...strong relationship between supervisors' communicator competence and their task and relational leadership styles, with supervisor communicator competence being stronger predictor of employee job and communication satisfaction. More specifically, the findings indicated that supervisor communicator competence accounted for 68% of the variance in subordinate communication satisfaction and nearly 18% of the variance in subordinate job satisfaction. More important, these findings provide an association between communication, leadership, and employee job and communication satisfaction.

Keywords: leadership style; supervision; communicator competence; communication satisfaction; job satisfaction

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The link between leadership and competent communication has received limited attention by business and communication scholars alike. According to Holladay and Coombs (1993), leadership is a behavior enacted through communication. Specifically, Holladay and Coombs suggested that communication shapes the perceptions of a leader's charisma, and communication can be divided into the content of the leader's messages and the presentation of those messages. Similarly, messages sent by leaders are considered to contain both affective and cognitive strategies (Hall & Lord, 1995), and when leaders effectively communicate their vision, they win the confidence of followers, which in turn aids in communication satisfaction between the leader and follower (Pavitt, 1999). Castaneda and Nahavandi (1991) suggested that subordinates who perceive their supervisors' behaviors to exhibit both relationship orientation and task orientation report being the most satisfied.

Based on previous research, leadership appears to be enacted through communication in such a way that it contains a relational (affective) and task (content) component. Additionally, when leaders communicate effectively, their followers experience greater levels of satisfaction. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to examine the influence of supervisor task leadership style, relational leadership style, and communicator competence on employee job and communication satisfaction. This examination is of value in that it extends prior research in three ways. First, the current study examines the link between communicator competence and leadership styles. Second, this study highlights the specific influence of both task and relational leadership and, third, offers insight into the influence that supervisor task leadership, relational leadership, and communicator competence have on subordinate job and communication satisfaction. The variables of communicator competence, leadership, communication satisfaction, and job satisfaction are discussed in more detail below.

Communicator Competence

Harris and Cronen's (1979) research indicated that competent individuals must not only achieve their goals (be effective) but also do so appropriately. In following with this notion, communication competence has been conceptualized to encompass elements of knowledge, motivation, skill, behavior, and effectiveness (Spitzberg, 1983). Spitzberg and Cupach (1981) stated, "Competent interaction can be viewed as a form of interpersonal influence, in which an individual is faced with the task of fulfilling communicative functions and goals (effectiveness) while maintaining conversational and interpersonal norms (appropriateness)" (p. 1).

Cushman and Craig (1976) argued that communicator competence involves the ability of individuals to display competencies in areas such as listening and negotiating. More recently, Salacuse (2007) indicated that as a result of changing work environments in which employees are more educated and intelligent than past generations, leaders are now required to lead by negotiation. Specifically, Salacuse noted that in order for leaders to persuade people to follow their vision, they need to communicate effectively by appealing to the interests of the followers. In that competent communicators must employ communicative resources such as language, gestures, and voice (Stohl, 1984), and in order for supervisors to be perceived as competent communicators, they must share and respond to information in a timely manner, actively listen to other points of view, communicate clearly and succinctly to all levels of the organization, and utilize differing communication channels (Shaw, 2005).

Despite the vast amounts of research focused on competent communication, there appears to be a lack of prior research directly examining the relationship between supervisor communicator competence and supervisor task and relational leadership styles. However, there does appear to be a limited amount of research examining the influence of supervisors' communicator competence on employee outcomes.

One such study was that of Berman and Hellweg (1989), whose findings indicated that the perceived communicator competence of a supervisor was related to their subordinate's satisfaction with that supervisor. Another example was a study by Myers and Kassing (1998), who examined the relationship between subordinate perceptions of their supervisor's communication skills, including communicator competence, and the subordinate's level of organizational identification. Myers and Kassing's findings indicated that supervisor communication competence was a significant predictor of subordinate organizational identification. A more recent example was a study by Sharbrough, Simmons, and Cantrill (2006), who examined the impact of motivational language on a number of outcomes. Specifically, Sharbrough et al. found positive relationships between a leader's use of motivational language and their perceived effectiveness, their communication competence, and their subordinates' job and communication satisfaction.

The current study differs from the prior examples in two significant ways. First, the current study examined the influence of a supervisor's communicator competence, task, and relational leadership on subordinates' job and communication satisfaction. Second, the current study also examined the influence that a supervisor's task and relational leadership style has on being perceived as a competent communicator. The following section highlights the importance of leadership in organizations and offers support for the inclusion of leadership in the current study.

Leadership

Leadership has been defined in a number of ways, such as the ability to guide followers toward shared goals (Bryman, 1992), as a form of influence (Hersey, 1984), and as simply something a leader does (Fleishman, 1973). Specific to the current study, Pfeffer and Salancik (1975) indicated that leaders exhibit task- and relational-oriented behaviors....

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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