“Effective leadership is still largely a matter of communication.”
- Alan Axelrod. Elizabeth I, CEO:
Strategic Lessons from the Leader Who Built an Empire.
Leadership Communication:
A Communication Approach for Senior-Level Managers
By Deborah J. Barrett
Rice University, Houston, Texas
A leader must be able to communicate effectively. When CEOs and other senior executives in all industries and countries are asked to list the most important skills a manager must possess, the answer consistently includes – good communication skills. Managers spend most of their day engaged in communication; in fact, older studies of how much time managers spend on various activities show that communication occupies 70 to 90 percent of their time every day (Mintzberg, 1973; Eccles & Nohria, 1991). With cell phones, e-mail, text messaging, if that same study were done today, it would yield even higher percentages. The sheer amount of time managers spend communicating underscores how important strong communication skills can be for the manager desiring to advance to leadership positions; thus, mastering leadership communication should be a priority for managers wanting their organizations or the broader business community to consider them leaders.
Connecting Leadership and Communication
Researchers seldom agree completely on how best to define leadership, but most would agree that leaders are individuals who guide, direct, motivate, or inspire others. They are the men and women who influence others in an organization or in a community. They command others’ attention. They persuade others to follow them or pursue goals they define. They control
Leadership Communication: A communication Approach for Senior-Level Managers by Deborah J. Barrett, Ph.D.
Handbook of Business Strategy Emerald Group Publishing, 2006. Pages 385-390
situations. They improve the performance of groups and organizations. They get results. These individuals may not be presidents of countries or the CEOs of companies, but they could be. They could also be employees who step forward to mentor less experienced or younger employees, managers who direct successful project teams, or vice presidents who lead divisions and motivate their staff to achieve company goals.
Through effective communication, leaders lead. Good communication skills enable, foster, and create the understanding and trust necessary to encourage others to follow a leader. Without effective communication, a manager accomplishes little. Without effective communication, a manager is not an effective leader.
In fact, being able to communicate effectively is what allows a manager to move into a leadership position. An early Harvard Business School study on what it takes to achieve success and be promoted in an organization says that the individual who gets ahead in business is the person who “is able to communicate, to make sound decisions, and to get things done with and through people” (Bowman, Jones, Peterson, Gronouski, & Mahoney, 1964). By communicating more effectively, managers improve their ability to get things done with and through people.
The Barriers to Effective Communication
Communication is the transmission of meaning from one person to another or to many people, whether verbally or non-verbally. Communication from one person to another is commonly depicted as a simple triangle consisting of the context, the sender, the message, and the receiver (Exhibit 1).
Leadership Communication: A communication Approach for Senior-Level Managers by Deborah J. Barrett, Ph.D.
Handbook of Business Strategy Emerald Group Publishing, 2006. Pages 385-390
Exhibit 1: The Communication Triangle
Sender Receiver
This exhibit shows what would be very simple and ideal communication. There would be no miscommunication or misunderstandings. The sender would understand the context and the audience (receiver), select the right medium, and send a clear message, and the receiver would receive and understand that message exactly as the sender intended.
Context
Medium
Message
Leadership Communication: A communication Approach for Senior-Level Managers by Deborah J. Barrett, Ph.D.
Handbook of Business Strategy Emerald Group Publishing, 2006. Pages 385-390
In reality, communication more likely resembles some variation of the diagram in Exhibit 2:
Exhibit 2: Communication Reality or the Interruptions to Communication
The complication in communication comes from the interruptions or interferences in that transmission, whether the sender causes them or the receiver. The context in which the information is sent, the noise that surrounds it, the selection of the medium, the words used in the message, the image of the speaker, etc., all influence the meaning traveling successfully, or as intended from one to another. Learning to anticipate the interruptions in the rhetorical situation, to appreciate the context, to understand the audience, to select the right medium, and to craft clear messages that allow the meaning to reach the specific receiver as intended is the foundation of effective business communication.
Sender
Receiver
Message
Receiver perceived
Unclear purpose or message
Illogical message or structure
Offensive tone
Affective or cognitive dissonance
Cultural misperceptions
Negative ethos
Sender controlled
Inappropriate context
No understanding of audience
Muddled thinking
Wrong medium
Wrong spokesperson
Poor timing
Poor usage or style
Inappropriate appeal
Questionable ethics
Organizational noise
Context
Leadership Communication: A communication Approach for Senior-Level Managers by Deborah J. Barrett, Ph.D.
Handbook of Business Strategy Emerald Group Publishing, 2006. Pages 385-390
The goal of mastering all aspects of leadership communication is to move prospective leaders as close to the ideal communication situation as possible. Leadership communication necessitates anticipating all interruptions and interferences through audience analysis and then developing a communication strategy that controls the rhetorical situation and facilitates the effective transmission of the message.
Definition of Leadership Communication
Leadership communication is the controlled, purposeful transfer of meaning by which leaders influence a single person, a group, an organization, or a community. Leadership communication uses the full range of communication skills and resources to overcome interferences and to create and deliver messages that guide, direct, motivate, or inspire others to action. Leadership communication consists of layered, expanding skills from core strategy development and effective writing and speaking to the use of these skills in more complex organizational situations. As the manager’s perspective and control expand, he or she will need to improve the core communication skills to become effective in the larger, more complex organizational situations. Leadership communication consists of three primary rings (1) core, (2) managerial, and (3) corporate (Exhibit 3). The higher up in an organization a manager moves, the more complex his or her communication demands become. The core communication ability represented in the center of the framework below expands to the managerial communication ring and then further to the communication capabilities included at the broader corporate communication ring (Barrett, 2006).
Leadership Communication: A communication Approach for Senior-Level Managers by Deborah J. Barrett, Ph.D.
Handbook of Business Strategy Emerald Group Publishing, 2006. Pages 385-390
Exhibit 3: The Leadership Communication Framework
The framework is not meant to suggest a hierarchy, which is why it is depicted as a spiral. All effective communications depends on the core skills at the center of the spiral. These are the more individual skills. Leaders in any organization must master the skills at the core (strategy, writing, and speaking), but they also need to expand their skills to include those needed to lead and manage groups, such skills as emotional intelligence, cultural literacy, listening, managing teams and meetings, and coaching and mentoring. Eventually, particularly when they move into the higher-levels of organizational leadership, they will need to develop the capabilities in the outer circle, the corporate communication skills – employee relations, change communication, media relations, crisis communication, and image and reputation management.
Corporate
Managerial
Core
Strategy
Writing
Speaking
Teams
Meetings
Change Comm.
Emotional Intelligence
Media Relations
Employee Relations
Cultural Literacy
Crisis Comm.
Image/
Reputation Mgmt
Listening
Coaching/ Mentoring
Leadership Communication: A communication Approach for Senior-Level Managers by Deborah J. Barrett, Ph.D.
Handbook of Business Strategy Emerald Group Publishing, 2006. Pages 385-390
1. Core Communication. Communication strategy is included in the core, but managers will find they always need to take a strategic approach to be a master of leadership communication. Strategy is the foundation on which any effective communication depends. Leaders need to be able to analyze an audience in every situation and develop a communication strategy that facilitates accomplishing their communication objectives.
Managers need to be able to structure and write effective simple and complex correspondence and documents, from e-mails and memos to proposals and reports. They need to be able to write and to speak in the language expected of business leaders, language that is clear, correct, and concise. In addition, they need to be able to create and deliver oral presentations confidently and persuasively, using graphics that contribute to delivering your messages. These are the capabilities at the core of all business communication. Success in managerial and corporate communication depends on mastering these core capabilities.
2. Managerial Communication. Managerial communication capabilities build on t