The study, published in the Academy of Management Journal in July, examined 2,700 qualitative comments on leadership assessments from MBA and executive education classes.
The results showed most workers are unhappy with their manager’s communication style, but prefer more communication over less. Managers who undercommunicate are often perceived as lacking empathy and leadership ability, according to the study.
Less than 25 percent of employees say their manager is a “well-calibrated” communicator — someone who communicates the proper amount — but leaders were 10 times more likely to be criticized for undercommunicating than overcommunicating.
“It’s very popular, especially in certain industries, to sell the narrative of complete autonomy,” Chelsea Lide, a doctoral candidate on the study, said in a Sept. 12 article on the school’s website. “For that reason, I think managers might be biased toward leaving people to their own devices, whether that’s in the employees’ best interests or not.”
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