Leading through Effective Communication

I was attending the Toastmasters International Convention for the past 10 days in Phoenix, USA. One of the speaker at a keynote address emphasized the importance of communication. Effective communication imparts vision and values of an organization and developing positive relationship with staff.

Research evidence supports the conventional wisdom that effective leaders are effective communicators. Bernard M Bass ( 1990 ) found substantial evidence of a positive relationship between competence in communicating and satisfactory leadership and management performance. An interview study of 200 successful organizational leaders indicated that they had similar communicating pattern. The leaders expanded their thinking regularly by actively soliciting new ideas and feedback from others. Furthermore, they continuously sought fresh information. They possessed the persuasive skills necessary to convince others of the quality of their ideas.



Research has also been conducted on the contribution of nonverbal behavior to leadership effectiveness. One study by myself in the past 10 years indicated that when non verbal messages contradict verbal messages, listener tends to place more reliance on the non verbal messages. A manager who talks about wanting to empower employees but looks bored during the discussion will be regarded as insincere and manipulative. To be effective, the leader must synchronize verbal and non verbal behavior ( Remland, 1981 ).

An American Management Association survey of more than 10,000 US manufacturing and service firms uncovered significant problems in the basis for effective communication at many firms ( Lowry & Reimus, 1996 ). One such finding was that a majority of managers and supervisors form different business functions were perceived to lack a high level of understanding of the company’s mission, vision and values.



Information technology may not always improve communication by leaders, this technology has had a meaningful impact on communication and coordination by leaders. By relying on information technology, leaders and managers can be in frequent contact with group members without being physically present. Managers can also be part of a virtual office in which employees work together as if they were part of a single office despite being physically separated. The most familiar tools of the virtual office are fax machines, personal computers, pagers, mobile phones, and palm – sized computers. A more advanced electronic assistant is a three-way communication of a computer, telephone, voice recognition system like the skype, paltalk and yahoo messenger.



Frequent contact with company employees, customers and suppliers enhances co-ordination. At the same time, the manager can exercise leadership by inspiring, motivating and persuading people more readily with this technology than by telephone and in person contacts alone. Many toastmasters leaders from around the world regularly send email messages to motivate and inspire their members – locally, regionally and internationally. I can remember when I was serving as Toastmasters International Director, I used to send emails to all the leaders outside USA and Canada once a week. The email message was to let them know their progress so that they can monitor their performance to make effective oral communication and worldwide reality.



Be Credible

Attempts at persuasion, including inspirational speaking and writing, begin with the credibility of the message sender. It has long been recognized that source credibility is a powerful element in the persuasive process. If the speaker is perceived as highly credible, the attempt at persuasive communication is more likely to be successful. Being trustworthy heavily influences being perceived as credible. A leader with a reputation for lying will have a difficult time convincing people about the merits of a new initiative such as downsizing. Being perceived as intelligent and knowledgeable is another major factor contributing to credibility.



Gear your message to the listener

An axiom of persuasive communication is that a speaker must adapt the message to the listener’s interests and motivations. The company managing director visiting a manufacturing plant will received careful attention – and build support – when he says that jobs will not be outsourced to another country. The same managing director will receive the support of stockholders when he emphasizes how cost reductions will boost earnings per share and enlarge dividends.

Sell group Members on the benefits of your suggestions

Leaders are constrained by the willingness of group members to take action on the leader’s suggestions and initiatives. As a consequences, the leader must explain to group members how they can benefit from what he or she proposes. From the standpoint of expectancy theory, ,the leader attempts to increase the instrumentality for receivers of the message.



Use heavy – impact and emotion provoking words

Certain words used in the proper contact give power and force to your speech. Used comfortably, naturally and sincerely, these words can help you project the image of a self confident person with leadership ability or potential. A mortgage officer at a bank made the following progress report to her manager:-



“ It is important that I fill you in on my recent activities. This bank’s strategic plan is to get into next generation of financial marketing. I have bought into the strategy and it is working. Instead of simply selling commercial mortgages, I am heavily into relationship banking. I have been building long term symbiotic relations with some very big potential clients.. So far, the short term results I have achieved have been modest. But the long term results could be mind boggling. We may soon become the dominant supplier of financial services to a key player in commercial real estate. “

The mortgage officer framed her accomplishment and progress in buzz-words of interest to top management. She talked about supporting the corporate strategy, relationship banking, outstanding long term results, and her company becoming a dominant supplier. Using powerful and upbeat language of this type enhances her relationship image. Yet if she had taken the embellishment too far, she might have appeared deceptive and devious.



Closely related to heavy impact language is the use of emotion provoking words. An expert persuasive tactic is to sprinkle your speech with emotion-provoking and therefore inspiring – words. Emotion provoking words bring forth images of exciting events. Examples of emotion provoking and powerful words include “ outclassing the competition, “ “ bonding with customers, “ “ surpassing previous profits, “ “ capturing customer loyalty, “ and “ rebounding from a downturn. “ It also helps to use words and phrases that connote power. Those now in vogue include learning organization, virtual organization and total customer satisfaction.



Minimise language errors, junk words and vocalized pauses

Using colorful, powerful words enhances the perception that you are self confident and have leadership qualities. Also minimize the use of words and phrases that dilute the impact of your speech., such as “ like “, “ you know, “ “ you know what I mean, “ “ he goes ( to mean he says ),’ and “ uhhhh”. Such junk words vocalized pauses convey the impression of low self confidence – especially in professional setting – and detract from communication.

An effective way to decrease the use of these extraneous words is to tape record your side of a phone conversation and then play it back. Many people are not aware that they use extraneous words until they hear recordings of their speech.

A good leader should be sure always to write and speak with grammatical precision to give the impression of being articulate and well informed thereby enhancing his or her leadership stature.



Conclusion

Systematic observation and empirical research support the idea that effective leaders are effective communicators. Thus to be an effective leader, one needs to master the effective communication skills. I personally recommend one to join a local Toastmasters Club. The club has self-pace learning programs to enable the member to be more effective in the use of words, use of body language, speaking pace, use of vocal variety, use of pause, using the right grammar, and avoid unnecessary jargons.