Communication Styles and Employee Performance: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Women Leaders in the United Kingdom and South Africa

This study investigates the impact of leadership communication styles on employee performance within a cross-cultural context, focusing on women leaders in the United Kingdom and South Africa. Although women have been increasingly visible in worldwide leadership positions, there is still a notable absence of knowledge about how women’s communication styles, which are based on different cultural lenses, affect outcomes at the organizational level. This study sought to address knowledge of women’s communication style, delineate these styles, and consider their impact on employee performance. The main aims/goals and areas of this study are to determine the eclectic statement modalities adopted and used by female leaders in the United Kingdom country and in South African country to record the cultural distinctions between organizational communication in Africa and the West, and to investigate the impact of culture and communication style on worker performance. This research employed a concurrent mixed-methods approach. Quantitative data were collected via an online questionnaire from 200 employees (100 from the UK and 100 from South Africa) working under women leaders. Qualitative data were gathered through Skype interviews with 30 women leaders (15 from each country) reached after data saturation. An organization in the UK and an organization in South Africa were contacted via online surveys and interviews. The study’s surprising finding is that there are female Chief Executive Officers (CEO) who have stated that they prefer an authoritarian leadership style. While there are several strengths to this technique such as the accelerating of the decision-making, it may also promote trust issues in a negative way, the discouragement of the involvement of the employee and supress the creativity tactics. The ANOVA analysis of employee performance revealed significant findings
regarding the impact of communication styles and culture. In Regression Model 1, the regression sum of squares was 15.891 with two degrees of freedom, resulting in a mean square value of 7.945 and a highly significant F-statistic of 60.595 (p-value = 0.000), indicating that the model is statistically significant. The multiple correlation coefficient (R) was 0.617, suggesting a moderate positive correlation, while the coefficient of determination (R²) of 0.381 indicated that participatory and authoritarian communication styles explain approximately 38.1% of the variance in employee performance. The Adjusted R-Square of 0.375 further refined the model’s goodness of fit. In Regression Model 2, a strong positive correlation was observed with a multiple correlation coefficient (R) of 0.889, and the R² value of 0.791 demonstrated that culture accounts for 79.1% of the variance in employee performance, with an Adjusted R² of 0.789 confirming the model’s robustness. The total regression sum of squares across the analysis was 32.983, emphasizing the significant role of both communication styles and cultural influences on employee performance. Qualitatively, 80% of the leaders we interviewed stated that their cultural background played a fundamental role in how they communicated. While the vast majority (73.3%) described their style as participatory, a significant minority (26.7%), stated that they purposely practiced an authoritarian style for some levels of effectiveness and respect. The results study offered a view of information about the choices and rationales of female leaders for adopting participatory and authoritarian communication styles. The results underscore the intricacy of leadership approaches and the possible impact of historical and social backgrounds. They also stress how crucial it is to consider the opportunities and strength of many leadership beliefs and the effect they have on
subordinate productivity and engagement. This study represents a meaningful contribution by providing empirical, cross-cultural evidence that participative, or inclusive, communication is a vital motivator of employee performance, while authoritarian styles are not. The results challenge overly simplistic cultural stereotypes and demonstrate the strategic nuance in women’s communication of leadership. The implications for leadership development are significant, advocating that organizations need to place a priority and emphasis on training in participative approaches to foster better performance. In terms of theory, it builds the crosscultural application of frameworks such as Human Capital Theory by conceptualizing communication as a strategic investment. The highlight of the results gives an insight on how important it is for businesses to encourage successful communication techniques, as the participative communication style increases employee performance substantially. Future research should investigate the long-term repercussions of these communication styles and research their implications in other cultural dyads. More research analysis is crucial to understand fully the importance of cultural beliefs as well as other factors being influenced by these connections.