The Importance of Emotion in Public Relations Leadership: A Case Study of Queen Elizabeth II's Christmas Address

Abstract

Traditional public relations research, constrained by a rationalist paradigm, has not clearly demonstrated the existence and role of emotional factors. Queen Elizabeth II's Christmas addresses, however, provide a model for emotional mobilization in the public relations process. Based on the emotional shift in public relations, this study uses a grounded approach to analyze the texts of Queen Elizabeth II's Christmas speeches from 2011 to 2021, exploring how the Queen mobilizes collective emotions and constructs a connection between the British Royal Family and the public through her Christmas addresses. The study finds that the Queen manages positive and negative emotions at the emotional groundwork level, balances the positions of the Royal Family and the public at the content subject level, cultivates trust through emotional narratives, and calls for community cohesion and collective value identification at the outcome-oriented level. These three levels are progressively progressive and mutually supportive. From a theoretical perspective, this study attempts to propose an implementation process for the continuous infusion and reinforcement of emotion in public relations behavior; from an applied perspective, it aims to highlight the importance of emotional factors in public relations research and provide new approaches for organizational managers to optimize emotional public relations.