The Relationship Between Leadership Communication and Employee Trust: A Cross-Sectional Survey Study

Leadership communication is a central organizational process through which supervisors clarify expectations, share relevant information, explain decisions, provide feedback, and sustain workplace relationships. Although communication is widely recognized as important for organizational functioning, further empirical evidence is needed on how employees’ perceptions of everyday supervisory communication relate to trust in immediate leaders. This study examined the relationship between leadership communication and employee trust among corporate professionals and individuals with internship experience. Guided by Motivating Language Theory and symmetrical communication principles, the study used a quantitative, cross-sectional descriptive-correlational design. Primary data were collected from 152 respondents through an anonymous electronic questionnaire distributed online through convenience recruitment channels. Leadership communication was assessed through message clarity, timely sharing of important information, listening to employee opinions, and explanation of decisions. Employee trust was assessed through respondents’ trust in their immediate leader and perceptions of leader honesty and fairness. The leadership communication scale demonstrated good internal consistency reliability (α = .835), while the employee trust scale demonstrated acceptable reliability (α = .782). Pearson correlation analysis revealed a strong positive association between leadership communication and employee trust (r = .713, p < .001). OLS regression showed that leadership communication significantly predicted employee trust, F(1,150) = 155.30, p < .001, explaining 50.9% of the variance (R² = .509; adjusted R² = .505). The findings suggest that clear, timely, responsive, and explanatory supervisory communication is associated with stronger employee trust. The study offers implications for leadership development, feedback systems, transparent decision communication, and organizational trust-building practices. Given the cross-sectional design, this relationship should be interpreted as an association rather than evidence of a causal effect.

Leadership communication; Employee trust; Supervisory communication; Organizational behavior; Motivating Language Theory

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20. Colquitt, J. A., Scott, B. A., & LePine, J. A. (2007). Trust, trustworthiness, and trust propensity: A meta-analytic test of their unique relationships with risk taking and job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(4), 909–927. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.4.909 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

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23. Mishra, K., Boynton, L., & Mishra, A. (2014). Driving employee engagement: The expanded role of internal communication. International Journal of Business Communication, 51(2), 183–202. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488414525399 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

24. Tan, H. H., & Lim, A. K. H. (2009). Trust in coworkers and trust in organizations. The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 143(1), 45–66. https://doi.org/10.3200/JRLP.143.1.45-66 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

25. Bentein, K., Stinglhamber, F., & Vandenberghe, C. (2002). Organization-, supervisor-, and workgroup-directed commitments and citizenship behaviours: A comparison of models. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 11(3), 341–362. https://doi.org/10.1080/13594320244000239 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

26. De Vries, R. E., Bakker-Pieper, A., & Oostenveld, W. (2010). Leadership = communication? The relations of leaders’ communication styles with leadership styles, knowledge sharing and leadership outcomes. Journal of Business and Psychology, 25(3), 367–380. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-009-9140-2 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

27. Men, L. R. (2014). Strategic internal communication: Transformational leadership, communication channels, and employee satisfaction. Management Communication Quarterly, 28(2), 264–284. https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318914524536 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

28. Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 709–734. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1995.9508080335 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

29. Whitener, E. M., Brodt, S. E., Korsgaard, M. A., & Werner, J. M. (1998). Managers as initiators of trust: An exchange relationship framework for understanding managerial trustworthy behavior. Academy of Management Review, 23(3), 513–530. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1998.926624 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

30. Thomas, G. F., Zolin, R., & Hartman, J. L. (2009). The central role of communication in developing trust and its effect on employee involvement. Journal of Business Communication, 46(3), 287–310. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021943609333522 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

31. Dirks, K. T., & Ferrin, D. L. (2002). Trust in leadership: Meta-analytic findings and implications for research and practice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4), 611–628. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.87.4.611 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

32. Fulmer, C. A., & Gelfand, M. J. (2012). At what level (and in whom) we trust: Trust across multiple organizational levels. Journal of Management, 38(4), 1167–1230. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206312439327 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

33. Mayfield, J., & Mayfield, M. (2002). Leader communication strategies: Critical paths to improving employee commitment. American Business Review, 20(2), 89–94. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

34. Mayfield, J., & Mayfield, M. (2018). Motivating language theory: Effective leader talk in the workplace. Palgrave Macmillan. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

35. Men, L. R., Qin, Y. S., & Jin, J. (2022). Fostering employee trust via effective supervisory communication during the COVID-19 pandemic: Through the lens of motivating language theory. International Journal of Business Communication, 59(2), 193–218. https://doi.org/10.1177/23294884211020491 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

36. Jiang, H., & Men, L. R. (2017). Creating an engaged workforce: The impact of authentic leadership, transparent organizational communication, and work-life balance. Communication Research, 44(2), 225–243. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650215613137 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

37. Men, L. R., & Stacks, D. W. (2014). The effects of authentic leadership on strategic internal communication and employee–organization relationships. Journal of Public Relations Research, 26(4), 301–324. https://doi.org/10.1080/1062726X.2014.908720 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

38. Rawlins, B. (2008). Give the emperor a mirror: Toward developing a stakeholder measurement of organizational transparency. Journal of Public Relations Research, 20(1), 71–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/10627260701726915 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

39. Schnackenberg, A. K., & Tomlinson, E. C. (2016). Organizational transparency: A new perspective on managing trust in organization-stakeholder relationships. Journal of Management, 42(7), 1784–1810. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206314525202 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

40. Aryee, S., Budhwar, P. S., & Chen, Z. X. (2002). Trust as a mediator of the relationship between organizational justice and work outcomes: Test of a social exchange model. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23(3), 267–285. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.138 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

41. Eisenberger, R., Huntington, R., Hutchison, S., & Sowa, D. (1986). Perceived organizational support. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71(3), 500–507. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.71.3.500 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

42. Rhoades, L., & Eisenberger, R. (2002). Perceived organizational support: A review of the literature. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4), 698–714. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.87.4.698 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

43. Yue, C. A., Men, L. R., & Ferguson, M. A. (2019). Bridging transformational leadership, transparent communication, and employee openness to change: The mediating role of trust. Public Relations Review, 45(3), 101779. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2019.04.012 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

44. Schoorman, F. D., Mayer, R. C., & Davis, J. H. (2007). An integrative model of organizational trust: Past, present, and future. Academy of Management Review, 32(2), 344–354. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2007.24348410 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

45. Colquitt, J. A., Scott, B. A., & LePine, J. A. (2007). Trust, trustworthiness, and trust propensity: A meta-analytic test of their unique relationships with risk taking and job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(4), 909–927. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.4.909 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

46. McAllister, D. J. (1995). Affect- and cognition-based trust as foundations for interpersonal cooperation in organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 38(1), 24–59. https://doi.org/10.2307/256727 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

47. Gillespie, N. A., & Mann, L. (2004). How trustworthy is your leader? The important role of leadership practices, values and relations in leadership trust. In R. M. Kramer & K. S. Cook (Eds.), Trust and distrust in organizations: Dilemmas and approaches (pp. 83–107). Russell Sage Foundation. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

48. Mishra, K., Boynton, L., & Mishra, A. (2014). Driving employee engagement: The expanded role of internal communication. International Journal of Business Communication, 51(2), 183–202. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488414525399 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

49. Tan, H. H., & Lim, A. K. H. (2009). Trust in coworkers and trust in organizations. The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 143(1), 45–66. https://doi.org/10.3200/JRLP.143.1.45-66 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

50. Bentein, K., Stinglhamber, F., & Vandenberghe, C. (2002). Organization-, supervisor-, and workgroup-directed commitments and citizenship behaviours: A comparison of models. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 11(3), 341–362. https://doi.org/10.1080/13594320244000239 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

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