Communication leader performance

Teams who are able to select who coordinates communication among team members perform much better than those who have no say, according to new research from Frankfurt School of Finance & Management.

The researchers also found that individuals who communicate more during tasks and training were more likely to be chosen as the communication leader.

These are the findings from research by Jerry Guo, assistant professor of strategy at Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, alongside his colleagues from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Massachusetts College of Business, and Clark University School of Management.

The researchers wanted to examine how individuals come to occupy communication network leadership positions and the effect that selection processes have on group performance.

Internally, individuals in these communication network positions link otherwise unconnected team members and can potentially act as the voice for the wider team, sharing insights with other teams, organisations, and stakeholders.

In order to understand whether a team performed better if they choose their own team leader, the researchers conducted a laboratory study with over 120 participants.

Researchers split all participants into groups of three, where they were given a project to complete – the creation of a new mobile app.

The researchers found that teams who selected their own communication team leader made fewer errors in their app development, therefore performing better than the teams who had their leader assigned by the researchers.

Moreover, communication ability and technical ability were key skills held by those who were selected.