Feature

Leadership communication

Sudipta Dev analyses why effective leadership communication is vital for all organisations.

Leadership communication is of strategic significance for every organisation, unfortunately not all leaders have the inclination or time to effectively communicate their company’s core messages, values and vision. Lack of effective communication from the senior management results in a plethora of problems, ranging from alienation of employees and proliferation of the grapevine to low morale and loss of individual and organisational productivity. The impact on business can be prolonged and drastic. Any oversight can send the wrong message, leading to wide-scale rumours and fears that may lead to irreversible damage. Long-term leadership communication strategy is a necessity which most organisations need to realise.

Leaders must communicate effectively as this is vital for achieving the organisational vision. “Even a small mistake can result into unimaginable problems; yet the bottomline is that it is one of the most neglected areas by the senior management. Communication is resorted to as and when there is already a fire around or apprehension of it. The importance of proactive communication was probably realised by Jack Welch long time back and that’s one of the reasons of his being one of the legendary CEOs,” states Ullhas Pagey, an organisation development and HR expert, and a visiting faculty at the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies.

Girish Wardadkar, Presi-dent & Executive Director, KPIT Cummins Infosystems, explains the need for a comprehensive and integrated communication strategy that should help to build a ‘one team, one goal and zero surprises environment’, “What companies expect from their employees is a sense of urgency, results, learning and collaboration. What employees need from their companies is freedom from worry (security), freedom to focus (direction and set goals), freedom to learn (improve competency) and freedom to try new things, take risks and make mistakes—value add to self. These are the mutual responsibilities of employees and companies. Having a comprehensive communication strategy to address these two specific constituencies is critical.”

The significance

Leadership is multi-skilled. It recognises that the completion of a task is dependent on leading and motivating others. It includes the ability to inspire confidence, to explain decisions, to motivate and the ability to communicate objectives clearly and concisely, states Prashanth L J, Assistant Vice-president & Head, Marketing, Infinite Computer Solutions. He asserts that in any organisation, leadership communication is critical for motivating employees, building relationships, managing change, improving performance and making the environment conducive for work. “Leadership communication is also critical for aligning employees with organisation vision and creating values. Communication helps creating shared purpose and shared values.”

It is a bonding factor that nurtures transparency and trust. “By communicating effectively leaders send signals that they care and unless employees are convinced that their leaders care, it is unlikely that a solid relationship between the employee and the employer will evolve. Given today’s organisational context where employees demand greater clarity and expect high standards of corporate governance, communication bec-omes very important,” points out Prashanth.

But then do leaders have the time or inclination to communicate? Pagey believes that they probably have no other choice, “In today’s context, it is no longer a matter of choice but a prerequisite. Hence, one has to find time irrespective of its availability and inclination of the person.”

"A comprehensive and integrated communication strategy can help to build a ‘one team, one goal and zero surprises environment’" - Girish Wardadkar President & Executive Director KPIT Cummins Infosystems

"Even a small mistake can lead to nimaginable problems. Communication is one of the most neglected areas by the senior management" - Ullhas Pagey Organisation development & HR expert

When to communicate

It is a known fact that people issues take predominance over other factors for most senior management, who are always formulating the ways and means to attract and retain the best talent in a highly competitive business environment. In this scenario how often should the senior management communicate with others in the organisation? “In my opinion, people in the leadership have to spend at least 30 to 40 percent of their time on people and people related issues, of which at least half of the time should be on communicating with people. It is extremely important to align people with business results in order to balance between a company’s business capabilities and people requirements. Especially, in the IT industry, managing customer expectations throu-gh employee relationship, employee expectations and through people practices is critical,” answers Wardadkar.

It is necessary for all organisations to have a detailed communication plan and calendar as per the communication strategy. Warda-dkar lists the communication plan of KPIT Cummins:

• Monthly employee communication via e-mail called Plainspeak where Wardadkar communicates key highlights of the past month and articulates goals for the next month or quarter as the case may be
• Weekly huddle with direct reports to focus on the ensuing and the past week’s highlights
• Monthly meetings with delivery managers (skip level, second line of Wardadkar’s direct reports). This meeting focusses on direct communication on the company’s priorities, strategies, plans, achievements, challenges, etc.
• Quarterly ‘Face to Face’ meeting with project mana-gers (fourth in line).
• Round-table skip meetings, one-on-one and other face-to-face forums, including ‘all hands’, etc, again to communicate where they are, how they are doing, etc.

Besides e-mail and such face-to-face meetings, the senior leadership also communicates through the second line by a similar process.

Senior leaders should communicate with their employees as often as possible. According to Prashanth, this communication can happen at various levels and can be top-down in approach. “Organisations should establish and maintain open and effective lines of communication with their staff at all times. We believe that communication is an ongoing exercise and the more time you spend interacting with employees, all the more better for the organisation.”

Effective channels

While face-to-face communication is the most effective communication channel, in a globally dispersed work environment an employee’s desktop becomes the common via media of workplace integration.

The intranet is in fact the greatest bonding tool. “With employees working in different facilities/geographies, intranet and e-mail are probably the easiest way to stay in touch. Lot of companies are also using Web-based conferencing facilities for communication purpose. The other channels of communication include newsletters, open-house/townhalls, all-hands meet, offsite sessions, employee survey, etc,” says Prasanth. Informal one-on-one meetings are one of the most effective channels of communication.

Lack of communication

Lack of communication creates a ripple effect in the organisation which ultimately jeopardises the business goals. “In the absence of a proper leadership communication strategy, dreams would only remain dreams and can never become reality,” points out Pagey.

Furthermore, people management becomes a problem as it is not easy to ally the suspicions and fears of a workforce that have been fed by the grapevine. “Employees feel alienated and in many cases this gives rise to fear and undue worries. This results in low employee morale and in the overall context performance suffers, and there is productivity loss. Most importantly there is a disalignment as organisation and the employee cannot align with the vision. There is disharmony, which may not be conducive for the organisation. Employees do not feel a sense of belonging and they could possibly leave the organisation,” explains Prasanth.

All good leaders know the importancee of communication. It is not suprising that the greatest leaders have been the best communicators.

sudipta@expresscomputeronline.com