BUS603: Managing People

In this section, we develop the argument that leaders' dispositional mindfulness has positive effects on followers' outcomes mediated by mindfulness in communication. Most notably, as a very proximal outcome, we explore the degree to which followers are satisfied with the communication with their leader. Thereby, we assume all three components of mindfulness in communication (i.e., paying attention, being open and non-judgmental, and a calm, non-impulsive manner) to be important for how followers perceive the communication with their leaders.

According to Thayer, individuals experience satisfaction with the communication when communication is perceived as successful. Following Ruben and Gigliotti, who state that, "leadership communication always has both content and relational consequences", successful communication refers to the quality and accuracy of information transmission (i.e., content consequences) as well as to the fulfillment of personal needs, aspirations, and expectations of the involved agents (i.e., relational consequences). Leaders' mindfulness in communication is likely to foster followers' satisfaction on the content level because less information gets lost between "sender" and "receiver" and the information is processed in a less biased manner. This assumption is supported by various empirical findings, linking mindfulness to increased attention focus and less attentional biases. With regard to the relational level, we follow Reb et al. and draw on self-determination theory, implying that leaders who communicate mindfully can help satisfy the basic needs of followers, which results in increased satisfaction.

The need for autonomy describes the desire to be in control of one's environment. One way for leaders to help ensure that followers experience some level of control is to provide voice, listen attentively, and treat requests seriously. By paying full attention and listening to their followers, leaders signalize that they are open to the input of their followers and are serious about what they have to say. Furthermore, by showing an open and non-judgmental attitude, leaders signal that they are willing to see things from their followers' perspective and offer them voice-opportunities, which enables followers to address and openly speak about organizational problems.

In a similar vein, mindfulness in communication is likely to satisfy followers' need for competence, which refers to feelings of growth, ability, and achievement. Specifically, through paying full attention and a high degree of acceptance and calmness, leaders show their followers that their opinion and viewpoints are regarded as important and worthwhile to consider, reflecting genuine appreciation of their strengths and unique abilities.

Finally, individuals, who have their relatedness need met, feel secure and safe in their environment and in their relationships with others. When leaders are fully paying attention with an accepting, non-judging attitude, they are likely to generate a feeling of being valued and respected by their followers. Furthermore, this kind of leader communication behavior may foster a feeling of psychological safety and intimacy in their followers as well as a feeling of being cared about which has empirically been linked with relatedness. Thus, leaders' mindfulness in communication is likely to result in an enhancement of followers' experience of relatedness.

Given that communication is central to leadership this satisfaction is likely to correspond to an increase in overall satisfaction with the leader. This claim can also be deduced from theory on human affective experiences. Fully present, non-judging leaders who keep calm even in intense situations are likely to elicit positive affective reactions in their followers due to an immediate satisfaction of basic psychological needs. Reversely, non-listening, rashly judging leaders, who easily get worked up are likely to elicit negative affective reactions from their followers. According to affective events theory, such affective reactions, especially if experienced repeatedly, likely result in generalized satisfaction judgments about the leader. Notably, this notion is reflected in prior research, positioning the way leaders listen and pay attention to what employees have to say as an important facet of employees' satisfaction with their leader. In a similar vein, two studies by Bechler and Johnson and Johnson and Bechler showed that the evaluation of leadership skills is positively related to perceived listening skills. Taken together, we predict:

Figure 1. Hypothesized theoretical model.