Communication et leadership – iman aguendich (version anglaise)

Institut Supérieur de Commerce et d’Administration
des Entreprises

Prepared by :
AGUENDICH Iman

Communication & Leadership

Plan
Introduction

I- Establish the Working Climate

1. Dehumanized Climate

2. Overhumanized Climate

3. Situational Climate

II- Ways toimprove communication

1. Encourage Feedback

2. Listen Effectively

3. Reduce Communication Misunderstanding

4. Communication with Key Personnel

5. Promote Group Consensus

Conclusion

References

Introduction

Communication is essential to effective leadership. It’s often something we take for granted and not given theattention it deserves. Consider this quote from Saul Alinsky’s book “Rules for Radicals”:

“One can lack any of the qualities of an organizer – with one exception – and still be effective and successful. That exception is the art of communication. It does not matter what you know about anything if you cannot communicate to your people. In that event you are not even a failure. You’re just not there.Communication with others takes place when they understand what you’re trying to get across to them. If they don’t understand, then you are not communicating regardless of your words, pictures or anything else. People only understand things in terms of their experience, which means that you must get within their experience.”

Communication underpins effective leadership. Leaders need to beconscious of how and what they communicate to other in word and deeds.

A leader who has poor leadership communication will find leading far more challenging than a great communicator. Respect and confidence on the part of staff, the executive team and board will be much harder to earn. A poor performance during a media interview can permanently damage a leader’s credibility. And investors may loseconfidence in a leader struggles during an investors annual meeting. One only has to look at the performances of Bill Clinton, Jack Welch, Ronald Regan and Barack Obama to see the key role that effective leadership communication has played in their successes.

Establish the Working Climate

The first step in improving communication is to provide a good working climate. A leadingauthority on communication and leadership, W. Charles Redding, said, « A member of any organization is, in large measure, the kind of communicator that the organization compels him to be. » One of the most compelling factors influencing communication is the organizational climate imposed by the leaders. Three basic climates might be labeled dehumanized climate, overhumanized climate, and situationalclimate.

Dehumanized Climate

For years, most organizations were founded on the model of a master-slave relationship. Certainly, the military has not been exempt from this kind of thinking. The work of Frederick W. Taylor in the early part of this century is often associated with the dehumanized climate. Taylor has been credited with suggesting a leadership philosophy that neglects humanrelations in the workplace.
The basic assumptions of the dehumanized climate are that subordinates are lazy, won’t take responsibility, lack desire to achieve significant results, demonstrate inability to direct their own behavior, show indifference to organizational needs, prefer to be led by others, and avoid making decisions whenever possible. Supervisors communicate their belief in suchassumptions by withholding information (since confidential information is not safe with subordinates), telling subordinates not only what to do but how to do it, doing all the upward and lateral communication themselves (if the subordinate’s idea is good, they handle it themselves; if they think it is bad, they crush it), and talking individually with subordinates (seldom in groups) to keep each person…