Understanding how to enhance online leadership in online Q&A communities is important because an online leader plays a role model or knowledge coordinator who can strengthen member commitment in the community. Considering the essential role of communication in establishing leadership, this study aims to understand how the linguistic complexity of two types of knowledge contribution, i.e., knowledge adding (KA) versus knowledge shaping (KS) that are targeted at two types of audience, may influence leadership in online Q&A communities. By analyzing the posting history of members from StackExchange, a massive network of online Q&A communities, our findings suggest that among the three linguistic complexity dimensions, readability and lexical diversity of KA have more positive impacts on online leadership than those of KS. However, the sentiment of KS has a more positive impact than the sentiment of KA. This study contributes to the online leadership research by highlighting the importance of adjusting linguistic styles based on types of communication behaviors (i.e., KA and KS) to earn leadership.

了解如何在在线问答社区中增强在线领导力很重要，因为在线领导者扮演着榜样或知识协调者的角色，可以加强成员在社区中的承诺。考虑到沟通在建立领导力方面的重要作用，本研究旨在了解两种类型的知识贡献的语言复杂性，即针对两类受众的知识添加 (KA) 与知识塑造 (KS) 可能会影响在线问答社区的领导地位。通过分析 StackExchange（一个庞大的在线问答社区网络）成员的发帖历史，我们的研究结果表明，在三个语言复杂性维度中，KA 的可读性和词汇多样性对在线领导力的影响比 KS 更积极。然而，KS的情绪比KA的情绪具有更积极的影响。本研究通过强调根据交流行为类型（即 KA 和 KS）调整语言风格以获得领导力的重要性，为在线领导力研究做出了贡献。