The Incremental Validity of Communication Styles Over Personality Traits for Leader Outcomes

Abstract

Personality traits and communication styles are interlinked, as evidenced by high convergent correlations. Nevertheless, communication styles may have a stronger conceptual link to leader outcomes than broad personality traits do, as they are represented by a subset of behavior that is specifically important for leaders. As expected, we found that expressive and precise communication styles have incremental validity over the personality dimensions extraversion and conscientiousness in the prediction of leader criteria. The results of this study underscore the relevance of communicative behavior for leaders, provide a new concept to use in future leadership research, and may help leader development practitioners in better focusing communication training efforts.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Grateful acknowledgment is provided to Joris van de Blankevoort, Eva van Drumpt, Samantha Ferkranus-Van Kempen, Irene ten Hagen, Liselotte Kroeze, Kasia Pochranowicz, Ruben Reus, Hans Sybrandi, and Monique van der Wouden for their help in data collection.

Notes

At the time of the study, Angelique Bakker-Pieper was working at the VU University Amsterdam.

¹Details and results of the bootstrapping analyses can be obtained from the first author.