Leadership, Communication & Change

Leadership has as its corner stone, the ability to communicate.  When we use the  word communicate, we are referring not only to the words one uses to transfer  factual information to others, but also to other "messages" that are sent and  received.

What might these other messages be?  Related to change the leader sends a good  number of messages.  These are listed below.

The leader communicates:

• A) a sense of confidence and control (or lack thereof) to employees.
• B)his or her own feelings about the change.
• C) the degree to which he/she trusts the abilities of the employees to get through  the change.
• D) a sense of purpose and commitment (or lack thereof).
• E) the degree to which he/she accepts the reactions and feelings of employees.
• F) expectations regarding behaviour that is seen as appropriate or inappropriate (ie.  rumour-mongering, back-room meetings).
• G) the degree to which he/she is "connected to" employees situations and feelings  or is "in-touch" with them.

It is clear that if the leader communicates effectively, he or she will be sending  messages that decrease resistance, and encourage moving through the change more  effectively and positively.  The bottom line with all of this is if you screw up  communicating with employees, even the smallest changes can result in ugly problems.

There are all kinds of models of communication, some basic and some complex.   For our purposes communication can be described as CREATING  UNDERSTANDING.

Through words, actions, body language, voice tone, and other processes you send  many messages about yourself, the changes, and your organization.  This  constitutes precisely one-half of the communication process.  The second half  consists of verifying that the message you intended to send was actually received  and interpreted the way you intended.  The only way that you can be sure you have  created understanding is to listen to the people you are communicating with, and  make special effort to encourage them to reflect back to you what they have heard

Since we have indicated that communication involves sending a variety of  important messages, it is important that when you communicate about change you  know what kind of messages you wish to send, and the what you want people to  take away from your communication.

Whenever you communicate to employees about change, you should be striving to  convey the following position.

A) that you are personally committed to the change, and seeing it through, even if it  has negative consequences.

B) that you recognize that the change negatively impacts upon some people.

C) that you are open to discussion of the feelings of employees regarding the  change.

D) that you are confident that the "team" can make it through the changes.

E) that you want and need input to make the changes work.

Sometimes you won't be committed to the change, or you won't be very confident  that you and your staff can pull it off, particularly when the change is imposed  from above.  While some may disagree, it is important that you still convey an  image of strength and commitment despite your own misgivings.  The change  leader has a role to play, and if you have mis-givings or strong negative emotional  reactions of your own it may be more effective if you underplay them.  If you  show anger about a change, you may legitimize the same kind of negative  behaviour in your staff.

While you shouldn't hide your own negative reactions completely, it is probably  wise to keep them in the background by stating them in a matter of fact way and  moving on.

As a change leader you need to make decisions about who you must communicate  with, what needs to be communicated, when you will communicate and how you  will do it.  We will take a look at each of these in turn.

Managers sometimes have a tendency to communicate about change on a "need to  know basis".  However, effective change leaders recognize that almost any change  will have effects on most people in an organization, no matter how removed they  are from the change.

The basic rule of thumb is that communication should take place directly between  the manager and employees when employees NEED TO KNOW OR WANT TO  KNOW.

Except for situations that involve confidentiality, even those who are indirectly  affected will likely want to know what is going on, and how it may affect them.   This applies to your own staff, and those organizations that are related to you (ie.  other branches within a division or department, client organizations, etc).

The longer you wait to communicate details of change, the more likely you are to  extend the period of adjustment.  This is because it is very difficult to "keep a lid"  on anything in government, and even if you are silent, your staff will likely hear  vague things through the grapevine.  Grapevine information tends to be sketchy  enough that it creates a high degree of anxiety, and also a high degree of mistrust  of management.