Construct system development, transformational leadership and leadership messages

This paper reports a study of leadership and communication in small businesses. Recent scholarship on organizational leadership suggests the importance of social cognitive abilities and messages that accommodate followers’ perspectives. Thus the study attempted to integrate certain features of constructivist theory with transformational‐transactional leadership theory. Findings suggest that communication abilities such as construct system development and person‐centered message production may play important roles in leader‐follower interactions. Specifically, the results from this study suggest a moderate association between construct system development and three of the four factors purported to underlie transformational leadership, and insignificant relationships between construct system development and transactional qualities. Findings regarding the association between leadership qualities and person‐centered messages, and between person‐centered messages and evaluations of message effects, were mixed.