Literature Review 2
Abstract
This literature review seeks to analyze, compare, and contrast different topics relating to
effective communication. The topics analyzed how effective communication affects
organizations through organizational development, culture, trust, and generational differences.
Next, the use of communication by leaders is just as vast. Still, the three topics focused on were
how a leader’s communication style choice affects the organizational commitment of followers,
the personality trait of the leader and how it affects internal communication practices, and how
leaders’ communication is affected in the virtual domain. The last topic covered is how hindrance
and challenge stressors can either positively or negatively affect a subordinate’s communication
effectiveness within the organization.
Keywords: Effective Communication, Leaders, Challenge Stressors, Hindrance Stressors,
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Literature Review
Introduction
The literature being reviewed in this paper is focused on effective communication. There
are many definitions of effective communication, but one of them is the formal and informal
sharing of meaningful and timely information empathetically. Everything today is accomplished
through communicating, whether it be verbally or through digital means. Understanding how to
communicate effectively is a critical skill that all leaders and managers must master.
Communication is vital in our professional and personal lives, helping us establish and maintain
meaningful relationships with friends, family, and significant others. This literature review will
analyze articles and research papers to compare three topics. First will be how communication
affects organizations. The second will be the narrower topic of how leaders use communication.
Lastly, it will be how stressors can affect effective communication.
Effective Communication and its Effects on Organizations
There are endless ways that effective communication affects organizations and the people
within them. When leaders or managers communicate effectively, trust is established because
requirements and expectations are precise, and workforce development is bolstered because of
the open sharing of information and how the organization’s culture can enhance communication.
Additionally, internal communication helps to build up organizational resilience and trust. Lastly,
communicating effectively with our subordinates must be tailored depending on generational
differences. Each generation can have a communication preference and understanding this can
aid in giving a leader more tools and understanding to communicate better. Let us first examine
how organizations can develop by using effective communication.
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Three studies had an overlap in how effective communications can affect organizations is
one examines how trust is built organizationally through the effective use of internal
communications, and the other is how organizations can develop through communicative
disciplines. First, organizations are a product of their communicative activities. (Cooren & Seidl,
2020). This study shows how organizations communicate can dictate how that communication is
successful in different areas. If culturally, communication is damaging and directive within an
organization, then the development of the workforce in this organization is. If an organization
has utilized communication effectively, then the establishment of trust can be formed easier.
There needs to be trust between the two parties for communication to be effective, and once trust
is established, communication is more effective. Furthermore, when organizations are going
through change, it is essential for leadership to communicate the change effectively through each
level, strategic, operational, and tactical. (Ballaro et al., 2020). With trust aiding in the
communicative process, how we communicate can be embedded in the culture within an
organization.
The culture of organizations controls and dictates multiple aspects of how people
communicate. When an organization has made communication an essential aspect of who they
are, there are many benefits that the company gains from this, which are integrating new
employees, helping employees understand the business, educating employees on the culture and
values of the organization (this, in turn, helps to establish communication as an integral part of
the culture), everyone understands the reward system and the value of the strategy behind the
reward system. (Winton et al., 2021).
As mentioned earlier organizational trust can be built through effective communication.
The use of internal communication also bolsters it. When there is a crisis, how it is handled and
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how effective the communication is can aid in developing the organization's resilience. The use
of internal communication during these periods also helps to develop relationships which then, in
turn, develops trust amongst team members and the organization. (Kim, 2021). In addition to this
study, Poloski Vokic conducted a study that also showed how internal communication is effective
at building trust within organizations. It also delved into more of a niche on how employee
satisfaction with communication within an organization is based on eight facets of
communication satisfaction and five dimensions of organizational trust. (Pološki Vokić et al.,
2020). This study also found that “satisfaction with communication climate” and “satisfaction
with communication by immediate supervisor.” are the strongest predictors of organizational
trust. Satisfaction with a supervisor’s communication can be based on many different things, and
one aspect many supervisors don’t think of is how generational differences can affect this
satisfaction level.
Understanding that if there is a generational gap between supervisor and subordinate, you
may have to communicate differently is critical to understand. Even more specifically, is how the
use of media for communication can be perceived differently by each generation and can affect
job satisfaction organizationally for that generation. The study showed that generation Y found
communication more effective when mobile phones, chat, video-teleconferencing, and company-
wide town hall meetings, over face-to-face communication. This contrasts with generation X,
which found the email, face-to-face, and memos/faxes to be easier to use than mobile phones and
teleconferencing. Understanding this as a leader will better enable you to tailor how you
communicate with your workforce, ensuring a mixture of face-to-face and digital communication
mediums if there are generation Y and X generations within the workforce.
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Use of Communication by Leaders
The way leaders communicate can be dictated by many different aspects, like knowing
generational preferences from the previous section of this report. Three other areas that affect
leaders’ communication and use are a leader’s personality traits, communication style
preferences, and virtual domain. Each of these areas can change how a leader communicates with
their team and significantly impact how effective that communication is.
A leader's communication style partially explains organizational outcomes where
effective use of communication by a leader positively affects the performance of individuals and
their commitment levels. (Brown et al., 2019). Being a leader that can communicate with
expressiveness, precision, and questioning makes it easier to establish high levels of personal
exchanges between leaders and followers. With these personal exchanges, trust and commitment
can be formed and expanded with subordinates. A leader's communication style is closely related
to their personality traits and how these traits can affect internal communication.
How we communicate can be dictated by our personality traits as leaders, which can
affect our internal communication practices. This study shows that different personality traits
significantly and positively impact communication practices for leaders. This it showed that
agreeable, conscientious, and extroverted leaders are better listeners and are, therefore, better
able to respond to subordinates’ needs, concerns, and interests. This is accomplished because
their personality traits lend to better listening and two-way symmetrical communication. (Lee,
2022). A leader that can understand the strengths of their personality traits as it pertains to
communication will better enable them to improve and evaluate their communication styles. A
better understanding of ourselves will help us pick the communication style best suited for the
leader and the subordinate, further establishing personal exchanges between leaders and
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followers, as mentioned in the previous paragraph. As the world becomes increasingly digital, a
leader’s communication effectiveness is dictated by their use of the digital/virtual domains.
Five communication aspects were crucial for communicating effectively in the virtual
domain: frequency, responsiveness, predictability, clarity, and mode of communication. These
factors dictate if communication is perceived as effective. Training in these communication areas
for virtual team leaders will be crucial in establishing effective communication for the
organization and teams that the leader is responsible for. As noted earlier, the more influential the
communication, the more trust is established between the leader and follower. With trust
established by the prior studies, using the five aspects of communication will help shift the
perception of a leader’s communication to being more effective. With lower levels of trust, the
leader’s communication will be seen as less effective. (Newman et al., 2019).
Effects of Challenge and Hindrance Stressors on Effective Communication
Challenge stressors were found to be positively related to the effectiveness of
communication by supervisors, while hindrance stressors showed a negative relation. Challenge
stressors heighten individuals’ reciprocity in conversations, making people more devoted to
effective communication. At the same time, hindrance stressors break the norm of reciprocity
which makes them less likely to put effort into communicating effectively. (Teng et al., 2020). To
delineate further, challenge stressors are job factors that have the potential to develop the
personal growth of subordinates, while hindrance stressors are those that interfere with this
growth. As a leader better, being able to eliminate the ambiguity of roles, requirements,
expectations, and negative politicking will help to establish employees that are better able to
communicate. If contradicting assignments are placed on an employee, this will cause a
hindrance to their growth in accomplishing that task which was a challenge stressor. Finally,
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challenge stressors will not automatically cause growth in a subordinate this has to be coupled
with effective communication by the supervisor to ensure the follower gains the benefits. With
the benefits being utilized more efficiently the communication within an organization will be
heightened and will provide reciprocal benefits to the culture of that organization.
Conclusion
In review, there are thousands of studies published on effective communication and how
it affects organizations. I covered a few narrow topics relating effective communication to its
effects on the organization. Organizations are affected when communication is appropriately
used because it benefits organizational development showing that they are a product of the
environment surrounding their communicative activities. Furthermore, communication can be
embedded into the organization’s culture, which will aid in developing the organization. Next,
establishing trust and resilience through internal communication was covered, where effective
internal communication practices and relationship building can strengthen an organization's
resilience. Lastly, communication and its effect on organizations are how generational
differences affect how communication is perceived and the preferences that generations would
prefer in communication mediums. The second overarching topic covered relating to effective
communication is the use of communication by leaders. A leader’s personality can contribute to
the communication style used, and the more a leader understands these relationships, the better
they will be able to link their personality to an effective communication style to be utilized.
Finally, the last topic researched was how challenge stressors and hindrance stressors could
affect communication. Showing that challenging stressors can help develop employees’ personal
growth, enabling them to communicate more precisely in their organization. Hindrance stressors,
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on the other hand, inhibit this personal growth and is likely to negatively affect the effectiveness
of an employee’s communication within an organization.
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References
Ballaro, J. M., Mazzi, M. A., & Holland, K. (2020). Organization Development Through
Effective Communication, Implementation, and Change Process. Organization
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accountid=12085
Brown, O., Paz-Aparicio, C., & Revilla, A. J. (2019). Leader’s communication style, LMX and
organizational commitment. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 40(2),
230-258. https://doi.org/10.1108/lodj-03-2018-0129
Cooren, F., & Seidl, D. (2020). Niklas Luhmann’s radical communication approach and its
implications for research on organizational communication. Academy of Management
Review, 45(2), 479-497. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2018.0176
Kim, Y. (2021). Building organizational resilience through strategic internal communication and
organization–employee relationships. Journal of Applied Communication Research,
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Lee, Y. (2022). Personality traits and organizational leaders' communication practices in the
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Newman, S. A., Ford, R. C., & Marshall, G. W. (2019). Virtual team leader communication:
Employee perception and organizational reality. International Journal of Business
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internal communication. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 26(1),
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Teng, E., Zhang, L., & Lou, M. (2020). I am talking but are you listening? The effects of
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Winton, B. G., Bean, B. R., Sargent, M., & Maellaro, R. (2021). Embedding Effective
Communication and Formal Rewards into Corporate Culture: A Path to Organizational
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