Essays in Leadership Communication

This work centers around leadership communication: how our (dis)information-rich and uncertain global environment has posed challenges to and offered opportunities for this key leadership behavior, and how leaders engage in difficult communications with their stakeholders. I focus on leader-stakeholder two-way dynamics to investigate leader communication in critical moments when they deliver undesirable information to their stakeholders and respond to tough questions from their stakeholders. Essay I reviews research on leader communication and discusses those challenges and opportunities. Essay II uses 107 million Twitter posts to examine stakeholder responses to political leaders’ COVID-19 communications and illustrates the evolving leader-stakeholder relationship throughout different phases of the global pandemic. Essay III explores organizational leaders’ response strategies when facing difficult questions from stakeholders in high-stakes corporate environments. In conclusion, I aim to highlight leaders’ indispensable responsibilities to communicate effectively, benevolently, and responsibly, enhancing the field’s current understanding of crisis leadership, followership, and strategic leadership.