Furthermore, organizational members with leadership responsibility have
to provide their employees with work-relevant information, give them feedback
about how they have done their jobs, and show them consideration in order to
establish a good work relationship with their subordinates. Many taxonomies of
further leadership tasks have been described (cf. Fleishman et al., 1991); however,
according to Barnard (1938), “the first function of an executive is to develop
and maintain a system of communication” (p. 226). Thus, communication plays
a central role for leadership. This is also consistent with empirical findings of
high frequencies of communicative leader behaviors in daily work life (Jablin,
1979; Luthans & Larsen, 1986; for a recent overview see Tourish & Hargie,