Leadership: Communicating Strategically in the 21st Century
Abstract
This paper seeks to discuss the functions of communication in ensuring effective leadership in the 21st century organization. The definition concept of leadership often intertwines and this provides various dimensions which create challenges to define leadership which encompasses all traits. Further, this paper later expanded from concept and definitions of leadership to leadership communication models. This paper recommended that leadership is about setting direction and aligning people to desired direction. Significantly, future leaders must be able to ensure that the subordinates are treated as members of the organization, whereby consistency in providing sound leadership would determine employee motivation and performance.
1. Introduction
Over the past centuries, many scholars have provided countless definition of leadership and many had successfully done so. This achievement could particularly be attributed to the abilities in relating the concept of leadership with current situation which provide various dimensions. As time and people progress, the definition of leadership also changes to adjust with latest trend in human relationship and how they manage the members. Undoubtedly, the difficulty to provide one concise definition of leadership that encompasses all traits remains unsolved. This unusual circumstance has resulted in the countless researches and studies carried out by the scholars in providing possible and concrete definition of leadership which stand through time.
In general, leader is regarded as a person with position of authority appointed or assumes power to lead an organization regardless of ability. More often, a leader is expected to provide a leadership in carrying tasks and take responsibilities. In the organization, leader is closely associated with the ability to manage the organization. Stephen R. Covey relates manager and leader by saying; Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall. In the changing world today, manager and leader is the key determiner in ensuring the success of the organization. Williams (2006) defined leadership as the process of influencing others to achieve group or organizational goals. This simply means that leadership is about setting direction and aligning people to the desired direction.
Leadership comes from a single word of leader which carries the meaning of a person or thing that leads. In this sense, leadership can be defined as the position, function and ability to lead other people to a greater success. Meanwhile, when discussing the relations between leadership and organization, it is the ability of individual to influence, motivate and enable others to contribute towards the effectiveness and success of the organization. Nevertheless, a leader in the 21st century must be able to ensure that the subordinate is being treated as member of the organization, not a mere worker that is ordered and instructed around. In this sense, a leader must be able to create a sustain climate of trust and a sense of community within the organization. Parallel to this perspective, leaders not to understand that strategic communication plays a key part for leaders in ensuring that their people to do the right thing instead of only doing things in the right way by carefully managing the internal and external relationship in supporting organizational growth (Zerfass & Huck, 2007). In their study, leadership was discussed as the medium of communicating the vision of the organizations, in both transactional and transformational leadership’s model.
Member in the organization wants a leader that could motivate them and the skills to attain something that they cannot do. A leader is regarded as a person who not only exemplifies but most importantly possesses the ability to communicate the action loud and clear. In this sense, a leader must walk the talk. A superior-subordinate relationship is significant in ensuring that the decision made is accepted by everybody in the organization. Rost (1993) stated that in the twenty first century, leadership has embraced a different dimension, which includes collaborative efforts among group members. Therefore, the essence of leadership is not solely the responsibility of the leader, but the relationship between the leader and the subordinates.
2. Harnessing superior-subordinate communication
In the organization, communication among colleagues and fellow employees are carried out to disseminate and retrieve information timely and efficiently, coordinate and complete job tasks, for decision making and finally to minimize or solve conflicts in the organization. Communication in organizational life provides a basis for understanding virtually every human process which occurs in an organization such as conflict, cooperation, decision making, the use of power and authority, compliance gaining, resistance, morale and cohesion, and the creation and maintenance of relationships
Organization; according to Littlejohn and Foss (2010) consists of at least two or more people with interdependence, input, throughput and output. They work cooperatively to produce, to sell or to serve other party better known as client, customer or public (Eisenberg, 2006). Meanwhile Beebe and Masterson (2011) stated that communication is the process of acting on information. It is also a process where messages are sent and received simultaneously – by which we make sense out of the world and share that sense with others. In most cases, in-person communication affords the best opportunity to clarify meaning and resolve uncertainty and misunderstanding. Several researchers have found that the way group members communicate with each other is crucial in determining what happens when people collaborate.
The roles of communication within the workplace are to control what goes in between the employer and employee, for motivation purposes, to balance the needs and goals of the organization and for decision making process. Then there are also the typical communication roles which include gatekeeper, liaison, as a bridge, isolate, cosmopolite and opinion leader. Today, it has become a requirement for any leader to master the communication skills. It has not become an option anymore instead a requirement to achieve greatness.
Leader must communicate. The performance of the members in the organization relies on the direction made by the leader. To decide on something is crucial but the implementation is another story. Therefore, it is empirical for leader to harness the communication skills. After all, leadership communication is about building relationship.
In addressing the issue of relationships between a leader and the members, the leader must be able to understand what communication is and how it contributes in ensuring the action is communicated. Eisenberg (2006) argued, that the communication processes that operate in organizations, the most important include those that regulate interaction between superiors and subordinates. The exercise of leadership in this sense tie with the superiority of the authority thus led to the responsibility not only to plan but most importantly leading and making sure that the subordinates abide to it. This later will translate into good rapport between leader and members. According to Gibb (1961), a supportive climate leads to subordinate satisfaction and accuracy in communication, while a defensive climate leads to dissatisfaction and distortion in communication.
Hence, the leader needs to know the communication structure in the organization so that the information can be communicated effectively. Daniel et al., (1997) explained, formal communication refers to communication through officially designated channels of message flow between organizational positions. Knowing the direction to which the communication flow and end is paramount as it determines the result of the message being communicated. It is a waste of time and effort should the members fail to comprehend the message; what more if it cost the organization its profit. When discussing formal communication flow, the hierarchy structure of the organization is the important element. To this, Daniel et al., (1997) stated, the concept of hierarchy is so ingrained in organizational life that formal communication usually is described in terms of the three directions of message flow within a hierarchical system: downward, upward and horizontal.
Leader must communicate to ensure that business transactions are carried out. These practices range from solving simple problems among stakeholders to highly important decisions that may cost millions on enterprise level. Again, at any levels of organization which crosses functions and actions, communication remains as key indicator for effective service, deliveries and development. To that extent, the way leader communicate to the members consist of many different types of delivery methods during the information flow. When a leader is able to manage communication effectively work relationships will become strong, well informed, and purposeful.
3. Leadership communication models: A reflection
Communication models assist in guiding communication process and as for leaders, this communication task extends beyond this; as leaders are managers of meaning to their subordinates and this communication task requires different levels of skills. In this section, we expand the discussion of leadership moving from definitions to several leadership communication models. Leader communication styles varies from high level of directives to low directive style and while most studies concentrated on the organizational outputs mostly found that high directives leadership produced more, leaders communication style is a primary