Two of the most important topics covered this semester are regarding leadership and communication. As defined by dictionary.com, the meaning of leadership is a person who guides or directs a group. This definition is very broad, so to take the definition to another level, leadership means to influence and support others to work enthusiastically in order to achieve a common goal. The role of the leader in an organization is to set up a series of goals and to motivate and assist employees to achieve these goals. The definition has three important elements to it: influence, individual effort, and goal achievement. Without a true leader in a company, employees would be confused of what the task at hand is, just as a band is confused without a conductor. On the other hand, we have communication. In today’s world, employees have more of a desire to know what is going on, and most importantly, how they will fit into the big picture of the organization. According to dictionary.com, they define communication in a sense of biology: the transfer of information from one cell or molecule to another, as by chemical or electrical signals. This definition could be translated to the world of an organization: the transfer of information from one person to another person, as by face-to-face or through emails, text messages, phone calls, etc. The main idea behind communication is that the transfer of ideas, facts, thoughts, feelings, and/or values are clearly transferred from one person to another. “Communication is what the receiver understands, not what the sender says” (Newstrom, 2015).
There are certain traits that can differentiate leaders from non-leaders. The first trait is that leaders have a high level of personal drive. This drive is ignited from energy, determination, willpower, and tenacity. The second trait is that leaders have a desire to lead. Once you come to the point of your life where you have to do something, you should stop doing that thing because you no longer have a passion for that thing since it has now become a burden. Having a desire to lead means you have a motivation to influence others. The third trait of a leader is that there is personal integrity. Integrity means that you are the same person whether you are at home by yourself or with a group of friends/family. It essentially means that there is a sense of ethics, honesty, and authenticity. The fourth trait of a leader is that he or she has self-confidence. In the baseball world, we are taught at an early age to have confidence while playing because if you don’t, you will miss the pitch, strike out, make an error, etc. It is the same way in business. If as a leader you do not have confidence, you will start to second guess your decisions and become unsure of what you are trying to do. You need to have optimism and belief in self-efficacy. The fifth, and last, trait of a leader is authenticity. As a leader you must be real and genuine about the position you are in.
Just because you have all these leadership traits does not guarantee successful leadership. These traits are more like qualifications or resources that may, or may not, be developed and later used. There are plenty of people that have these traits but either chooses not to use the traits or the opportunities never arise for them to use the traits. One important topic in leadership is if some of these traits can be learned/acquired over time if someone has a real passion in becoming a leader. In the short run, this could be extremely difficult, but there are some that could be acquired if you are dedicated, such as self-confidence and knowledge of the industry.
Successful leadership depends more on appropriate behavior, skills, and actions, and less on personal traits. The differences of traits and of behaviors, skills, and actions, are that traits provide the basic potentials, and behaviors, skills, and actions are the successful release and execution of the traits. The difference is that, unlike traits, behaviors/skills can be learned and changed. These behaviors/skills are interrelated while in practice, but can also be considered separately. The first skill is technical skill. This skill refers to a person’s knowledge and ability in any type of process/technique. Technical skills are the differentiating features of job performance and professional level. As employees are promoted, the less their technical skills become important. The second skill is human skill. This skill is the ability to work effectively with people and to build teamwork. There are several behavioral traits one must have to have human skill, such as giving feedback, coaching, showing compassion and support, etc. These requirements are a major part of leadership behavior and a lack of these skills will lead to a downfall middle and top management. The third skill is conceptual skill. This is the ability to think in terms of models, frameworks, and broad relationships. These skills are more for top management and C-level executives. These skills are more related to ideas, rather than people and/or things.
Two of the Harvard Business Reviews come to mind when talking about leadership. The first is “How Successful Leaders Think” by Roger Martin and “Leading Change” by John P. Kotter. In the first review of “How Successful Leaders Think,” the author talks about the secret of becoming a great leader. Martin says, “Don’t act like one… Instead, think like one” (Martin, 2007). Throughout the review, he distinguishes how successful leader thinks through integrative think and a non-successful leader thinks through conventional thinking. Integrative thinking is having two different ideas and making a third idea that has elements of the two different ideas. A conventional thinker has the same two ideas and just chooses between the two. To become an integrative think was must stay away from the easy solutions of “either-or” decisions, and instead embrace the complexity of opposing ideas to make it one great idea. The article goes on to putting the idea into practice. The first step is to identify key factors. A conventional thinker may only consider the obvious factors to weigh the options and how they will positively or negatively affect the organization. An integrative thinker would look for an option that is not so obvious, but has more relevant considerations. The second step is analyzing causality. As an integrative thinker, we must consider multidirectional relationships, whereas conventional thinkers would consider a linear relationship between the factors (Martin, 2007). The third step is envisioning the decision’s overall structure. Conventional thinkers see a problem and will divide it into little parts and attack them separately. On the other hand, integrative thinkers will look at the problem as a whole and see different trends on how each step/area affects the other. The last step is achieving resolution. As stated before, this is the mentality of either-or (conventional) versus complexity (integrative).
In the second Harvard Business Review of “Leading Change,” the author, John P. Kotter, studied over 100 companies for 10 years to see how they would try to make themselves relevant against their competitors. In his overall study, he saw that most of the companies made the same eight errors. The first error these companies were making is that they failed to establish a sense of urgency. When in a leadership position/role and you are trying to change the direction of an organization, you must not underestimate how fast competitors will jump on your mistakes. At the same time, you must not overestimate the previous successes of the organization. The second error is the companies did not create a powerful guiding coalition. A successful transformation includes the coalition of leaders grows more and more over time. “But whenever some minimum mass is not achieved early in the effort, nothing much worthwhile happens” (Kotter, 2007). The third error is that there was a lack of vision. This is one of the more important things that you must get right when trying to change the direction of a company because it directs the change effort and creates strategies to make sure the vision comes true. The fourth error is communicating the vision. When in a leadership role, you must use all resources available to communicate the new vision and strategies. The fifth error is empowering others to act on the vision. In this step, the companies fail to get rid any obstacles, change anything that undermines the vision, and encourage taking risks. The sixth error is that they failed to plan for and make short-term wins. This meant that we must plan for performance and create improvements and reward the employees that were directly involved in making improvements. The seventh error is declaring victory too soon. After having a few months, or maybe even a year, of success, managers tend to be tempted in declaring victory too soon when there are x amount of different short- or long-term goals to be accomplished. Lastly, the eighth error is not anchoring changes in the corporation’s culture. Change will become the norm when it becomes the way the company does things. In other terms, once employees start acting the way the change is supposed to be, you have created a new culture in the company and now you know that your employees are all in for the change.
What compliments a good leader is a good communicator. Organizations could not run properly if there is no communication involved; if there is no communication than employees would not know than management would never know what they are inputting and supervisors and executive cannot give proper instructions. “When communication is effective, it tends to facilitate better performance and improve job satisfaction” (Newstrom, 2015).
There is something called the two-way communication process, where a sender sends a message to a receiver. In this process there are eight steps to where and how the two parties send and receive the information. The first step is to develop an idea that the sender wants to send. The second step is to make the idea you have into words to be able to send. Here the sender must put whatever is in his or her mind into words or graphs so that the person(s) receiving the message have a clear understanding of what the sender is try to say. The third step is used once the message is formed and it is to transmit the message through email, memo, conference call/meeting, etc. The fourth step is the allowance of having others receive the message. From this step forward, it is now the receivers’ job to know how to handle what is being communicated. The fifth step is to decode what the sender is trying to communicate. This is important for both parties because the sender is trying to make the receiver understand exactly what he or she is trying to say. The sixth step is to either accept or reject the message. Acceptance is always the goal of the sender but depending on the accuracy of the message and/or the authority and credibility of the sender, the receiver with take in as much information as they believe is needed. The seventh step is to use the information. This is one of the few steps where the receiver is in complete control of what may happen next. Since the receiver decides whether to accept or reject the message, he or she can decide on whether to use the information or to disregard it and move on. The eighth step is to provide feedback. This step completes the communication process since the receiver will now become the sender once he or she provides the feedback.
There are three barriers to communication that could cause disruption and/or a misunderstanding of what is being transmitted. The first barrier is the personal barrier. These barriers can come from any different scenarios; from human emotions values, and poor listening skills, to a difference in education, race, sex, or status. Personal barriers are created through distracting verbal habits, such as continuous repetition of a word or phrase, or from physical actions, such as clicking a pen. The second barrier is a physical barrier. “Physical barriers are communication interferences that occur in the environment in which the communication takes place” (Newstrom, 2015). These barriers arise when there are noises going on outside the office that are distracting and cause employees to lose focus on what is being said. Another cause is the distance between two people that are trying to communicate. Imagine talking to someone that is extremely close to you. You would probably feel a bit uncomfortable because they are in your comfort zone, or your personal space. This could cause you to feel uncomfortable and distract you in receiving or sending information. “In the United States, general practice allows intimate communications between close friends to occur at very short recanted (e.g., 6 to 18 inches). Conversations with acquaintances are often held at a 3- or 4-foot personal distance. Work-related discussion between colleagues may occur at a social distance of 4 to 12 feet, with more impersonal and formal conversations in public occurring at even greater distances” (Newstrom, 2015). The third barrier is a semantic barrier. These barriers occur when there are symbols or words being used in communication that we do not understand. This goes along with having a jargon in the workplace. Each company has there own way in communicating messages in there own way. For example, with the Miami Marlins, whenever they give us money to have as change, they call it a bank, but working with my mom at her pharmacy, she calls that money petty cash (Barriers to Effective Communication, 2017). This is a very simple example but could become complex when talking about the “nitty-gritty” of a company.
All-in-all leadership and communication are intertwined. A good leader must be able to communicate the information that he or she may have to employees so that the day-to-day functions of a business could be run as clean and smooth as possible. Becoming a good leader and a good communicator does not happen over night. These are things that you must put into practice on a daily basis so that when the time comes, you will be a master at being a leader and a master of communication.
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