Leadership Cultural Practices: A Preference for Elusive Communications in South Korea’s Tourism Industry

Abstract

In the tourism sector leaders need a clear, speedy, and practical style of communication to handle rapidly changing situations. This article investigates this perception in South Korea, a highly contextbased society. The author deploys the systems model of leadership communication to explore how tourism employees perceive leaders’ communication styles and behaviors. Qualitative data were analyzed using concepts of cultural characteristics and a leadership communication model. The findings highlight that respondents draw on cultural beliefs and prefer leaders who exercise communicative elusiveness, despite the merits of clear communication in tourism. This discussion illuminates that leadership communication is affected by cultural variations. The embeddedness of cultural values in leadership behaviors is demonstrated, with traits shaping perceptions of effective communication in different cultural contexts.