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One of the unwritten rules of information sharing in organizations has always been the “need-to-know” policy, which, of course, can be interpreted strictly or loosely. How leaders actually interpret it can be determined by several things, but one important factor is the issue of leadership credibility and trust. Openness has become increasingly valued in leadership communications over the past few decades. For Donald Schon, openness is a characteristic of a wide range of leadership interactions, which “emphasize surfacing private attributions for public testing, giving directly observable data for one’s judgments, revealing the private dilemmas with which one is grappling, actively exploring the other’s meaning, and inviting theother’s confrontation of one’s own.”9

Conversely, when leaders withhold information, or when people find out indirectly and after the fact what leaders could have told them directly and sooner, trust is weakened. Being open with people takes on several dimensions:
? What you say
? What you said previously, and what you will say in future (consistency)
? How much you say, and what you leave out
? When you say it
? Whom you say it to

When you speak as a leader, people want to believe you. In a sense, your leadership communication constitutes a promise. It describes a compact, and sets expectations of mutual trust and integrity.

“You Can Fool Some of the People . . .”
One of the things leaders learned during the 1980s and 1990s (especially in organization crises), and now in the first decade of the new century (with respect to public calamities), is this: People want to hear the bad news straight, without sugarcoating or garnishing. Take the 2001 “anthrax scare,” for example. In the weeks after the first incidents were discovered, various public officials “made confident statements that later proved false, tried simultaneously to inform and reassure, and limited the flow of information to the public. . . . [They] speculated about what had happened or what might happen. And they simultaneously warned Americans about vague dangers while urging them to go about their lives.”10

The result was an erosion of public trust in leaders who clearly weren’t sure about their facts, and whose motives were not always clear either. In contrast, New York City’s mayor Rudolph Giuliani seemed a paragon of straightforwardness. He held daily press conferences about the city’s anthrax exposures, provided audiences with no more information than they actually could substantiate, and begged their patience while promising that he and his staff wouldtry to keep them as up-to-date and well informed as possible.11

Lessons learned in both business and public spheres regarding how leaders should talk about tough topics are summed up in Figure 5-3.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

Leaders are regarded as trustworthy when people can rely on the logic and reasoning behind their decisions and direction. By sharing that reasoning, leaders make it easier for people to buy into directions and decisions, even if those decisions later fail to meet expectations! Research on employee trust in leadership confirms this: “Individuals are most likely to trust and cooperate freely with systems— whether they themselves win or lose by those systems— when fair process is observed.”8 Fair process, we would argue, is a leadership communication routine that consists of three elements:

If colleagues and subordinates understand and accept your reasoning, they’ll be able to support decisions and commit to carrying them out. If they understand your reasoning but offer corrections or worthy alternatives, additional benefits can result. Both of these positive organizational consequences depend on working to make your thinking visible, by telling more than you might normally do and by asking for feedback on what you have said.

Figure 5-2. Ways to explain your thinking.
A few things you might say . . .
? “Here’s what I know about the situation.”
? “These are my assumptions.”
? “Here’s the reasoning behind my decision.”
? “Here’s the data that supports my idea/position.”
? “Here’s the logic I used to arrive at this recommendation.”
? “This is what I think my idea/position means.”
? “Here are the criteria I used.”
? “These were the deciding factors.”
? “Here are some other options we considered (and why we didn’t choose them).”
? “Here’s what I think will happen if we go this way (or if we don’t).”
? “Here’s how I think it will affect the organization—and you.”
? “Here’s why I think it’s the best way to go.”

. . . And a Few Things You Might Want to Ask Yourself—Then Others
? “Are my assumptions reasonable and well founded?”
? “Have I missed anything; is there data I’ve overlooked?”
? “Are there gaps in my logic, flaws in my reasoning?”
? “Are there aspects of this decision that I cannot divulge, and, if so, how can I acknowledge that fact in a forthright way?”
? “Are there other conclusions that can be drawn besides the ones I’ve offered?”
1. Helping everyone involved and affected understand the reasoning behind decisions
2. Allowing individuals who are affected by decisions to question and challenge key ideas and assumptions
3. Clearly stating expectations for decision implementation and follow-through (which is discussed in more detail in chapter 6)

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

Visibility is as much about how and with whom you communicate as it is about the number of times you’re out and about as a leader. Strengthening the sense of community in an organization involvesthe way leaders interact with and touch the people in their organizations.

One of us used to work for Maritz, a family-owned firm and the largest planned incentive company in the world (with travel, marketing research, communications, and training components). The CEO was Bill Maritz, who, like his father before him, seemed to know by name a large percentage of the more than five thousand employees. Once, the author was going over job responsibilities with a newly hired secretary when Bill walked by. He stopped, ntroduced himself, and welcomed the woman to the company. A week later, the secretary received a short note (Bill had remembered her name) wishing her good luck in her new job. The note of course made the rounds and made more than one person’s day.

Recently, another CEO note went way past its designated audience and landed on the first page of the New York Times Business Section, in an article titled “A Stinging Office Memo Boomerangs: Chief Executive Is Criticized After Upbraiding Workers by E-Mail.”7 The memo was originally sent to the managers of a global healthcare software development company, and it charged them to do something about what the CEO saw to be lackadaisical employee work habits. Its tone was direct and threatening, expressing in no uncertain terms both the CEO’s extreme displeasure over the work hours he perceived headquarters employees putting (or not putting)
in, and the punitive actions he was prepared to take.

There were two reasons this memo reached a wider audience than its author had intended: Its classic “Theory X” style and tone made great copy, and it was sent via e-mail (allowing it first to be leaked around the company, then later posted on Yahoo). The CEO became instantly visible to a huge audience, including all hisemployees, and not in a way he wanted to be.

The most obvious lesson this story holds for leaders would probably be, “Don’t use e-mail if you desire confidentiality.” But in this age of interactive telecommunications, the better counsel for leadership communication would be to write everything as if it might end up in the New York Times. Because it just might.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

People like to have a sense of what their leaders do. They don’t necessarily want to know in detail—they’ve got their own jobs to contend with. But keeping in touch with leadership is useful and reassuring. “CEO sightings,” for example, typically generate good, positive employee buzz, especially if they’re managed with some frequency and consistency.

Leadership presence can be communicated even when leaders are not present. That’s good news, because leaders who are perpetually out of sight can prompt all kinds of less-than-charitable speculation and rumors about what they’re doing (and what they’re up to). We’ve seen several measures leaders have taken to prevent the kind of speculation that ultimately erodes leadership credibility. As a leader, taking the initiative to let people know when you’re out of town is a nice “heads up.” It also helps to build cohesiveness in theworkplace.

We used to receive regular e-mails from a colleague whenever he went on a trip, and the entry in the “subject” box was always “Where’s John?” While most of the time we really didn’t care where John was, we appreciated the gesture as a courtesy. It underscoreda sense of commitment to our department.
One company conducting a major corporatewide idea generation program offered this unusual example of “staying visible.” Part of the program involved evaluation committees, consisting mainly of managers with budget responsibility, sitting in closed-door meetings to evaluate idea submissions. Because it was important to communicate to all employees participating in the program that their ideas were receiving serious, thoughtful consideration, evaluation committees across the company would post signs outside their meeting rooms whenever they were “in session.” The signs said simply, “The following members of the Great Ideas Program Evaluation Committee are meeting to evaluate submitted ideas.” Not only did this let people know the whereabouts of specific leaders; it also advertised the fact that the committees really did meet.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

Figure 5-6. Habits to enhance listening effectiveness.
1. Focus on the words (because it’s easy to get distracted). When we’re listening to someone, we’re typically processing several things more or less at once: body language, tone, what we already know about the person (and what we may expect to hear), etc. But because we’re taking in all these “messages” simultaneously, the speaker’s actual words are in competition for our attention. Often, they are losers in that competition, especially when the body language and the words seem to contradict one another. You cannot ignore the body language and other nonverbals, but you can work
hard to keep them in perspective and pay more attention rather than less attention to the words. And for those times when the body language and the words contradict each other, simply use an opportunity in the conversation to note that, “I’m getting an unclear message, because I’m reading your body language one way and hearing your words another way.”

2. Resist trying to complete a speaker’s thought. We’re all programmed to take shortcuts, and leaders are perhaps even more likely than others to want to “get to the point” quickly. One of the ways the mind helps this happen is by sensing where a speaker is going to wind up and then getting there before him or her. And sometimes we’re in such a hurry that we complete the sentence for the speaker! This is also a habit, but not one that suggests to a speaker that you really care to listen to all she or he has to say. The habit to substitute—and it might take some deliberate effort—is to resist trying to complete the thought (and never to complete someone else’s sentence).

3. Withhold judgment until the speaker has finished. This is obviously related to the previous habit, and in truth, it’s connected to our natural impatience and our wanting to “get on with it.” All communication is really about dialogue, speaking and listening and speaking again, and we can rush our turn as speaker at the expense of giving a fair hearing, particularly if we feel strongly about something that’s just been said. Once again, this is a situation where one habit, one that can easily convey disrespect, begs to be replaced with another.

4. Probe for a speaker’s reasoning and assumptions. Apart from the benefit to be gained from understanding better the point of view and argument you’re trying to grasp, such probing can register positively as a gesture of interest and offer evidence that you’ve been listening. What you’re conveying here is your concern to fully understand the points being made and how they’re significant. This is a habit that can also strengthen a relationship based on mutual interest and respect.

5. Paraphrase. Often presented as a “listening skill,” paraphrasing is really nothing more than saying aloud what you think you’ve heard. Paraphrasing is a very natural act: it’s actually the way we listen and process what is being said. By saying something aloud, we understand and remember better. Developing a habit of offering a paraphrase as an attempt to confirm understanding also carries the same relationship-building benefits as the habit described in no. 4. To improve the effectiveness of paraphrasing, you might consider taking notes, as both a memory enhancer and a visual
confirmation of your listening. And when paraphrasing, you need to be sure you got it right: “Is this the point you were making?” “Did I understand you correctly?”

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

Figure 5-4. Communication tactics for walking the talk.
? Consider statements of action to be promises—promises you’re willing and able to keep.
? Leaders like to be action oriented, but if you’re not sure you’ll be able to pull something off, then bite your tongue and don’t create expectations you can’t meet.
? Don’t leave loopholes; be as specific as you can about what you’ll do and where and when you’ll do it (otherwise, you risk letting others set expectations for you which you can’t, or have no intention to, meet).
? Convey the impression of consistency by making the same points to different people: Copy remarks or correspondence to other stakeholders as appropriate; use a variety of communication vehicles to deliver the same message.
? Don’t ask for opinions or advice unless you’ll give them due consideration.
Then, be sure to communicate what you heard and how you’ve considered it. “Empowerment” became the “E-word” in part because leaders went around inviting ideas and suggestions they had no intention of giving serious attention to.
? Talk the walk! Help people notice that you’re walking the talk by putting yourself “on stage” (Example: the signs we mentioned earlier in this chapter outside the meeting room doors announcing that evaluation committees were in session).
? If they’re not obvious, don’t be afraid to “publicize” those actions that fulfill expectations: Use your in-house communication media to share accounts of who’s doing what.

Closing the gaps, Strengthening the partnership One of the primary barriers to creating a community of trust is the perceived distance between people in bureaucratic organizations. Organizational hierarchy by its nature creates social distance that in turn can inhibit candor and openness. Just think about the almost ritual differences between your boss entering your office (or cubicle) and your entering hers. In the first case, there may or not be a courtesy knock before she enters, and in most instances, she’ll seem like she’s walking into territory she “owns,” with free roaming privileges. In the second case, you will typically knock and wait outside to be invited into what is clearly not “your turf.” Neither situation cultivates the open, candid conversation that is needed.

If you sincerely want to work against “caste” distinctions in the workplace, at least insofar as they inhibit productive communication, there are several communication strategies that can help. One of them has been well explored in the book Communicating Change by T. J. Larkin and Sandar Larkin. The Larkins make a strong case for getting frontline leadership involved in communicating change efforts in an organization. They argue, though, that it’s not enough to simply insert supervisors into the communication loop. Rather, there’s a need to reach out to frontline leaders in some special way, to create the basis for new trust levels at a time when senior leadership seeks their help and allegiance.15

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

Four fellows were playing a round of golf. After three of them had hit off the first tee, the fourth swung at his ball and missed it totally. “Whew,” he said. “Tough course.”

Leaders don’t always tell it like it is when the news is bad. In most instances, this tendency can be explained by a couple of commonly held leadership “values,” identified by organizational researcher Chris Argyris, who labels them as the desire “to remain in unilateral control” and “to suppress negative feelings.”12

Being in control is an obvious virtue in organizations. All leaders want work to go according to plan. Deviations and disruptions cost money. Leaders manage against disruption; it’s what they get paid for. In addition, there’s an element of “face” in the desire to be in control; leaders want to be respected by their bosses and peers for being “in charge,” for keeping things in order. It’s a matter of reputation. In communicating this bias (sometimes without realizing it), leaders will say things like:
? “We run a tight ship around here.”
? “I’m on top of the situation.”
? “We know what’s going on.”
? “Everything’s under control.”

Contrast this picture with some recent research on leadership attributes that subordinates like and that lead to higher levels of trust and commitment.

Figure 5-3. Straight talk in tough times: eight don’ts and one do.
1. Don’t just tell half the story (or hold back on special contingencies): People will pick up sooner or later on the fact you haven’t told everything,
speculate about the reasons you didn’t, and lead themselves to generally negative conclusions.
2. Don’t whitewash: People will feel you’re afraid of the truth, or actually hiding something worse.
3. Don’t delay bad news: People will see it as a breach of faith, and may feel ( justifiably) compromised as a result.
4. Don’t equivocate: If you’re always saying “maybe,” people may see you as incapable of making a decision. If you are in fact uncertain, tell people why.
5. Don’t speculate or express opinions you can’t substantiate: If you have to change your story later, people will hold you accountable for the change, and might not trust you later when you do have something they need to believe.
6. Don’t hide any special conditions or contingencies: People may think you’re trying to manipulate them, or that you’re simply being devious.
7. Don’t try to spin your way out of trouble: People are capable of dealing with most facts, and will respect you for being honest with them.
8. Don’t patronize your audience: It’s disrespectful, and creates a distance between you and them. But—
9. Do treat people as stakeholders in a shared future: Your basic communication objective during times of stress and turmoil should be to
help people build sensible, well-informed opinions—and make good decisions—on their own.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

Trusted leaders are those whose abilities people rely upon, and whose values people know and respect. A leader’s knowledge and skills are most reliably demonstrated, and measured by employees, over time, in the way they perform. But that can take a while. Sometimes it’s helpful to let employees know about what you can do and what you’ve done. We’re not talking about regaling employees with war stories. People will acknowledge and defer to expertise if it’s not paraded and flaunted, but rather provided as useful
information. “She’s been there, paid her dues, earned her stripes”: These are expressions of confidence in leaders that can be uttered only if people know something about your abilities and experience.

While leaders rarely have a monopoly on knowing what it takes to get a job done, they still need to be proactive about sharing their experience and their understanding, both to instill confidence and to expedite support for decisions. As we mentioned earlier, it can e counterproductive to hide leadership expertise where it exists. You need to make your expertise known. You also need to be candidabout what you don’t know.

Leaders’ values and motives come through in how they communicate goals, plans, and decisions, and how they deal with people in the organization. For instance, ambiguous statements are often thought to indicate hidden motives. The more leaders openly discuss their motives and intentions, and explain their reasons for making certain decisions, the more their employees will see them as open, honest, and trustworthy. The opposite is also true: When people can’t read you because you’re overly circumspect and always
keep your cards close to your vest, there’s a greater likelihood for mistrust. When people find your remarks confusing, they might understandably feel that you are withholding information to keep them in the dark.

Leaders who can create trust in their decisions, and whose directions are regarded as reliable and sure, are often the ones who take time to explain themselves and their thinking. They don’t just say what they’re going to do: They tell why they believe it’s the right thing to do and what facts they based their decisions on. They don’t just tell their plans; they reveal their intentions before plans are described and remind people during plan implementation. In short, good leaders don’t ask you to read their minds: They let you know as thoroughly as they can the thinking behind their decisions. By making an effort to consistently communicate their thinking, leaders make themselves more predictable to their employees. Figure 5-2 lists ways leaders can make themselves better understood and morepredictable.

Running through this checklist can be done either casually or more systematically. It’s often worth the effort to be systematic, including consideration of how best to make your reasoning intelligible and clear to each audience.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

9. Consider how you might incorporate any of the following “principles of plain English” (from the SEC booklet of that name3—prepared as a guide for writing financial disclosure documents) into your way of speaking:

* “Strong verbs are guaranteed to liven up and tighten” your speech.
* Audiences “understand sentences in the active voice more
quickly and easily because it follows how we think and process information.”

* Use personal pronouns—for example, instead of saying Division leadership wants to keep its people well informed, you might say We want to keep you well informed.

* “Personal pronouns aid your [audience’s] comprehension because they make clear what applies to [them] and what applies to you.”

* “They allow you to ‘speak’ directly to your [audience], creating an appealing tone that will keep your [audience listening].”

* Bring abstractions “down to earth”—for example, instead of using an abstract concept like the learning organization, try to describe it in terms of behaviors, such as a place where people continually acquire, create, and use knowledge to improve the way they work

* “Most people don’t have an image in their minds when they hear abstract words . . . [a]nd yet it’s far easier to comprehend a concept or a situation when your mind can formimages.”4

Making Yourself Visible
Leadership communication is generally perceived to be more credible if delivered in person. You’ve got to be seen to be trusted. At Saturn, this direct, in person approach starts as a welcome to the company for new hires, where a plant or unit manager typically tells the newcomers about the company’s aims and philosophy. “That’s the first thing you get when you join Saturn. I can’t tell you how many people from General Motors . . . came to Saturn and said, ‘I’ve been with General Motors for 25 years and I have never met a plant manager, let alone the president of the company.’ ”5

Making a habit of holding face-to-face encounters, as we saw in the examples from the previous section, conveys honesty and candor in leadership communication. It’s the opposite of the “seagull” style of leadership communication: Fly in, squawk a lot, and fly out. Jan Carlzon, the legendary leader of SAS, was definitely not a seagull- type communicator. “In his first two years at SAS, Carlzon spent up to 50% of his time communicating directly in large meetings and indirectly in a host of innovative ways: through workshops, brainstorming sessions, learning exercises, newsletters, brochures, and exposure in the public media.”6 Chuck Knight and his successor Dave Farr at Emerson spend more than half their time in what they call “planning” activities, really conversations with their unit managers around the world.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator

Euphemism has indeed escalated as lawyers, management consultants, public relations professionals, and others intrude more and more into the things leaders say. At its worst, it suggests that leadership is avoiding the truth, or is hiding something. At best, it still works against a leader’s ability to engage the full trust and commitment of the people in an organization. We can’t pin the blame completely on the handlers, though, because the responsibility to speak directly and candidly always remains with the leaders themselves.

Figure 5-1. Tactics for keeping it simple.
1. Open a discussion by saying: “I’m going to try to be as simple and straightforward as I can.” This statement can be both a reminder to the speaker and a promise to the audience: You’re putting yourself on notice, as it were, and your audience will measure you by how well you live up to that commitment.

2. Avoid saying at the outset “I’ll be brief” or words to that effect. This line is much overworked. In addition, it seems from our experience to be a promise that most speakers cannot, or never really intend to, keep.

3. In your mind, equate simplicity with honesty and let honesty be the motive that drives your discussion.

4. For more formal presentations or speeches, do a dry run with representative members of your intended audience; get their feedback on what’s clear and what’s not. Look for better, shorter, clearer words and expressions with which to make your points.

5. Develop three or four (but no more) key message points, the backbone of what you want to say, and hone them until they’re as precise and concise as they can be. Work them into your discussions. They will keep you focused on why you wanted to talk in the first place, and they will dramatically increase your chances for success in getting your ideas across.

6. Read your audience, not just once or twice but continuously. Look for heads nodding (a good sign) or blank, quizzical expressions (a bad sign). Use real-time feedback and make adjustments accordingly to regain attention, reiterate key points, or just move the whole thing along faster.

7. Routinely interrupt your talk to check on how it’s being grasped and to make sure you haven’t lost your audience. Don’t just ask, “Am I being clear?” (often perceived as a challenge to their intelligence rather than your ability to speak clearly). Instead, repeat some version of your opening statement (to reaffirm your desire to be well understood). Then ask if there are any points they might like you to clarify or expand on: “I know we’ve covered a lot of ground in the last few minutes. Is there anything I could elaborate on, or
maybe make a little clearer? Anything that I might have covered too lightly? Anything you want more detail on?”

8. Listen to yourself. Record yourself giving the presentation once or twice to audit your own speaking habits and mannerisms. You’ll be surprised at what you can learn and what you can change and improve.

Taken from : The Leader As Communicator