Leadership Communication - Research Paper Example

Leadership Communication (Add (Add (Add Leadership Communication Introduction Leadership communication is a traditional management concept that plays an inevitable role in enhancing an organization’s business growth. Undoubtedly, good communication skill should be the most important quality a leader must maintain. A leader normally acts as an intermediary between the management and employees in every organization. Evidently, a leader cannot facilitate effective up and down information flow unless he possesses better communication skills. Hence, modern managements give specific focus to leadership communication skill while recruiting their managerial personnel. This paper tends to analyze the concept of leadership communication and apply this concept to the US based multinational corporation Wal-Mart. Leadership Communication As stated, “leadership communication is an interactive process in which a leader intentionally influences, and is influenced by, followers employing a range of verbal strategies and a variety of non-linguistic models” (Charteris-Black, 2007, p.26). According to some old studies, a manager spends nearly 70 to 90 percent of their time on communication every day. With the inclusion of modern communication channels like e-mail and text messaging, the result would be much higher than this, if the same study is conducted today. In addition, surveys among CEOs and senior executives of leading firms indicate that they give first priority to a manager’s communication abilities while considering him for a promotion or other benefits. The concept of leadership communication comprises of two terms such as ‘leadership’ and ‘communication’. The term leadership has been defined in a number of ways. However, generally it is agreed that a leader is an individual who coordinates, guides, directs, motivates, and controls others. A leader persuades his followers to work for achieving the predefined goals and objectives of the organization. In order to influence his followers, leaders may adopt a wide variety of leadership strategies including simple structure, machine bureaucracy, and adhocracy. Through the application of those leadership models, leaders motivate and command his subordinates and control various situations in different manner. It must be noted that leaders may not necessarily be the president of nations or CEOs of multinational corporations. Leaders may be employees that take initiatives to train less experienced or younger employees, managers who guide and control project development teams, or other top executives who manage various organizational divisions and motivate their key people to achieve the firm’s desired goals. Every leader obtains better or poor results based on the efficiency of his operations. A leader cannot influence his followers and hence achieve desired goals if he lacks proper communication skills. Effective flow of leadership communication may be often interrupted by either the sender or the receiver even though other external factors can have also an influence on this process (leadership communication). Better communication ability would be a key tool for a leader to create and maintain well understanding and trust that are essential to foster his subordinates so that they may follow his operational tactics. A leader with good communication skills can maintain a healthy relationship with his followers. According to an early Harvard Business School Research for identifying the most important contributory element to business success, the most successful business will have a leader who “is able to communicate, to make sound decisions, and to get things done with and through people” (as cited in Al-Zoubi & Ibrid, 2012). It seems that leadership communication promotes intentional and controlled transfer of information by which leaders are able to influence an individual, a group, an organization, or a community. Under the concept of leadership communication, leaders apply their communication skills and other resources to successfully defend external interferences. It will help them to deliver meaningful messages that would coordinate, guide, motivate, and control their followers. A leader should constantly improve his communications skills otherwise he cannot adapt to the ever changing business situations. Generally, leadership communication has three levels including core, managerial and corporate levels, which are well illustrated in the figure given below. (Source: Barret, 2006) Higher the level a manger moves, higher will be his level of communication skills needed to meet his assigned tasks and responsibilities. From the above figure, it is clear that core communication ability marked at the center of the model spreads to managerial communication level which is further expanded to communication capabilities required in the corporate communication level. All effective communications are centered on the core skills at the center of framework; these skills more represent individual skills. Leaders in any organization, regardless of their position and powers, must possess skills at the core (mainly writing and speaking) in addition to developing other skills such as emotional intelligence, coaching and mentoring, and cultural literacy required to meet their particular tasks. The three communication levels including core communication, managerial communication, and corporate communication are briefly discussed below. 1. Core communication Managers adopt a strategic approach to be masters of core communication. In other words, strategy is the foundation of any core communication. Hence, leaders should evaluate their audience periodically and make necessary changes to the core communication strategy that plays a crucial role in achieving the firm’s communication objectives. Leaders must be able to prepare various communication documents, from memos to reports and proposals. The core communication skills include correct, clear, and concise usage of the language specified. In addition, leaders have to be capable of delivering oral presentations confidently using graphics and other technologies. These are the basic core communication capabilities a manger must necessarily acquire. A manger’s success in managerial and corporate communication levels greatly depends on how effectively he mastered the core communication capabilities. 2. Managerial communication Managerial communication skills will focus more on managing others. Under this level, a leader may adopt several techniques ranging from one to one contact to group interactions. As Mills, Mills, Bratton and Forshaw (2006, pp. 373-374) opine, emotional intelligence or interpersonal communication skills and a good understanding of the cross cultural variances are necessary to deal with managerial communication effectively. In addition, ‘listening’ is of significant importance in managerial communication because greater attentions should be paid to what others say while managing people and groups. 3. Corporate communication Corporate communication is particularly concerned with those skills needed to manage an organization efficiently and it represents a broader community. In the view of Ormeno (2007), corporate communication is a more complex process because the leader needs to communicate to internal as well as external stakeholders at a time. In corporate communication, the process of setting a communication strategy would be more complex because the audiences may be more diverse and larger at the corporate level. In addition, corporate level managers have to develop skills required to address change management programs and vision development. Walmart: Leadership Communication Walmart, the US based multinational corporation, is operating under the retail industry. The company runs a network of large discount stores and warehouse stores across the globe. According to the 2012 Fortune Global 500 list, Walmart is the third largest public corporation in the world. As of 2012 beginning, the company has nearly 2.2 million employees and 8500 stores in 15 countries. Since Walmart is a multinational corporate giant, the company fails to apply the concept of leadership communication effectively in its many organizational areas. However, while analyzing the Walmart’s organizational framework and overall operational policies, it seems that the firm has numerous core communication capabilities. The company employs a variety of modern communication tools including blogging, podcasting, email, electronic surveys, videos, and social networking sites. Even though the firm has a set of improved skills at its core, the company fails to retain those competencies when it comes to managerial and corporate levels. As Adubato (2012) points out, Walmart has been struggling with some major communication and public relations problems for years due to its poor leadership communication strategy. While surfing major search engines like Google and Yahoo, there are millions of postings criticizing the way the Walmart operates. The author argues that the intensity of those criticisms could have been reduced significantly if the organization had thoughtfully framed its communication strategies. Currently, the company operates in 15 countries and it follows a mix of centralized and decentralized business operations. The company follows different managerial communication policies in different countries. It seems that the organization faces many barriers to effective leadership communication. Firstly, culturally diverse workforce raises many potential challenges to Walmart in executing the leadership communication. Evidently, the process of globalization led to cross border trade liberalization which in turn enhanced the immigration flow. Multinational companies like Walmart increasingly employed foreign skilled workers in order to meet their staff requirements. Due to this cultural diversity in the worksite environment, Walmart leaders (managers) faced a series of difficulties in maintaining and delivering the required communication skills. It is observed that Walmart’s leadership communication is affected by both the sender and the receiver. Walmart managers do not have good understanding of their audience and this weakness often results in ethical and cultural issues. In addition, receivers’ (Walmart employees) cultural misperceptions also limit the scope of leadership communication in the organization. Walmart’s increased focus on opening new stores has adversely affected Walmart managers’ ability to influence their followers. Due to this extreme emphasis on business expansion, managers are compelled to devote most of their time to business promotion activities. In other words, Walmart mangers get less time to educate their followers regarding long term goals and objectives of the company. Furthermore, the firm hires more new employees when it opens a new store and this situation further limits the scope of effective leadership communication. Similarly, the organization has many pitfalls in its leadership communication at the corporate level. The excessive new store opening activities prevent corporate managers from effectively coordinating and guiding corporate level operations of the Walmart. Moreover, Walmart is not so efficient in employing various technologically developed communication tools. Although the company has entered the online retail sector long years ago, its operations are dominated by recently established online retailers like Amazon and eBay mainly because of the Walmart’s poor leadership communication practices. In short, Walmart cannot take maximum advantages of the leadership communication concept. As per reports (cited in Millerwood Communications, 2007), in order to improve the firm’s leadership communication practices, Walmart has recently designed a communication plan. As per the new policy, the organization gives particular focus to employee satisfaction as the management believes that happy employees are the key to Walmart’s continued success. As part of this new policy, the company strengthened its human resource management and hired more managers to properly train its employees and improve their performance standards. Under this new program, the firm’s managers are particularly “responsible for increasing employee morale by communicating business objectives and opportunities for growth” (Millerwood Communications, 2007). Thus leadership communication concept is inevitable to an organization’s long term sustainability. Poor leadership communication practices are most likely to affect a firm’s operational efficiency as well as its value chain activities. The company analysis clearly indicates that leadership communications in Walmart is very poor, and this weakness causes the organization to lose its business to its competitors and new market entrants. In addition, the organization still lacks sufficient skills to enhance organizational communication using modern technology. It is recommendable for the company to hire more technologically skilled executives who are experts in promoting better organizational communication. In addition, the organization should allot more funds for R&D activities because leadership communication using traditional techniques would cause the company to incur huge expenses. The company should provide its employees with special training packages in order to make them familiar with modern communication tools. Finally, Walmart’s management should particularly ensure that the firm’s managers have essential linguistic abilities and other communication skills to handle a culturally diverse worksite environment. Conclusion From the above discussion, it is clear that the concept of leadership communication is of particular significance in any organization regardless of its nature and size. This concept has three levels such as core communication, managerial communication, and corporate communication. It is clearly identified that leadership communication practices in Walmart are very poor due to the firm’s larger size, complex structure, poor technological capabilities and culturally diverse workforce. The company has recently developed a program to improve its organizational communication process. It is advisable for Walmart to give more focus to technological sector so as to enhance the leadership communication practices within the worksite environment. References Al-Zoubi, M. R & Ibrid, J. (2012). Leadership competencies and competitive advantage “Emperical study on Jordan telecommunication”. European Journal of Business and Management, 4(7), 234-247. Adubato, S. (2012). Why Wal-Mart’s communication fell short. Stand Deliver. Retrieved from http://www.stand-deliver.com/star_ledger/080527.asp Barret, D. J. (2006). Leadership communication: A communication approach for senior-level managers. Handbook for Business Strategy, 385-390. Retrieved from http://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/27037/Leadership%20Communication%20-%20A%20Communication%20Approach%20for%20Senior-Level%20Managers%20-%20Barrett.pdf?sequence=2 Charteris-Black, J. (2007). The Communication of Leadership: The Design of Leadership Style. New York: Routledge. Mills, A. J., Mills, J. C. H., Bratton, J & Forshaw, C. (2006). Organizational Behavior in a Global Context. USA: University of Toronto Press. Millerwood Communications. (2007). Wal-Mart’s new communication plan. Retrieved from http://millerwoodcommunications.typepad.com/millerwood_communications/2007/03/walmarts_new_co.html Ormeno, M. (2007). Managing Corporate Brands: A New Approach to Corporate Communication. 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