The Relationship between Leadership Styles, Leader Communication Style, and Impact on Leader–Member Exchange Relationship within the Banking Sector in the United States

Proceeding from the assumption that leadership is a socially constructed relationship, the purpose of the study was to examine (a) the direct causal link between leadership styles and leader communication styles, (b) the direct causal link between leadership styles and quality of leader–member exchange (LMX) relationship as well as (c) the extent to which leader communication styles mediates the relationship between leadership styles and LMX. Using hierarchical multiple regression analysis, three regression models were estimated on data drawn from 213 domestic bank employees in the United States. The findings indicated that the transformational leadership style is negatively related to the communication style of verbal aggressiveness and positively related to preciseness. Furthermore, verbal aggressiveness and preciseness partially mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and LMX. The findings also suggested that verbal aggressiveness leads to low quality of LMX, while preciseness leads to high quality LMX. Finally, results indicated that transactional leadership is significantly related to leader expressiveness, questioningness, and preciseness, which, in turn, explain the relationship of transactional leadership with quality of LMX. The current study concluded that leadership is enacted through different leader communication styles. The implications of the findings draw attention to the importance of leader communication styles in building productive and enduring dyadic relationships with followers in the workplace. Moreover, the findings underscore the role that leader communication plays in influencing the work environment in manners of conveyance that impact proximal and power relationships.