Authentic Communication for Leaders
November 11th, 2009Authentic Communication for Leaders
If you accept that the role of leader is to articulate the vision for their organisation and then to motivate people toward that vision, then spending resource getting your communication right is critical. But what are people looking for from their leaders? What does 21st century communication tell us about how good leaders need to communicate with their teams or with the public?
What people have learnt to expect is openness and transparency. The internet, Google, Wikipedia and open source movements like Linux have taught us that we should expect open access to almost all information and to be able to have that information in a way that is quick, accessible and free.
Web 2.0, Blogging, Twitter and interactive voting game shows have all taught us to expect that we should have a say, that we should be part of the decision making or at the very least, we should expect to be able to comment on it and get some immediate feedback.
But what does all this mean to leadership communication?
It means that expectations have changed. An annual speech from the chairman/ CEO / leader and maybe a quarterly newsletter just doesn’t cut it anymore. People expect to hear from their leaders more frequently and more informally. Blogging, Twittering, frequent, brief webcasts, polling via Survey Monkey type software all these are part of the toolkit of the contemporary leader to give and receive information.
What it also means is that Spin, paternalistic notions of a “need to know basis” and “being economical with the truth”, really don’t work. Open access to information, citizen reporters, internet chat all mean that the old saying that “the truth will out” is truer than ever. The recent political maelstrom over expenses was considerably exacerbated by public outrage at the withholding of the truth on MP’s expenses for so long. Authentic communication in the 21st century means a new level of honesty and directness is required and expected from leaders. We saw David Cameron and George Osbourne at the Tory party conference giving the nation the unvarnished truth about how tough recovery from this recession will be. Most commentators agreed that this blunt honesty went down reasonably well with the public.
Lastly, what it means for how you communicate is that stuffy, formal language and formats are also no longer effective. People have become astute media consumers; they are very intolerant and unforgiving of poor media and speaking skills. The rough ride Gordon Brown is getting is testimony to that! People vote with their ears and their attention and instantly switch off when faced with leaders mumbling platitudes, trudging through text heavy PowerPoint’s and using phrases like “exciting developments” when in reality, their tone sounds bored silly. They also they also mentally disengage when they hear what I call “MBA-speak”. “We’ll run this one up the flagpole and monetise this as a best in class solution”, is an instant turn off when, “let’s test this and make some money out of this great new product” would have been clearer and more straightforward.
One of the challenges for many leaders is that 90% or more of them come from Baby Boomer or Generation X age groups. (i.e. born before 1976) They found success in a very different world. Leadership has always been about good communication but what it takes to articulate a vision and inspire people, to be a great leadership communicator has changed.
Have you embraced the changes?
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