Influencing Group Communication

INFLUENCING GROUP COMMUNICATION

Oghale Owarume

COM530

07/18/2011

SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

INFLUENCING GROUP COMMUNICATION

Effect of Leadership styles on Group Communication

Leadership is a system of relationships through which individuals motivate followers to perform desired behaviors (Hollander & Offerman, 1990)

Leaders establish direction by developing a vision of the future; then they align people by communicating this vision and inspiring them to overcome hurdles. (Robbins & Judge, ,  p. 376).

Group communication includes ways and styles of information dissemination among individuals with same group identities and collective objectives to accomplish.

Leadership style is the manner and approach of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people.

Three basic styles are recognizable in leadership—

• Democratic or participative,

• Autocratic or authoritarian

• Delegative or permissive.

A democratic style is based upon mutual respect among colleagues. It emphasizes that management communicates guidance to its teams and departments while accepting input from individual staff members. Leaders reserve the right to make final decisions but encourage feedback, ideas, and suggestions from all employees, thereby encouraging group communication.

Starbucks happens to operate in a blend of democratic-autocratic leadership with higher tilt towards democratic. Starbucks employees have the privilege of speaking out their minds on the running of the company without fear of retribution from upper management. This encourages group communication.

An autocratic or authoritarian style is more of an order giving leader. The communication is fast without much deliberations and/or approval from many sources. The leaders tell their employees what they want done and how they want it accomplished. This style hinders group communication because it does not give followers any room for contribution or feedback. If this were to be the...