Leader-Member Relations as a Function of Rapport Management

TLDR

Leader‑member interaction is crucial for organizations but often causes employee distress, and research indicates that higher‑quality relationships improve communication satisfaction, yet leaders and members frequently disagree on relationship quality. This article investigates how leaders can build better relations with their members. The authors use a competing‑values framework and rapport‑management communication strategies to guide leaders in improving relationship quality. The proposed model, integrating competing values and rapport management, explains the quality of leader‑member exchanges.

Abstract

Leader-member interaction is important to organizations. Unfortu nately, such exchanges can also be a leading cause of employee dis tress. Recent Research calls for leaders to develop higher quality rela tions with their members, which in turn will increase communication satisfaction. Scholars have also suggested additional research that focuses on interaction between leaders and members to better under stand how leaders can and should manage such relationships. How ever, there is considerable evidence that leaders and members do not agree about the quality of their relationship. In this article, we address how leaders can build better relations with their members. Specifically, we explain how leaders might improve the quality of their relationship with members by focusing on interpersonal communication strategy. First, we focus on a competing values framework to clearly establish the importance of relationship building in effective management. Second, we define communication strategies for building better leader- member relationships by borrowing concepts from rapport management in sociolinguistics. Finally, we demonstrate how our model of leader ship communication (based on a synthesis of competing values and rapport management theory) explains the quality of leader-member exchanges.