Ground Rules for Effective Leadership Communication PDF

Chapter 10 Ground Rules for Effective Leadership Communication John A. Daly 10.1 Introduction Communication is a vital responsibility of leaders. The ability to strategize, coor- dinate, motivate, influence, set direction, handle people—internal and external to an organization—depends on effectiv...

Chapter 10 Ground Rules for Effective Leadership Communication John A. Daly 10.1 Introduction Communication is a vital responsibility of leaders. The ability to strategize, coor- dinate, motivate, influence, set direction, handle people—internal and external to an organization—depends on effective communication. In a recent study of over 5000 job postings for CEO positions researchers found an increasing emphasis on strong social skills—communication skills—and a significant reduced focus on skills related to financial and technical capabilities (Fuller, 2022). This is perhaps because poor leadership communication leads to job dissatisfaction, stress, conflict, misun- derstandings, poor job performance, and less profitability to name but a few conse- quences (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2018). When people feel they’re not getting the amounts or sorts of communication they desire, they perceive their leaders unem- phatic and ineffective (Flynn & Lide, in press). Yet despite the vital importance of communication only 13% of employees strongly agree that their organization’s leadership communicates effectively (Mullin & Buono 2020). And, only 7% of U.S. workers strongly agree that communication where they work is accurate, timely, and open (Robinson, 2021). In this brief chapter we discuss sixteen practical, research-based, principles of effective communication for leaders in the workplace. Before describing specifics let’s address two major mistakes many leaders make when it comes to communica- tion. First, they assume effective communication has taken place when the speech is delivered, the email sent, the meeting ends, the report submitted. Wrong! Just because something has been said or sent doesn’t mean anyone understood, accepted, or was influenced by that message. As George Bernard Shaw said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” Leaders must J. A. Daly (B) The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 137 N. Pfeffermann and M. Schaller (eds.), New Leadership Communication—Inspire Your Horizon, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34314-8_10 138 J. A. Daly check and recheck for understanding, agreement, and follow through on what they communicate. An important caution: Leaders tend to assume recipients of their messages have the same depth and breadth of knowledge about a subject they do. There is a “curse of knowledge”—“a bias in which the individual sending a message wrongly assumes that the audience possesses the same level of understanding, expertise, and back- ground as the sender” (Flynn & Lide, in press). Leaders are exposed to extraordi- nary amounts of information that deepen their understanding of issues. They often assume, incorrectly, that people they communicate with—subordinates, customers, even fellow leaders—share the same knowledge. Second, rather than assuming responsibility for effectively communicating leaders often blame others for not attending to their messages. Reflecting this are comments like, “I said exactly that in the meeting!”; “It’s right there in the email! Why won’t people just read what we sent?”; or, “We’ve told people this three times already!” Stop! Leaders are 100% responsible for accurately and effectively getting their messages across to others regardless of people’s inattention. They have to ensure even the worst listeners or laziest readers grasp their messages. They do this by approaching communication as salespeople would. They don’t “tell”, instead they “sell”. They move from “announcing” to “marketing” their ideas and information. 10.2 Clarity Matters One challenge you face is ensuring people grasp and remember your messages. What can you do to ensure people both clearly understand and easily recall what you say or write? Effective communication is brief: People’s attention span is short. The typical length of speeches, articles, and emails is less today than in the past. People want brief, focused messages. Practically, you can craft messages in various ways to achieve brevity. Focus your message: Billboards and Web banner ads are extraordinary communi- cation media. Most billboard include one image and perhaps 5–7 words. The wonder of a good billboard is that people almost always immediately and effortlessly grasp what the advertised business wants. Effective communicators offer, metaphorically, billboards for their messages. An exercise: Imagine you’re introducing a new policy. What’s the crucial message? Draw an image (people are visual) and then write a seven-word “blurb” summarizing your message. Ask some people to look at your “billboard.” If all grasp your message, you’re ready to go. Consider another exercise: Imagine you’re pitching a proposal next week. You’re allotted ten minutes to make your presentation. So prep a ten-minute version of your pitch. Then prepare a five-minute one. And, then a two-minute version. The two- minute one may well be better—focusing on your key message. (And, by the way, people seldom complain about briefer messages). 10 Ground Rules for Effective Leadership Communication 139 Chunk your message: There is compelling evidence for the value of chunking messages—collapsing a longer message into a few key points. Paragraphs chunk sentences; chapters chunk paragraphs. One interesting finding: The magic number of chunks is 3. The Romans, centuries ago, suggested, “omne trium perfectum” (“every- thing that comes in threes is perfect”). Folk wisdom has long celebrated 3’s (e.g., “bad things happen in 3 s”, most religions have three major God-like figures, essays have introductions, bodies, and conclusions) and empirical data on, for example, applause patterns in speeches buttresses the value of three chunks (Daly, 2013). Effective communication is repetitive and redundant: Good communicators are often both repetitive and redundant. When you think you’ve communicated your message, start communicating it again. A distinction: Repetition is saying something over and over again in the same way. Redundancy is saying something over and over again in different ways. Both enhance communication. Repetition is helpful. People often don’t “get” a message until they have heard it a number of times (Of course, there is a inverted-U relationship between repetition and message acceptance (Lu et al., 2015)). John Lilly, a venture capital leader at Greylock Partners said, “I didn’t understand the role of simplicity and messaging early on. One of the things that happened at one of my start-ups was that I would get bored saying the same thing every day. So I decided to change it up a little bit. But then everybody had a different idea of what I thought because I was mixing it up. So my big lesson was the importance of a simple message, and saying it the same way over and over.” (New York Times, November 23, 2016). An added plus, when people hear a repetitive message they tend to believe it more (i.e., truthiness) and feel more confident about what they’ve heard or read (Yousif et al., 2019). Of course, there are limits to the effectiveness of repetitive messaging. For example, repeating an argument when trying to persuade people works well when the argument is strong. But if it’s weak, repetition hurts persuasiveness (Cacioppo & Petty, 1989). A second example: When speakers perceive listeners don’t grasp their message they often default to repeating the same message using a louder voice (Berger & Battista, 1993). That’s silly. Why would someone better understand something by simply hearing it again in a louder voice? Wise communicators are also often redundant in their messaging using, for instance, multiple examples and different images to communicate their ideas. They present their key idea one way, offer an example, perhaps an analogy, and then perhaps another example of that idea. A sales leader wants her staff to understand retail customers complaints. Offering one summary statistic isn’t as effective as that statistic accompanied by a video of a complaining customer and survey results comparing satisfaction numbers between her company and major competitors. Effective communication is frequent: When in doubt, communicate more. Employees are far more concerned about under-communication from their leaders than overcommunication (Flynn & Lide, in press). Caution: This does not mean that employees want constant synchronous messages—that would distract and annoy more than help. But more asynchronous messages with opportunities for interactive sessions when desired is optimal. Equally important is the sense that leadership wants to communicate frequently. And, that communication will be proactive. 140 J. A. Daly Effective communication uses easily understood language.: Fancy words may sound good in literary novels. But wise communicators understand that simpler words and phrases communicate ideas more effectively. Try this : rather than saying, “We reached a conclusion that…” you might say, “We concluded.” Instead of saying, “We need to utilize,” why not, “We need to use.” How about, “Later” rather than, “At a later date.” It’s easy to sound complex; it takes skill to say something simply. Trust DaVinci: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Effective communication uses multiple channels: Never in history have leaders had so many different ways to communicate. New technologies emerge constantly. And used well, the proliferation of media enhances communication (Leonardi et al., 2012). Indeed it has become a job requirement for leaders to stay current on the variety of media available to them. As a general rule the more media you use to communicate an important message the better the fidelity of your message. A senior executive described the media she used to address a single customer issue that arose one day: Discuss the issue in a face-to-face meeting, tweet out a brief headline, amplify her thoughts in her podcast, and celebrate the meeting in an Instagram video. Given the plethora of media, savvy leaders carefully choose the appropriate media for their listeners and messages. It’s silly to call a meeting to announce the cafeteria menu and equally weird to tack a poster up announcing lay-offs. There is a signifi- cant body of research that helps one determine the right media for different sorts of messages. For example, some media are “richer” than others. A face-to-face conver- sation is a rich media good for urgent messages that need to be tailored, private, personal, require real-time adjustments, and offer immediate feedback. On the other hand, emails are leaner, seldom offer immediate feedback (but provide a explicit record of the interaction). Consider the following variables when deciding on the best media for a message: The complexity of the information (e.g., written may be better for complex data) The importance of adaptability (e.g., face-to-face conversations are highly adaptive) The importance of a permanent record The “symbolic” impact of the media (e.g., a CEO unexpectedly stepping into a meeting) The familiarity of the media to participants Issues of time (constraints, zones) The necessity for an immediate or spontaneous response The media culture of the organization (e.g., some firms prefer text, others Slack or IM) The work context (e.g., face-to-face, hybrid, dispersed) The amount of information that needs to be communicated The degree to which the information is “tacit” The relationship you have with the other person. Effective communication is interactive: Too often executives approach commu- nication as unidirectional: “I’ll tell them what they need to know.” Yet effective 10 Ground Rules for Effective Leadership Communication 141 communication is interactive. Leaders must listen as much, if not more, than speak. In a study (being completed currently) we find average leaders seldom spend more than 10% of their presentation time answering questions. Few firms offer easily accessible forums where people can question their leadership. In fact, many leaders presume that questions are challenges and become defensive when questions are posed. 10.3 Make It Relevant Why should I listen to what you’re saying? Read that email? People are too busy to attend to messages they don’t feel are relevant. Good communicators know the wisdom of getting people’s attention when presenting their messages. Effective communication is timely.: People focus on what matters “right now.” Getting messages about things that may happen in six months or things that occurred six month prior merit less attention than messages focused about some- thing happening today or tomorrow. People involved in an issue deeply appreciate timely information about that issue (Nartey et al., 2022). In crisis communication research, the speed of a response (assuming accuracy) is a vital predictor of success- fully managing the crisis (Van Wart & Kapucu, 2011). Crises are basically a battle of stories and whoever gets their story out first tends to shape perceptions. And, delays often spawn more crises. When it comes to important issues, you want people in your organization to know before people outside the firm find out. One successful leader remarked that she never wanted any employee to be blindsided when arriving home hearing from their family about something that happened at work. Instead, when reaching home, employees should be well enough informed to carry on a good discussion of whatever is happening in their organization. Effective communication answers the WIIFT question: People pay attention to messages that are personally relevant. In the academic literature this tendency is called motivational matching (Joyal-Desmarais, et al., 2022). In popular sales literature it’s reflected in the maxim: “What’s in it for them” (WIIFT). If I receive a message that seems irrelevant, why pay attention? On the other hand, if a message is about something that directly affects me in meaningful ways, I’ll carefully attend the message. The job of any successful communicator is to ensure people want to listen to what they have to say. A few observations about WIIFTs. First, your WIIFT may not be their WIIFT. What might excite a senior leader may not excite a line employee. Savvy communi- cators focus on what matters to their listeners or readers or, alternatively, find ways to make their message matter to those people. Second, different people may have very different WIIFTs. If you’re speaking to twelve people in a meeting it’s possible there are twelve different WIIFTs shaping 142 J. A. Daly what people attend to. While there are an infinite number of possible WIIFTs, some common workplace ones are: Reputation: Some people deeply care about their organization. Will what you are discussing affect the firm’s standing? Make it more successful? Financial: Is this message about making me richer or poorer? Will my budget increase? Status: Are you communicating about things that will make me look better or worse? Will I achieve more power, get more headcount? Will it affect my promotability? Relationships: How will what you’re talking about affect my personal and/or professional relationships? Will what you are discussing affect my colleagues, clients? Effectiveness: Are you discussing something that will help me be more effective or efficient in my job? Is this information useful to me? Third, since different people have different WIIFTs it’s often smart to communi- cate individually with people. While one-on-one meetings take more time, they’re often more effective for connecting with people than meetings crowded with individ- uals with varying WIIFTs. People often listen more carefully and agree more easily when chatting one-on-one. Finally, sometimes a WIIFT is not about getting anything. Rather, it may be about not losing anything. An executive announces some impending changes. As you listen you think, thank goodness, at least these changes won’t make me lose my title, headcount, space, or budget. If you’ve known someone for a while, it may be easy to determine their WIIFTs. But what about people you have little acquaintance with? Here are a few ways to potentially sleuth out what matters to people: Note complaints. People mostly complain about things that matter to them. Observe decorations. What people put on their walls, the books that stack on shelves, may hint at what matters to them. If you have every diploma you’ve earned on your wall, education probably matters. Consider questions. People only ask questions about things that matter to them. Grasp atypical behavior. Most of us drive modern midsize vehicles. You’re the only person driving a classic 1965 Shelby GT Mustang. Cars must mean a lot to you. Spy what perks them up. Sitting in a meeting someone suddenly sits up and begins to listen carefully to what’s being discussed. That issue may matters to them. Predict and assess. Before attending a meeting guess what each attendee will say at the session. If you’re right, good for you! If you’re not right, reassess your predictions. Repeat this at every meeting until you get good at predicting what excites these people. 10 Ground Rules for Effective Leadership Communication 143 10.4 Make It Trustworthy Effective communication is credible: People attend to messages and people they perceive credible. Credible messages are marked by accuracy and clarity. What makes people perceive a message is accurate? Information is current (up-to-date) Information is well-sourced (credible sources) Information is understandable Information is accessible (is more information available? where to go to find more information) Information is specific (detailed, relevant) One vital aspect of a credible message is the ability of communicators to answer questions effectively. Listeners judge speakers’ credibility more on how they answer questions than the eloquence of their delivery (Daly & Redlick, 2016). Wise leaders spend time crafting compelling answers to likely questions that may arise in a meeting. Effective communication is explanatory: Effective messages offer more than a statement of a decision or event. They are also substantive (and more than 50% of employees claim the messages they receive from their organizations lack substance (VandeHei et al., 2022)) and explanatory. They offer listeners the “why” associated with decisions or events. Research on organizational fairness notes the crucial role of informational justice—people want clear and adequate explanations for why deci- sions are made (Narayanan et al., 2019). Contrast Brian Chesky’s layoff announce- ment in 2020 (https://news.airbnb.com/a-message-from-co-founder-and-ceo-brian- chesky/) with the almost non-existent announcement by Elon Musk in 2022. Chesky offered logical and data-driven reasons for the decision. Musk offered basically none. Effective communication is empowering: Communication scholars T.J. Larkin and Sandar Larkin argue that the most vital communicators in any organization are not executive leaders but instead are front-line managers (Larkin & Larkin, 1994). Employees seldom directly quiz senior leaders about issues their firm is facing. Instead, they turn to their immediate bosses. So it’s essential that front-line managers can effectively communicate information to their direct reports. The challenge is that many firms disempower front-line leaders. These managers discover information about company policies, strategic initiatives, and so on at the same time subordinates do. Think about it this way: I hear rumors there may some policy changes about hybrid working. So I ask my immediate boss about that issue. She say, “I don’t know anything more than you do.” There are two ways to interpret her answer. First, she really doesn’t know more than I do. There goes my respect for her. Bosses should know things and when they don’t respect declines (Pelz, 1951). Second, she does know and isn’t telling me. There goes trust. Wise firms empower front-line leaders to communicate. They let them know early-on about important issues and prepare them for communicating with subordinate about those issues. 144 J. A. Daly Effective communication is consistent: People want consistent messages from leaders. They dislike changing messages. They feel uncomfortable hearing different things from different organization leaders about the same issue. Consider rumors: Four major variables shape rumors in organizations: (1) the amount of anxiety recip- ients have about the rumored issue, (2) the ambiguity of information relevant to the rumor, (3) the importance of the issue to people, and (4) the credibility of the sources of the rumor. For leaders, it’s difficult to control anxiety. People often hear what they fear and, as a hoary maxim suggests, “if people tell you not to worry, start worrying.” Nor can managers tell people that what matters to them is unimportant or that they ought to distrust people they hear a rumor from. The one variable leaders can manage is ambiguity and one of the best ways to manage ambiguity is to ensure messages about an issue are consistent. Inconsistent messages spark rumors. This is why crisis management research recommends a single source for messages (Sellnow et al., 2019). Wise leaders insure that when important issue are announced recipients all hear the same message. Savvy managers coordinate with other managers to ensure they all communicate the same messages and agree on the same answers to likely questions and concerns. Effective communication is honest: Candor is essential for effective communi- cation. People are disarmed when leaders are open about themselves and issues facing the organization. In the last decade one of the biggest changes in what employees expect from leaders is authenticity and transparency. When in doubt, be more open. Too often messages from leaders are saccharine—let me tell you about a successful sale, a new technology, a big promotion. Honest leaders are equally open about problems and challenges. 10.5 Be Strategic A crucial question to always ask is whether you should say or write anything. Will communication improve the silence? If so, then you need to strategically frame your messages. Effective communication offers context: People want both the “little” picture and the “big” picture. The little picture is all about issues related to a person’s job or unit. The big picture is about the larger world the organization operates within. The notion of “need to know” or “above your pay grade” is gone today. Employees, at any level in the organization, feel they have a right to be interested in any information they perceive relevant. How does what is happening in Asia affect our business? What about that pending lawsuit the firm is facing? Is one of the members of our Board retiring? While a leader may say such questions are irrelevant to an employee’s job, if the employee thinks answers to these questions are relevant, they are. One other thing: There is a strong emerging trend for employees to want to know about the values of their firm and where leaders stand on social and political issues. Leaders need to know how to communicate about those issues. 10 Ground Rules for Effective Leadership Communication 145 Effective communication is often symbolic: Effective leaders understand the vital role of symbols in an organization. What hangs on walls, what’s celebrated by stories, who’s promoted, what gets funded, and so on communicates far more than what’s said in speeches or emails. One executive described a former boss who was always talking about the importance of safety but seldom wore hard-hats or steel- tipped boots when walking job sites. Another leader related how a past CEO spoke one year about the importance of cost-savings but at the same time purchased a new corporate plane (a great example: In 2008 the CEO’s of the Big Three automobile companies took corporate jets to Washington, DC to request government bail-outs for their companies). Effective communication is textured: Many inexperienced leaders fail to recog- nize how proverbially loud their voices are when they say or do something. Even an off-the-cuff comment can quickly take on a life of its own. A joke can be easily be misinterpreted. Leaders learn quickly that there’s no such thing as a private conversa- tion. Nor are there casual conversations. A chat in the hallway may three hours later provoke a drama that was never anticipated. People read meaning into everything leaders say. So, leaders need to deeply contemplate what and how they say things. Choosing the right words, the right nonverbals, the right context matters. 10.6 Conclusion A major challenge with communication is that we all do it all of the time. So we don’t treat it as something special. Indeed, we seldom pay much attention to our communication until something goes wrong. Wise leaders treat communication as essential to their jobs. They are highly intentional in the way they communicate. The sixteen principles in this chapter offer a guide to what needs to be considered. References Berger, C. R., & Battista, P. D. (1993). Communication failure and plan adaptation: If at first you don’t succeed, say it louder and slower. Communications Monographs, 60(3), 220–238. Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1989). Effects of message repetition on argument processing, recall, and persuasion. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 10(1), 3–12. Daly, J.A. (2013). 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Seeger, M. W., & Sellnow, T. L. (2019). Communication in times of trouble. John Wiley & Sons. Sellnow, D. D., Johansson, B., Sellnow, T. L., & Lane, D. R. (2019). Toward a global understanding of the effects of the IDEA model for designing instructional risk and crisis messages: A food contamination experiment in Sweden. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 27(2), 102–115. Van Wart, M., & Kapucu, N. (2011). Crisis management competencies: The case of emergency managers in the USA. Public Management Review, 13(4), 489–511. VandeHei, J., Allen, M., & Schwartz, R. (2022). Smart Brevity. Workman. Yousif, S. R., Aboody, R., & Keil, F. C. (2019). The illusion of consensus: A failure to distinguish between true and false consensus. Psychological Science, 30, 1195–1204. John Daly is the Liddell Professor of Communication and TCB Professor of Management at the University of Texas at Austin. He’s published numerous books, chapters, and articles on topics related to communication. He has worked with more than 300 organizations, world- wide, on topics such as leadership, communication, customer-focus, teamwork and social influ- ence.(www.johnadaly.com)