Leadership Based on Path-Goal Theory in Organization Communication: A Perspective of Listening to the Labors’ Voices

Abstract

This study aims to determine the laborer's perception about the directive, participative, and supporting leadership oriented toward the organization or company's objectives. This research applies the path-goal theory perspective as the main theory and leadership and motivational theories as supporting ones. This research applies a qualitative approach with a constructivist paradigm, and the research design is phenomenography. Data collection is done through field observations, in-depth and virtual interviews. Data analysis is carried out thematically by applying the NVIVO 12 application. The steps include data collection, phenomena structuring, signification (conceptualized differently), understanding variation (due to various concepts), empirical manner, concept identification, and space outcome. Data validity testing is done with a triangulation of theory and sources. The findings show that the laborers' perception is constructed in two forms. First, the perception of hope, where leaders are described as democratic figures that motivate employees, show participation and are open to suggestions and opinions. Second, implementation perceptions, in which the laborers describe leaders as individuals with a directive capability, tend to be authoritative, and do not take sides with the laborers' interest. The novelty of this research is the boldness in adopting phenomenography as a research design that is typical in education study to be taken as a new approach in organization communication to elaborate the informants' perception. Another novelty of this study relates to the fact that this study elaborates the concept of leadership from laborers' perspectives. The facts obtained from the field showed that gaps between laborers' and leaders' perspectives were quite high. For instance, the concept of "democracy" was rather unclear. Leaders perceive democracy as something related to freedom, while labors found it a form of "coercion".  The field data collection is very limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation and the enforcement of limitations on community activities (PPKM in Indonesian) in Java and Bali. The concrete contribution of this research is to enrich theoretical study on organization communication and the implementation of the phenomenography method.

Keywords: leadership, laborer, organization communication, path-goal theory, phenomenography.