Grapevine Communication Essay

In the textbook, communication is defined as “the transfer and understanding of meaning” (Robbins, Judge, Campbell 2009). With a group or organization, communication serves four functions namely: control, motivation, emotional expression and information (Robbins, Judge, and Campbell 2009). For the purpose of this discussion, organization communication will be the main focus, such as the informal form of communication regarded as the grapevine (Robbins, Judge, Campbell 2009) or word-of-mouth information either in confidence or amongst friends or colleagues (Kullard and Pelled, 2000). Grapevine communication is spontaneous as it is passed automatically from the top level of the organization to the bottom level without any difficulty in delivering the message. Management uses such way of communication to spread the information that either cannot be shared officially (Kullard and Pelled 2000. Robbins, Judge, Campbell 2009,)

The key elements or advantages of the grapevine communication is the flexibility it gives, i.e. no formal control, it’s faster than any other form of communication. However, the advantage of such communication is that there is no evidence which can be documented for future reference and it loses its meaning as is passed from one person to another (Kullard and Pelled, 2000).

From an organizational

As per studies conducted in the 1940’s, behavioral leadership has been narrowed down to two categories namely: initiating structure and consideration. As the name implies, initiating structure relates to a leader who is structured and organized, assigns tasks and expects deadlines to be met. Consideration on the other hand is how a leader has regard of his/her employees by mutual trust respect and appreciation (Robbins, Judge, and Campbell