Gail T. Fairhurst

The leader‐member exchange patterns of women leaders in industry: A discourse analysis

This study takes as problematic the communicatively constructed nature of Leader‐Member Exchange (LMX) and gender. Actual, routine work conversations for six female leaders and their 16 male and female members were analyzed using a case comparison method. Constant comparison of conversations produced 12 discourse patterns that successfully discriminated between high, medium, and low LMX relationships. The analysis focuses upon the functioning of the patterns and the influence of gender in the construction of high, medium, and low LMXs.

Considering context in discursive leadership research

In addition to leadership psychology, there is another journey to understand the context of leadership that takes as its starting point the linguistic turn in the social and the organizational sciences. Those impacted by the linguistic turn are broadly social constructionist, discursive, and more qualitative than mainstream leadership scholars. In varying degrees, these scholars view context as multi-layered, co-created, contestable, and locally achieved. This article explores a constellation of perspectives united by these themes, introduces the qualitative special issue articles, and suggests directions for future research on the context of leadership.

The Social Construction of Leadership: A Sailing Guide:

A growing body of literature now exists concerning the social construction of leadership. This literature draws on a variety of definitions of social constructionism, multiple constructs, and an array of perspectives, approaches, and methods. To identify and understand the differences among them, this article provides a sailing guide, comprising four key dimensions, to the social construction of leadership. It applies the guide to the social constructionist leadership literature, including the articles in this special issue. It then discusses how the guide can act as a reflexive tool when various choice points are revealed and a means by which to chart future paths for social constructionist leadership research.

Social structure in leader‐member interaction

The investigation reported here was designed to examine how one leader and three members display social structure through their use of power and social distance language forms. Specifically, this work extends initial research into the simultaneous operation of Leader‐Member Exchange and Average Leadership Style models, by showing how some conversational resources distinguish “in,”; from “middle,”; from “out‐group”; relationships, whereas others neutralize group membership.

Interaction Patterns in Organic and Mechanistic System

The research reported here compared actual communication of managers and subordinates in two plants, one organized by an organic, self-managing team philosophy and one by mechanistic, authority-bas...

Contradictions, Dialectics, and Paradoxes in Organizations: A Constitutive Approach†

This article presents a constitutive approach to the study of organizational contradictions, dialectics, paradoxes, and tensions. In particular, it highlights five constitutive dimensions (i.e., discourse, developmental actions, socio-historical conditions, presence in multiples, and praxis) that appear across the literature in five metatheoretical traditions—process-based systems, structuration, critical, postmodern, and relational dialectics. In exploring these dimensions, it defines and distinguishes among key constructs, links research to process outcomes, and sets forth a typology of alternative ways of responding to organizational tensions. It concludes by challenging researchers to sharpen their focus on time in process studies, privilege emotion in relation to rationality, and explore the dialectic between order and disorder.

Echoes of the Vision When the Rest of the Organization Talks Total Quality

This research describes a case study of an organization that recently began implementing Demings Total Quality (TQ). Using discourse analysis, routine work conversations between leaders and members in five manufacturing plants were analyzed in terms of the framing devices used in implementing the TQ vision. This study found five framing devices: Communicated predicaments, possible futures, jargon and vision themes, positive spin, and agenda setting. The characteristics of the framing devices are discussed, along with how leaders and members enact their roles when using the devices, and how the framing devices succeed or fail in implementing the vision.

Resistance leadership: The overlooked potential in critical organization and leadership studies

This article examines the role of leadership in mobilizing collective resistance in the workplace. Given the scarcity of dialogue between critical scholars and leadership studies, relatively little consideration is given to the role of leadership in resisting and potentially transforming structures of domination. The article describes some of the reasons why these areas of research have produced so little mutual work. We then make the argument that theories of leadership can be useful to the study of resistance by providing a grounded approach to theorizing agency, highlighting the role of mobilization and influence in change, and emphasizing participant attributions. In doing so, leadership studies gain important insights about the influence of deep structure power issues on perceptions of leaders, as well as material and symbolic limits on mobilization. The article adopts a dialectical perspective as a way of understanding issues of resistance leadership, and then discusses how existing literatures, read with this dialectical approach, can be brought to bear on significant questions concerning the practices of resistance leadership.

Why are we here? Managing the meaning of an organizational mission statement

Abstract The purpose of this study was to identify and test the influences that lead individuals to actively manage the meaning of a company Mission Statement. Communication about a company Mission Statement was hypothesized to be a function of an individuals information environment, level of work unit commitment, trust in management, and organizational role. The Management of Meaning Scale (MMS) was developed to assess specific meaning management behaviors. The MMS was cast as the chief dependent variable in a path analysis using LISREL. The general model was well supported. Implications for practices associated with Mission Statement implementation are discussed.

Leadership: A communicative perspective

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.