What leaders tell and employees hear – an intention-perception model of storytelling in leadership

Johannes Stark, Julia A.M. Reif and Tom Schiebler

Organization Management Journal, 2021, vol. 19, issue 2, 72-83

Abstract: Purpose - Storytelling is considered an effective leadership behavior. However, research on storytelling’s effects on followers is scarce and disconnected from leadership theory. This paper aims to explore the perspectives of both leaders and followers with a focus on interaction-based moderators and affective mediators of storytelling effects, building on transformational leadership and leader-member exchange theory. Design/methodology/approach - Data from semi-structured interviews (N = 27 independent leaders and followers) were analyzed with a combined content-analytic and grounded theory approach. Findings - Leaders’ intended effects of storytelling (transformation, relationship and information) evoked either positive or negative affective reactions in followers depending on how well the story met followers’ needs (need-supply fit), the adequacy of the input load transported by the story (story load) and how followers interpreted their leaders’ story (story appraisal). Followers’ positive or negative affective reactions translated into positive effects (corresponding to leaders’ intended effects) or negative effects (contradicting leaders’ intended effects), respectively. Results were integrated into an intention-perception model of storytelling. Originality/value - Proposing an intention-perception model of storytelling, this paper explains when and why unintended effects of storytelling happen, and thus provides an alternative view to the one-fits-all approach on leaders’ storytelling advocated by popular management literature.

Keywords: Narrative; Leadership; Transformational leadership; Storytelling; Leader-member-exchange (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:omjpps:omj-02-2021-1156

DOI: 10.1108/OMJ-02-2021-1156

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Organization Management Journal from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().