Abstract
This paper sought evidence in support of the theory that communication can make or unmake leaders in organizations. The lines of communication between management and followers in an organization must be open, clear and free from uncertainty, or the risk for the organization to work at cross purposes will be high. Whatever the type of organization – profit or non-profit, business or community-based, public or private, military or civilian – effective communication is considered essential for organizational success.
The leaders must communicate effectively with the people below them in order for the latter to participate efficiently in the pursuit of their organizational goals. However, research shows that communication between leaders and followers is often led astray by sociological and psychological factors that prevent business communication from going around the organization in the sense that it was intended.
For example, employees will likely give less importance to a department head’s message if it is contained in a memo littered with misspellings and grammatical errors. The same effect will be reached if the boss verbally communicates with culturally diverse employees by using words and phrases that are harmless in the culture of one employee but offensive in another. The paper discusses all the reasons and circumstances that make good communication skills an important ingredient in organizational leadership.
Focus of Study
Purpose
This study aims to examine the effects of communication on leadership for the purpose of determining if communication skill is a leadership quality as important as the ability to inspire and motivate followers and to possess a certain charisma, which are the more commonly known attributes of a leader. Along these lines, the paper seeks to resolve the issues on whether one needs to be able to communicate and write clearly to be a good leader, what conditions in an organization prevent leaders from being understood by followers when they communicate a vital work assignment, and how important is effective communication in helping an organization achieve its goals.
Justification
The role played by communication in organizational success is an interesting subject for study because it can negate the popular perception that the ability to lead is only about exceptional people-handling skills. This reflects in the curriculum content of leadership training programs such as MBA, where the focus is more on accounting, marketing and financial skills and less on communication courses. Evidence is gathered for this paper to support the argument that business schools and other leadership training programs should emphasize communication skills for future leaders.
Overview
The paper discusses the role of communication in leadership based on a literature review of 10 research materials dealing on the subject, which consist of at least two books and eight journal articles. The books are those expressing the views of Guirdham (1999) and Deetz, et al. (2000), which relate communication to financial performance, business organizations in transition and cultural diversity in corporations.
As for the journal articles, they deal with various types of organizations and include Bacal (2006), Cornelissen, et al. (2006), Juholin (2006), Luss & Nyce (2004), Alsop (2008), Van Acker (1997) and Firgon & Jackson (1996). The paper is structured such that the literature review is followed by details on the study proposal, which identifies the proposed methodology, research procedures and samples, analysis and possible limitations.
Literature Review
Research Review
Communication is an integral part of leadership and should be incorporated in a leader’s range of abilities for him to be effective in his leadership role. This is the thesis of Luss & Nyce (2004), who proceed to list the connections between the financial performance of a business organization and effective communication.
Juholin (2006) agrees, saying leaders are expected to ensure that their followers act in concert and with a single-minded purpose to meet the organization’s objectives. For this reason, the article suggests standards for the making the flow of organizational communication smooth and more effective.
In the collective view of Cornelissen, et al. (2006), corporate communications become more damaging than helpful to organizations if they are taken in a different context or misunderstood by employees. When this happens, the message is prevented from flowing through the different channels in the organization.
According to Patterson, et al. (2006), to be a great leader, one must be a great communicator who can articulate his vision and ideas clearly and effectively. He chooses his words carefully and bases them on the culture of the people he is speaking to. The email and instant message culture also engendered leaders that send written communications in abbreviated and often ungrammatical style. When placed in key leadership roles in organizations, these people with poor communication skills are likely to be more of a liability than an asset.
Alsop (2009) believes that graduate schools should give equal emphasis to technical skills and communication courses. Nothing that few business leaders today write coherent memos or letters, the author argues that effective communication skills are a prerequisite for outstanding business leaders. Leaders are expected to be visionaries who can inspire and motivate people and drive change in an organization.
To do so, they must display such well-known leadership qualities as integrity, honesty, empathy and the willingness to take risks for the good of the organization and its people. In business management schools, future business leaders are also developed by instilling in them strong foundations on such skills as accounting, marketing, strategy and financials. However, management studies find recent MBA graduates wanting in communication skill, which is as important as other business fundamentals.
People in organizations spend over 75 percent of their time in an interpersonal situation, says Van Acker (1997). Thus, it is no surprise to find that at the root of a large number of organizational problems is poor communication. For human communication to be high in quality or effective, it must take into account not only the choice of language but also the movement of vocal cords, the reception of sound and its translation into neural signals, syntactic and phonological processing
Guirdham (1999) believes that everyday communication is seldom perfect because of the presence of “noise” that interferes with the communication process. This noise may come in the form of language or people’s different perceptions of words. There are just no two people who would attribute exactly the same shade and meaning to the same words. For example, a leader who has been in the temperate countries accomplishes nothing if he communicates his thrill and excitement at skiing and romping on the snow to another person who has stayed all his life in the tropics. The other forms of noise are: unreliable and inconsistent message, receiver distortion, power struggles, self-fulfilling assumptions, cultural differences, and interpersonal relations.
As for Deetz, et al. (2000), communication is a challenge for leaders dealing with multi-cultural employees. The Japanese, for example, have the work practice of handling problems among themselves, such that they would discuss the solution to their American counterparts, but not the steps required to implement that solution. Also, the Japanese staff is likely to send the relevant report direct to Japan without showing to their American co-workers. In this work setting, a breakdown in business communication is certainly unavoidable.
Bacal (2006) suggests practical techniques of transmission to improve organizational communication between leaders and followers. The communicator may start by asking open-ended questions or prompting the receiver for specifics by posing close-ended questions. For example, a member of the work team who had done well before now turns in delayed and ill-prepared reports. The communicator, instead of telling the subject right away that he has turned into a liability to the team, may complement him first for the excellent job he has done before and then asks why the change. Another tack is to ask the subject if he has any problem at home or at work that distracts his attention. Throughout the entire process, it is suggested that the communicator encourage dialogue through eye contact and body expressions, state his understanding of what the other is saying, and summarize the key points as the conversation goes along.
On the part of Firgon Sr. & Jackson Jr. (1996), a leader who cannot communicate effectively cannot lead at all. In the leadership process, it is crucial to communicate effectively and frequently with everyone involved early on. This process involves one-on-one discussions, presentations to organizations and groups, and communication by every medium possible. Effective communication is especially critical when leaders need to win over a team, gain followers and overcome any perceived resistance to leadership.
Summary
The proposed research is expected to confirm that effective communication is a key knowledge that leaders must possess to secure the involvement and participation of their followers in achieving the goals of the organization. One of the research materials (Van Acker, 1997) reveals that 75 percent of the time that people spend in organizations is spent on interpersonal communication to get the work done. However, it has been found that miscommunication often occurs. It is interesting to see how poor communication actually brings organizational problems.
Research Question
In many of the above-named literature materials, little mention is made of actual organizational leaders who are perceived by their followers as poor communicators. Since it is consistently suggested in the literature that people with poor communication skills cannot be good leaders, are there people lacking in these skills who have acquired leadership positions? This, the research intends to find out.
Study Proposal
Method Overview
The research will use the quantitative method of research, which requires a variety of tools to exact a mass of data from an equally large number of subjects. With the qualitative method, the focus is on a limited sample of subjects to generate only secondary data. With the chosen method, we can generate both the primary and secondary data to include not only the attitudes and beliefs of the samples but also the bigger picture related to our research question, which is: is leadership exclusive to people with good communication skills? In the field, face-to-face meetings and interviews will be conducted while questionnaires will be sent to others through email, direct mail, telephones and messenger service.
Participants
The target participants will be divided into two groups: one group is composed of senior and mid-level executives involved in the dissemination of communication in their organizations, and two, the rank-and-file under their command.
Procedures
The interview sessions will be held separately for the two groups. While the encounters with rank-and-file employees may be held in groups, the same process will not be done with the leaders’ group. The reason is that executives may be guarded in their comments if they are with their peers. In the same manner, employees are not expected to speak freely about the management and communication practices of their bosses if the latter are within earshot.
Data Analysis
All the data gathered from the research will be analyzed through the SPSS process to determine correlations and trends.
Study Limitations
The study may be limited to a few business and non-government organizations that are traditionally accommodating to a research of this kind. NGOs are usually accessible to the public but most businesses are reluctant to give away management information in fear of competitors. This problem is expected to be more pronounced in military or government organizations. Thus, the point of view to be gathered for the study may be limited.
Bibliography
Alsop, R.J. (2008). “Communication and Leadership Skills.” The Wall Street Journal Guide to the Business Schools.
Bacal, R. (2006). “Organizational Conflict – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” Webpage design. Web.
Cornelissen, J., Bekkum, T. & Ruler, B. (2006). “Corporate Communications: A Practice-Based Theoretical Conceptualization.” Corporate Reputation Review, Vol. 9, No. 2, Palgrave Macmillan.
Deetz, S., Tracy, S. & Simpson, J. (2000). “Leading Organizations through Transition.” London: Thousand Oaks, Sage.
Firgon Sr., N.L. & Jackson Jr., H.K. (1996). “The Three C’s of Leadership.” American Management Association, New York City.
Guirdham, M. (1999). “Communicating across Cultures.” Macmillan Business, Basingstoke.
Juholin, E (2006). “Searching Paradigms for Communication of Work Organizations.” Working Paper 7-2006, Department of Communication, University of Helshinki.
Luss, R. & Nyce, S. (2004). “Connecting Organizational Communications to Financial Performance.” Watson Wyatt. Web.
Patterson, K., Greany, J., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R. & Switzler, A. (2008). “Influencer: The Power to Change Anything.” Part I, IT Managers Inbox.
Van Acker, V. (1997). “Skills related to Effective Interpersonal Communication.” University of Illinois, Chicago.