An Examination of Effective Communication by Exemplar Educational Leaders| Utilizing Persuasion to Facilitate Trust and Leadership in Higher Educational Institutions

• Main Author: Cascio, Payal D.
• Language: EN
• Published: University of Louisiana at Lafayette 2018
• Subjects: Communication|Organizational behavior|Higher education
• Online Access: http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10684438

<p> This dissertation is a qualitative inquiry that explores and pinpoints those exact communication strategies in leadership communication that enable higher educational leaders in sustaining their positions. This study was initiated with the intent to lay out the foundational literature on the content of communication that is utilized by higher educational leaders on a daily basis to achieve their departmental and institutional goals. For this purpose, communication was the core idea of focus, pertaining to which, verbal and non-verbal skills of leaders were explored. From the notion of communication and upon further investigation of communication literature, theory and leadership studies posit persuasion and trust as two prime components of leadership communication, without which, a leader&rsquo;s functionality would be greatly mitigated. Therefore, the three main constructs that this study examined are communication, persuasion, and trust. This study was strongly driven by the motive to explore the utilization of those specific communication strategies that enhance persuasion and trust among higher education leaders and their staff and colleagues. The method of inquiry was in-depth, face-to-face interview protocol that enabled the researcher to formulate carefully worded interview protocol questions that were meticulously sequenced and worded to extract the lived communicative experiences of its participants. From this point, thematic coding was utilized to code the responses of the participants and draw out the common themes that emerged across all interviews. The results of this research are comprehensive and contribute to the existing base on communication literature. This research brought forth the pivotal role of relational communication in facilitating leadership, the need for all leaders to make conscious efforts in choosing their verbal and non-verbal communication strategies meticulously in their daily professional lives, and the indispensable role of persuasion and trust in dynamic leadership communication.</p><p>