Sexualized Communication
Employees perceive leaders who use sexualized communication as less effective and their decisions as less legitimate. This phenomenon occurs due to social psychological factors that affect attribution processes and cognitive evaluation. Sexualized language is defined as speech that contains sexual terms or allusions.
When a manager says "You're so hot!" or makes suggestive jokes, employees may interpret it as harassment, discrimination, or favoritism. They see this behavior as an attempt to manipulate power dynamics for personal gain, rather than a genuine sign of respect. Consequently, they feel disrespected, demoralized, and distrusted towards their leader.
Leadership Effectiveness
Employees evaluate leadership effectiveness based on competence and interpersonal characteristics. Competence refers to technical skills and knowledge required for job performance. Interpersonal characteristics include empathy, integrity, honesty, dependability, reliability, and fairness. When leaders demonstrate these qualities, employees trust them, follow their orders, and perform better.
Sexualized communication undermines this process by creating feelings of vulnerability, anger, shame, fear, confusion, and suspicion. Employees lose faith in their leader's ability to lead effectively because they doubt their motives and intentions. They feel uncomfortable and uncertain about what will happen next, which reduces productivity and morale.
Decision Legitimacy
Decision legitimacy means that employees believe the decision-maker has the authority to make important choices. Leaders establish this through expertise, experience, rationality, consistency, credibility, and transparency. But sexualized communication can compromise this perception by suggesting selfish interests, ulterior motives, and hidden agendas. Employees may question why their leader is using such language or making such jokes, wondering if it reflects an attempt to control or dominate them. This decreases confidence in the leader's decisions and creates uncertainty about future actions. It leads to resistance, disagreement, and a lack of commitment to change or improvement.
Social Psychological Factors
Attribution theory suggests that people attribute behavior to internal or external factors. Sexualized communication is often attributed externally as manipulative or exploitative. This makes employees less likely to agree with the leader's decisions or comply with their directives. Cognitive dissonance occurs when beliefs conflict with behaviors. When leaders use sexualized communication, employees experience cognitive dissonance between their values (e.g., respect) and reality (e.g., degradation). To resolve this tension, they may justify their leader's behavior or distance themselves from him/her. Either way, it harms trust and loyalty.
How does sexualized communication influence employees' perception of leadership effectiveness and decision legitimacy?
Sexualized communication is a form of verbal communication that involves explicit or implicit references to sex or sexual activity. It can take various forms, such as suggestive comments, touching, or gestures. Research has shown that sexualized communication can influence employees' perceptions of leadership effectiveness and decision legitimacy in several ways.