McPhee and colleagues’ (McPhee and Zaug, 2000; Putnam et al., 2009) structurational rendering of CCO theory forms a second strain of structuration research with a leadership emphasis. Here, four interrelated processes constitute organizations: (1) membership negotiation, (2) organizational self-structuring, (3) activity coordination, and (4) institutional positioning. Work by McPhee and Iverson (2009) demonstrated a number of leadership applications of these four processes in a Mexican community organization in which land and water rights were negotiated by its many stakeholders. They showed how the ‘‘organization is a medium of agency by its designing managers’’ by demonstrating reflexive structuring through surveillance and performance monitoring at one site that reverberates throughout a system working to sustain management interests (p. 74). Yet, the less powerful managed to also assert their ‘‘local knowledgeability’’ with the power to rationalize and reflexively monitor ongoing conditions (p. 75). Browning et al. (2009) demonstrated activity coordination and institutional positioning with US Air Force technicians and the civilian review boards charged with their oversight. The Montre´al School. Work on leadership from the Montre´al School of organizational communication has examined the distributed nature of leadership in a high reliability organization, its episodic structuring, and the manner in which ‘‘command presence’’ emerged sequentially in an unfolding crisis (Cooren and Fairhurst, 2004; Fairhurst and Cooren, 2004). Cooren (2007) and colleagues’ analyses of a corporate board meeting charged with leadership succession likewise demonstrated how leadership attributions emerged and were acted upon in sequential fashion (Fairhurst, 2007b). The role of nonhuman agency in leadership has been the subject of other studies from the Montre´al School. Fairhurst’s (2007a) analysis of New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani during 9/11 demonstrated how the charisma attributed to him emerged as a distributed network of human and nonhuman agents, including emotion-laden objects, texts, and spaces. Likewise, Fairhurst and Cooren (2009) explored leadership presence and hybrid agency in U.S. Governors Kathleen Blanco’s management of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s management of the 2007 California wildfires. Successful crisis management appeared dependent on frequent hybridizing and networking with nonhuman agents of varying size and importance, yet responsive to conditions on the ground. Cooren et al. (2012) examined nonhuman agency in a building manager’s job and the manner in which such agency boldly asserted itself in construction matters in one moment, yet fell silent in the next. Finally, Spee and Jarzabkowski (2011) used Taylor and Van Every’s (2000) notion of text-conversation to examine iterative talk-to-text cycles in a strategic planning process of university leaders and academics. While such texts became increasingly authoritative as meanings converged over time, amending the strategic plan’s content was the sole province of the hierarchy.

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In sum, the Montre´al School studies are testimony to Grint’s (1997) wry observation that, ‘‘naked, friendless, money-less, and technology-less leaders are unlikely to prove persuasive’’ (p. 17). The role of nonhuman agency and its structuring potential with human hybrids in leadership situations is not only crucial in this genre, but among the first leadership research to take materiality seriously. Like the Montre´al School, structurationist research also examines leadership actors-in-action. However, it eschews nonhuman agency in favor of the structuring potential of rules and resources, which enables less powerful leadership actors a measure of control based on access. In both genres, leadership can be a simple role assignment and thus interchangeable with management (Real and Putnam, 2005; Spee and Jarzabkowski, 2011), although leadership can be specifically attributional in others (Fairhurst, 2007a, 2007b). In the section to follow, we continue with this latter view of leadership.

Leadership communication is inherently power-based, a site of contestation about the nature of leadership In his criticism of the mainstream leadership literature, Collinson (2006) argued that scholars often treat power as a negative and repressive property exercised in a top-down manner (perhaps to avoid having to deal with power issues). By contrast, influence usually embodies the very definition of leadership (Antonakis et al., 2004), a ‘‘positive process of disproportionate social influence’’ (Collinson, 2006: 181–182). The dichotomizing of power and influence here explains scholars’ interest in forced versus voluntary compliance between leaders and followers and lends itself to the study of leadership with an individual and cognitive lens (Fairhurst, 2007a). Work by Kipnis and Schmidt (1988, 1985) and Hirokawa and colleagues (Hirokawa and Miyahara, 1986; Hirokawa et al., 1990) is exemplary. However, a very Western conception of the self as autonomous from society dominates this view of power. More discursive, constructionist leadership approaches adopt a poststructuralist view in which the self and society are inseparable (Collinson, 2006), shifting the lens to social and cultural influences on leadership (Fairhurst, 2007a). Drawing heavily from Foucault (1983, 1995), this view of power is much more encompassing because it interlaces various forms of power and influence and conceives of them in both positive and negative terms. However, such orientations vary in terms of how much they foreground power processes. More general constructionist approaches leave open the opportunity for power and politics, while it is the starting premise for critical management studies (CMS). Constructionist approaches. In this genre, leadership is cast as attributional (Calder, 1977), context-dependent (Fairhurst, 2009), and grounded in social constructionist processes (Berger and Luckman, 1966) such as language games (Wittgenstein, 1953) and discourse (Fairhurst, 2007a). Leaders must persuade themselves and others of their leadership, leaving open the possibility of discursive struggle. Struggle implies that some views weigh more heavily than others by virtue of skill or hierarchical advantage (Ashcraft et al., 2009), although power concerns are not always foregrounded in this body of work depending upon the focus of analysis. For example, Grint’s (2000; 2005) writings on constructionist leadership portrayed leadership as a series of art forms mastered to create believable leadership performances. His work on problem-centered leadership focused on wicked and tame problems (Rittel and Webber, 1973) along with crises (Grint, 2005; 2010). Each requires a different kind of decision maker (leader, manager, or commander, respectively), yet may result in individuals depicting

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problems in a certain way to justify their preferred decision making style (e.g., George W. Bush’s characterization of the ‘‘crisis’’ over weapons of mass destruction leading to the U.S. invasion of Iraq). Power issues are present in Grint’s work though not always emphasized. Drawing from Wittgenstein (1953), Kelly and colleagues (Kelly, 2008; Kelly et al., 2006) argued that leadership is best seen as a family resemblance among language games. To decipher these games, analysts must use ethnomethodologically-informed methods in order to understand the logics and labeling of situated applications of the term ‘‘leadership’’ (and related constructs) (Kelly et al., 2006). Reminiscent of Grint’s emphasis on persuasion, Kelly and colleagues cast leadership as a ‘‘design problem’’ in which actors must figure out what leadership is in the context of what they do and persuade themselves and others that they are doing it. Finally, Shotter’s (1993) influential chapter on ‘‘The Manager as a Practical Author’’ continued with his work on relational-responsiveness and social poetics (Shotter, 2005; Shotter and Cunliffe, 2003); Cunliffe’s (2009; Cunliffe and Eriksen, 2011) leadership and CMS work described below; and Holman and Thorpe’s (2003) compendium focusing on leaders as ‘‘practical narrators’’ or translators (Cooren and Fairhurst, 2003) and collaborative processes involved in authoring (Deetz, 2003). Critical management studies. CMS perspectives all focus on the power and politics of meaning (Cunliffe, 2009). For example, Marxist and neo-Marxist perspectives focus upon forms of control that privilege elites such as shareholders, owners, and managers (Deetz, 1992; Willmott, 1993, 1997); leadership is a little used term here or counts as a form of domination. Post-colonial studies, another CMS concern, critique Western views of leadership and management in a global business society (Bhabba, 1994; Hall, 2010; Said, 1993), a topic we address below. A final CMS approach, post-structuralist studies, is most relevant to leadership studies because of its focus on denaturalization and dialectics and resistance. Denaturalization studies make that which appears ‘‘natural’’ or ‘‘the way things are’’ problematic (Alvesson and Willmott, 1996; Fournier and Grey, 2000). They focus on discursive practices involving language systems, texts, and ways of talking and thinking along with non-discursive practices such as institutionalized structures, social practices and techniques regulating what is normal or appears natural (Cunliffe, 2009: 25). For example, Fairhurst and colleagues (Fairhurst, 2007a; Fairhurst et al., 2011) examined ‘‘discursive leadership’’ at the intersection of little ‘‘d’’ discourse languaging practices (e.g., sequentiality, membership categorization, narrative, and so on) with big ‘‘D’’ Discourses that, following Foucault (1972, 1995), are more enduring socio-historical systems of thought influencing the communication process. They interrogated executive coaching Discourses and the manner in which Foucault’s (1990) confessional and examination technologies operate within them to ‘‘other’’ female leaders and normalize alpha males as senior leaders even while disciplining them. Yet another example comes from Parker (2005) who wrote about race neutrality in (U.S.) leadership studies and the way it subjugated black women leaders through unquestioned assumptions about superiority and inferiority; excluded them from the site or sources of knowledge production; and contained them by silencing those who would speak out. Gordon’s (2010) analysis of a police organization likewise demonstrated how certain historical practices (read, Discourses) were accepted as the natural order of things, reinforced hierarchy, and undermined efforts to facilitate empowerment and disperse leadership. Western (2008) also demonstrated the ways in which four Discourses of leadership—Controller, Therapist, Messiah, and Eco-leader—privileged certain views of

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the world; impacted leadership practices and organizational culture; and possessed different degrees of emancipatory potential. Collinson’s (2012) ‘‘Prozac leadership’’ examined the deleterious effects of positive psychology (Discourses) and the manner in which leaders’ excessive positivity distorts decision making, minimizes dissent, and masks operations of power and identity politics. Also relevant to this body of work is the critique of mainstream leadership approaches (e.g., charismatic and transformational leadership) by Alvesson and Sveningsson (2003a) for portraying leadership as something special when it often loses itself amidst the everyday aspects of work. They preferred an agnostic stance following CMS scholars’ traditional suspicion of (popular Discourses of) leadership as a mechanism of domination (Hardy and Clegg, 1996) and as overly reductionist (Cunliffe, 2009). Alvesson and Sveningsson (2003b) further argued that the mundane job of managers is socially shaped by the hierarchy such that managers become ‘‘highly responsive subjects’’ willing to buy into managerialist attempts to inflate the job of managing. However, Kelly (2008) heavily criticized Alvesson and Sveningsson’s view of leadership as a disappearing act on social constructionist grounds, while several scholars have proposed a rapprochement between critical theory and leadership studies (Collinson, 2012; Tourish, 2013; Western, 2008; Zoller and Fairhurst, 2007). The second CMS area involves leadership dialectics and resistance where we find poststructuralist CMS scholars speaking out against casting views of power and control as a simple binary (to privilege one pole or the other) in order to capture resistance and control in more complex terms (Banks, 2008; Fleming and Spicer, 2008; Mumby, 2005). Collinson (2005) argued that the very nature of leadership is ‘‘discursive, dialectical, contested, and contradictory’’ (p. 1427). He explored three leadership dialectics—control/resistance, dissent/consent, and men/women, which Zoller and Fairhurst (2007) added to in order to understand dissent leadership. They included fixed/fluid meaning potentials, overt/covert behavior, and reason/emotion to suggest how position in the hierarchy matters little regarding who emerges as ‘‘leader’’ when these dialectics are managed well. On the rise, however, is also a growing number of discursive dialectical analyses focusing on tension, contradiction and paradox in leadership/management contexts more generally (Andriopoulos and Lewis, 2009; Huxham and Beech, 2003; Martin, 2004; Real and Putnam, 2005; Tracy, 2004). By viewing leadership as inherently power based and open to conflict, as the foregoing discussion reveals, two observations emerge. First, who becomes a leader appears to be less a function of position in the hierarchy and more a function of the ability to manage key dialectical tensions. Second, leadership actors are not just managers of meaning; they are also ‘‘managed’’ receptors of meaning based on the Discourses to which they are subject (Fairhurst, 2007a). In the section below, power continues to be a theme when considering several global leadership issues.

Leadership (communication) is a diverse, global phenomenon Global/international leadership research emerged from the rise of the multi-national corporation and the need to know what makes (positional) leaders effective in these contexts. This body of work reflects two themes. First, scholars conceptualize and measure what global leadership is primarily by focusing on the relationships between leadership and culture (Triandis, 1993) and their relationships to performance. Second, scholars sought to learn whether there are some universal attributes of leadership across cultures and what aspects are culturally contingent. The GLOBE project (Den Hartog et al., 1999) is

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representative here as a series of large scale data studies, which have contributed to scale development on cultural dimensions and to theory development (Scandura and Dorfman, 2004). Reporting on the GLOBE project, Den Hartog et al. (1999) found that communication skills contributed to perceptions of transformational/charismatic leadership across national cultures; however, what is considered effective communication likely differs across national cultures (Trompenaars, 1993). What makes leaders effective in global contexts? Drawing from Hofstede (1980), Triandis (1993) argued that the collectivist or individualist nature of cultures would determine leadership effectiveness. Likewise, Adler et al. (2001) focused on women and global leadership effectiveness. In their study of Latin American expatriates, Osland et al. (1999) examined cultural literacy based on expats’ understanding of nine cultural contingencies, some of which were communicative (e.g., humor and joy) or had implications for communication (i.e., in-group/out-group; trust). Moreover, in their model of cultural sensemaking, Osland and Bird (2000) encouraged practitioners to embrace cultural paradoxes and consider context in order to help detangle them and work effectively around the world. Collectively, this research has often focused on positional leaders; been comparative in nature; concentrated on the relationship between national culture and leadership; and utilized mixed methods. More recent leadership forays in a global context have examined diverse ways of understanding leadership through national culture, noting leadership’s communicative constitution. Different conceptualizations of leadership have emerged based on entrenched cultural beliefs. For instance, Lin and Clair (2007) studied the leadership implications of Mao Zedong Thought in organizations in contemporary China, while Brummans and Hwang (2010) studied Buddhist philosophy and its influence on organizing practices in a Taiwanese nonprofit voluntary organization. Xu (2011) developed an instrument to measure the leadership of Chinese academic leaders, finding that Confucian values still permeate Chinese understandings of leadership, while Shi and Wilson (2010) examined upward influence processes in China. Likewise, Botero and Van Dyne (2009) found that LMX and power distance in U.S. versus Columbian contexts relate to different conceptualizations of voice. Recent research has also examined the influence of larger societal structures and values on leadership in various parts of the world. For example, Hall’s (2010) work on Jamaica’s postcolonial context examined Jamaican managers’ notions of leading vis-a`-vis U.S. influences. Similarly, Bakar and Connaughton (2010) studied the national cultural values of Malaysian society, finding them to be essential to understand supervisory communication in that country. To summarize, a more globalized view of leadership pushes researchers to go beyond Western views of this construct. It is also emphasizing an appreciation for context and the ways in which structure and/or culture influences how leadership is understood. Taken together, we might say that this body of research exhibits a functionalist tendency with social constructionist sensibilities as researchers try to understand leadership through a non-Western lens and in non-Western organizational contexts.

Leadership communication is alive with the potential for reflexivity, moral accountability and change Research on organizational development or ‘‘change management’’ has been a historical concern of the post-positivist tradition. Increasingly, however, social constructionist views of change, including action science and practical theory, are moving discussions about leading

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change to topics like reflexivity and moral accountability. Similar to our discussion of relational leadership, we divide the research into post-positivist and social constructionist approaches to leading change.

Post-positivist change research In one approach to leading change, leaders are the primary change implementers and communicators. For example, Hearn and Ninan (2003) equated leading change with leaders’ management of meaning. Lewis’ (2011) research over the years has demonstrated that management’s planned change implementation is indeed a communicative endeavor (Lewis, 2006, 2007; Lewis et al., 2001). Lewis (2006) wrote: ‘‘Communication represents not only the primary mechanism of change in organizations, but for many types of change may constitute the outcome as well (e.g., management programs which are evidenced in styles of supervision)’’ (p. 46). Lewis and colleagues’ work has revealed why change implementers communicatively attend to some stakeholders more so than others (Lewis et al., 2003) and led to a testable model of change implementation communication (Lewis, 2011).

Constructionist change research Fairhurst and Grant (2010) referred to these studies as ‘‘applied social constructionism’’ with three interrelated influences. The first involves communication scholars’ turn towards practical theory (Barge, 2001; Barge and Craig, 2009; Craig, 1999), which is rooted in the action science tradition of Chris Argyris and Don Scho¨n (Argyris and Scho¨n, 1996; Scho¨n, 1983) and the theorizing of Dewey (1938). Here theory becomes a method or instrument, in Craig’s (1995) words, ‘‘not just to learn what communication is, but what it should be’’ (p. ix). Critical management education is the second influence with its focus on the operations of power and the emancipatory goal of critical theory (Perriton and Reynolds, 2004). The third and final influence is discursive, which Marshak and Grant (2008) described as an interest in narrative, text, and conversation and the ways they shape and are shaped by organizational processes, power structures, and change. These influences have inspired an emerging grammar for applied social constructionism, which includes the following paired terms: meaning and framing; reflexivity and moral accountability; and relationality and dialogue (Fairhurst and Grant, 2010). For instance, an emphasis on meaning and framing counters the tendency of managers and others to view communication as a simple transmission; heightens a sensitivity to language as a basis for reality construction; and instills a sense in which the seed of change lies in every communicative encounter (Eisenberg, 2007; Fairhurst, 2011). The studies under leadership aesthetics (Hansen et al., 2007) and social poetics (Cunliffe, 2001, 2002; Shotter and Cunliffe, 2003) reviewed earlier follow naturally from this work—as does work on leadership narratives (Barge, 2004b; Boje et al., 2001; Shamir and Eilam, 2005; Watson, 2001) and appreciative inquiry where the power of language is used to construct more positive, life-affirming ways to lead organizations (Barge and Oliver, 2003). A second important pairing, reflexivity and moral accountability, is focused on the role of introspection in ethical behavior. The work of Barge and colleagues (Barge, 2004a, 2004b, 2007; Barge and Little, 2002; Barge and Fairhurst, 2008) and Cunliffe and colleagues (2004, 2009; Cunliffe and Jun, 2005) is exemplary here. Both focus on the opportunities for reflexivity and change in present moments and ‘‘re-storying’’ to affect more ethically and relationally

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responsive leadership in action. Such work complements more general treatments of leadership ethics in the literature (Christensen et al., 2008; Clegg et al., 2007; Johnson, 2009; Nkomo, 2003) and case analyses of ethical breakdowns by organizational leaders (Craig and Amernic, 2004; McKenna and Rooney, 2008; Seeger and Ulmer, 2003; Tourish and Vatcha, 2005). Work by McKenna and Rooney (2008) similarly recast reflexivity as ontological acuity to stress leaders’ need to understand the cognitive and discursive basis of knowledge. The final pairing is relationality and dialogue (Anderson et al., 2004; Forester, 1999; Isaacs, 1999), where relationality emphasizes relational responsiveness (Cunliffe, 2002; Cunliffe and Eriksen, 2011; Shotter and Cunliffe, 2003) and systemic sensitivity (Barge, 2007; Barge and Fairhurst, 2008). Relationality partners well with dialogue, which is expressed by Gergen et al., (2004) as an ‘‘intersubjective connection or synchrony. . .a form of coordinated action. . .dialogic efficacy that is bodily and contextually embedded. . . (while) historically and culturally situated. . .(and may) serve many different purposes, both negative and positive’’ (pp. 42–44). A dialogic perspective has quickly become the basis for leadership praxis from a communication perspective (Anderson et al., 2004; Barge and Little, 2002; Deetz, 2006). We can summarize a constructionist view of change management by noting that leadership actors are reflexive practitioners who shape and are shaped by realities they co-create. They also have the capacity for morally grounded, relationally responsive action as they account for their actions to themselves and others (Cunliffe, 2009; Shotter, 1993). On the post-positivist side, researchers have focused on implementing change as a management communication endeavor and on understanding and explaining how communicative processes relate to change implementation and their influences on outcomes.

Discussion and conclusions Early work in leadership was largely derivative of leadership psychology as the communication implications of individualist and cognitive theories were the primary focus (Fairhurst, 2001). As this article has revealed, a unique series of communicative lenses has emerged, advancing a perspective in which leadership communication is transmissional and meaningcentered; relational and co-constructive of reality; structured and structuring; contestable even amidst asymmetric power dynamics; context-dependent and multi-leveled; and capable of change through reflexivity. Views of leadership itself do vary accordingly. Leadership as the management of meaning expands to all leadership actors (formal or informal leaders, followers or other stakeholders) who can be transformative agents, but also passive receptors of meaning and disciplined products of culture. Leadership is, by definition, performative in which reflexivity is routine and moral grounding thus becomes possible. Leadership is also attributional and contestable, emerging in the joint, relationally responsive actions of actors whose views on leadership may not coincide. Finally, leadership can be a simple role assignment interchangeable with management or shifting and distributed especially when interaction processes are foregrounded. As the introduction makes clear, leadership is best characterized as a family resemblance among power and influence-oriented language games whose situatedness is paramount for understanding. That said, there is much we still do not know about the communicative aspects of leadership. Thus, we encourage researchers to consider the following in future research in the following six areas.

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First, scholars have expressed an increasing interest in the tensions, contradictions, and paradoxes of organizational life due to turbulent environments, the fast pace of change, and evolving markets. There is every reason to expect that this kind of change will continue in the future and that leadership actors will be squarely in the middle of it. As such, there is much to learn regarding leadership actors’ sensemaking, problem setting, and tension management strategies. Indeed, work by Sheep et al. (2010) suggests that the discovery of counter-rational forms of thinking reflects the new normal of contemporary organizational life. Work by Grint (2005, 2010) suggests that the problems that yield these counter-rationalities are rarely tame, but mostly of the wicked variety (Rittel and Webber, 1973). Grint argues that tame problems require managers who can implement known processes to solve them, while wicked problems require leaders who must ask the right questions to mobilize the collective to address the wickedness—despite the lack of credit they may be given when collaborative efforts succeed. Second, for this reason and others, the complexities of distributed leadership are many. Grint (2010) argues that even the best collaborations require strong individual contributors, but just how ‘‘leadership’’ figures in likely depends on the language games of the actors and analysts involved—not to mention a host of contextual factors. These are likely to include issues of space, distance and time; the nature of virtual environments and new technologies; and culture and the multicultural, just to name a few. Connaughton and Daly (2005) have called for more systematic and multi-methodological examination of leadership over distance, in particular, encouraging researchers to explore leadership’s spatial, temporal, and geographic considerations. In doing so, future research should examine and theorize distanced and distributed leadership (the latter implying a democratic, emergent conceptualization of leadership) from several meta-theoretical perspectives as well as consider the social and ethical implications of leadership over distance in various organizational contexts. Third, the subject of multiple methodologies raises the specter of cross-paradigm work, which is still relatively infrequent in leadership study. The recent push towards relational leadership is a not-so-thinly veiled attempt to get more traditional leadership scholars to accept more constructionist methodologies in addition to, not instead of, post-positivist methods (Uhl-Bien and Ospina, 2012). It is also an attempt to challenge the dominance of individualist, cognitive, and masculine views of leadership and transmissional views of human communication. Only time will tell if this will be successful or not, but communication-oriented scholars are uniquely positioned to do cross-paradigm work. One can imagine contributions to understanding leadership from perspectives in which analysts describe and critique the discursive features/constitution of leadership (communication); attend to how meanings are created, contested, or negotiated; and explain how the nature of this leadership (communication) predictively relates to various other processes and outcomes. Fourth, research on the positive aspects of leadership vis-a`-vis appreciation (Barge and Little, 2002; Barge and Oliver, 2003), spirituality (Frye et al., 2007; Holmer Nadesan, 1999), ethics (Clegg et al., 2007; Kornberger and Brown, 2007), and courage (Jablin, 2006) must go forward. Indeed, in a lecture delivered at Rutgers University, Jablin (2006) argued that courage is a central aspect of leadership, one that is under-examined and under-theorized, yet definitively communicative. He encouraged researchers to refine conceptualizations of courage and to conduct empirical research from a host of meta-theoretical perspectives on this topic, focusing particularly on instances in which everyday leaders exemplify courage. We echo his call in noting the dearth of research on this topic. However, Collinson’s (2012) warnings about excessive positivity must also be heeded lest we contribute further to romanticizing leadership (Meindl et al., 1985).

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Fifth, like Tourish (2013), we must also ask, is leadership only positive? What is leadership’s dark side(s), and what are its effects? Just as we are interested in studying destructive organizational communication (Lutgen-Sandvik and Sypher, 2009), we too should examine destructive leadership communication. Indeed, Mayseless (2010) urged researchers to study individuals’ attachment to destructive leaders, while Tourish (2013) and Tourish and Vatcha (2005) examine the dark side of charismatic leadership at Enron and other places. We have learned all too well that there is a dark side associated with the negotiation of difference in organizational life, whether it be issues of gender, race, sexuality, age, or culture (Mumby, 2011; Parker, 2005). Future research must bring bad behavior and good, inequities and remedies to light in equal measure. Finally, do we overemphasize the symbolic and the linguistic and neglect the materialities of leading and following? This is a question being posed throughout the organizational sciences (Ashcraft et al., 2009; Dale, 2005; Iedema, 2007), but has no less relevance for leadership and management processes. A focus on materialities in leadership contexts is beginning to shed light on concepts like ‘‘presence’’ (Fairhurst and Cooren, 2009), once thought too abstract to study. However, the potential is also there to understand more embodied ways of knowing about leading and following (Sinclair, 2005), but also the technological transformation of such processes (Leonardi, 2008). We began this article with the premise that leadership is both new and old, a timeless concept that must simultaneously reflect the times yet stay ahead of them. To do so is no small feat, but it is most worthy of pursuit in contemporary organizational life. Note 1. ‘‘WABA’’ stands for ‘‘within and between (group) analysis’’ (Dansereau et al., 1984).

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Author biographies Gail T Fairhurst is a Professor of Organizational Communication at the University of Cincinnati, USA. Her research and writing interests are in organizational communication, leadership processes, including problem-centered leadership and framing, and organizational discourse analysis. She has published over 70 articles and chapters in communication and management journals and books. She is the author of three books, including Discursive Leadership: In Conversation with Leadership Psychology (Sage, 2007) and The Power of Framing: Challenging the Language of Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2011). She is a Fellow of the International Communication Association; a Distinguished Scholar of the National Communication Association; a Fulbright Scholar; and an Associate Editor for the journal, Human Relations. Her email is: [email protected]

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Stacey L Connaughton (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin) is an Associate Professor and Associate Head in the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University. Her research examines leadership and identification in geographically distributed contexts, particularly as these issues relate to virtual teams/organizations and political parties. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, and the Russell Sage Foundation. She has authored one book and her published articles appear in such journals as Journal of Communication, Management Communication Quarterly, Small Group Research, and JASIST. She is the Director of the Purdue Peace Project, a funded research initiative in West Africa. Her email is: [email protected]

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