Communication Styles of Senior Leaders in Health Insurance During Times of Organizational Change

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the communication styles used by senior leaders in health insurance to manage organizational change in upstate New York. Using transformational leadership theory as a lens, this study sought to gain a better understanding of which communication style senior leaders in health insurance are using during organizational change, such as state and federal mandates. Data in this study were collected using the Communication Style Inventory (CSI) (de Vries et al., 2009), a Likert-style questionnaire completed by senior leaders in health insurance, to evaluate perceived styles of communication. A purposeful sampling model was used to select existing health insurance organizations in upstate New York that offer a Medicaid product to examine the specific communication style used by senior leaders. This study demonstrated that senior leaders in health insurance can close the comprehension gap of communication, especially during organizational change, by using a specific style of communication. In addition, the study focused on the communication style used most commonly by a senior leader in health insurance and paired it with a leadership style which would be most complementary to avoid cynical employees. Using inferential and descriptive statistics, the research led to understanding a specific communication style used by senior leaders and its correlation with age and gender. Findings from this study will help the understandings within health insurance organizations and how a specific communication style may be used in the development of its senior leaders