Leadership Communication

Leadership communication is an acknowledgement that communication is a crucial function of leadership. This is because leaders who don’t communicate well, timely, sufficiently, and clearly are wasting efforts that they have invested in planning, analyses and ideation because their employees either don’t get the point or don’t buy the point.

Without the rally of the human resources in an organization behind the agendas of the leadership, it’s akin to having everyone compete in a race with our legs tied together. Can we finish the race? We certainly can, but the journey to the finishing line could have been smoother.  

So how do we communicate well as a leader? Well, there’s a litany of leadership communication tips contributed by communication / HR experts that we can google on our own.  And they are all sound advice. Simply by browsing through 10 of them, the common ones are as follows:

• Be honest / Be transparent

• Listen actively and ask open-ended questions

• Have empathy / Connect with everyone

• Communicate frequently

• Have an open mind / Adopt an open body language

If you’ve come across similar lists but feel that something is still amiss, it’s probably because intuitively we know that being a leader communicator requires a lot more than following a listed approach. Or we have implemented some of them, and we don’t see a shift in our impact as a leader communicator.

The crux of the issue is that the listed items are simply enablers or tools to foster a certain mindset when we are in a communicative act. Chances are that when we follow the listed advice to a T, we would have failed to connect with our people as a leader communicator. This is because we have failed to understand that leadership and communication are predicated on relationships. And relationships can’t be borne out of a list of things to do.

So, we are proposing that the listed approach in leadership communication be expanded to include the additional steps:

Step 1: Desire a growth mindset

This implicitly embodies the acknowledgement that we aren’t perfect and have much room to grow as an individual. This requires a sense of humility and openness to want to unlearn old ways and to relearn new ways.

Step 2: Cultivate a sense of awareness

Self, social and situational awareness; or insight, is crucial to help us learn from past

experiences. Without awareness, we could have diverse experiences, yet not profit from them. Awareness can be cultivated through habitual introspection and focused conversations with the trusted equals in our inner courtyard. Using the framework of the famed Johari Window as an illustration, introspection allows us to grow in terms of our “Open Self” and our “Hidden Self” and conversations with critical friends enable us to receive feedback about our “Blind Self”. With input in these areas, we will cultivate a sense of “Holistic Self” that can then be a useful starting point to evaluate our strengths and weaknesses as a leader.

Step 3: Use communication tools selectively

Next, it’s to discern which advice is sensible or doable and which may not be applicable. For example, ‘empathy’ is not a state we can all instantly achieve. Perhaps some of us have been wronged by others before and may not be able to ‘switch on empathy’ yet. We think that’s fine. Just be honest with yourself. When you do, the employees may appreciate you more for your authenticity than for forcing a fake sense of empathy. 

Also, being transparent or personal may not be everyone’s cup of tea. For an introverted leader, that’s probably asking too much. Additionally, being open may not be socio-culturally appropriate in certain Asian or organizational contexts.

In a nutshell, we feel that leadership communication is a highly nuanced topic, which unfortunately, has been breezed through and commodified as a litany of ‘things to do’ in today’s transaction-focused world. However, the listed suggestions have their merits if taken holistically in the context of relationship building (with one’s employees); one that starts with the healthy notion of our own identity as an individual before assuming the role of a leader.

This article is a collaborative effort among three friends who have more than 50 years of accumulated experience in the space of communication training:

Writer

Dr. Katy Kan is a communication trainer and practitioner. If you’d like to find out more about leadership communication training or projects, please reach her at katy@katydidconnect.com

Collaborators

Ms. Aileen Lam and Ms. Sylvia Sim are university lecturers. They are contactable at aileenlam@nus.edu.sg and elcsimsc@nus.edu.sg respectively.