Leadership Communication Beyond Relational Mediation: Proposing the Leadership Communication Process Model

Leadership communication has been linked to workplace respect and employee outcomes, yet the theoretical claim that it produces effects through relational quality rather than directly has not been systematically tested. Using survey data from 1,521 U.S. employees aged 24 to 35, this study found that the indirect pathway was supported: leadership communication predicted autonomous respect and respectful engagement; both respect forms predicted psychological safety, with respectful engagement showing a stronger association; and the full serial chain through psychological safety, meaningful work, and job satisfaction predicted reduced turnover intention. But, contrary to theory, leadership communication also had significant direct associations with all four retention-relevant outcomes. Prior research examining well-being and engagement outcomes found no such direct effects, suggesting that leadership communication’s direct role may depend on the outcome domain. We propose the Leadership Communication Process Model (LCPM) to account for this pattern. The model distinguishes a relational function of leadership communication, operating through relational quality, from an informational/sensemaking function, operating directly on evaluative judgments, and formalizes the outcome-domain dependency as a testable hypothesis.