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How To Recognise Poor Communicative Leadership in Organisations

When all else fails; over-communicate.

Jerry Silfwer
by Jerry Silfwer

Cover photo: @jerrysilfwer

Reading time: 2 min.

Organisations must recog­nise poor com­mu­nic­at­ive leadership.

Do you know the single biggest chal­lenge in com­mu­nic­at­ive lead­er­ship for organ­isa­tions? We need more lead­ers than we have. 1Doctor Spin: Overcoming the Leadership Gap (With Fewer Leaders) (2023).

In most organ­isa­tions, non-lead­ers in man­age­ment pos­i­tions out­num­ber nat­ur­al-born lead­ers in man­age­ment positions.

We’re soph­ist­ic­ated mam­mals with com­plex lan­guages and social beha­viours, mak­ing lead­er­ship neces­sary for sur­viv­al. Leadership is evol­u­tion­ary valu­able — and also nat­ur­ally rare. 2I recom­mend Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willinck for an in-depth look at a mil­it­ary approach to lead­er­ship and com­mu­nic­a­tion.

So, how do we make this equa­tion work?”

Table of Contents 

Signs of Poor Communicative Leadership

Given that lead­er­ship is such a pro­found organ­isa­tion­al chal­lenge, almost every work­ing adult has exper­i­enced what it means to serve a non-com­mu­nic­at­ive lead­er in an organisation:

  • Non-com­mu­nic­at­ive lead­ers keep inform­a­tion from their teams in an attempt to assert power. 
  • Non-com­mu­nic­at­ive lead­ers use pass­ive aggres­sion to shame their teams into per­form­ing better.
  • Non-com­mu­nic­at­ive lead­ers blame their teams for poor out­comes but take the cred­it for them­selves when things go well.
  • Non-com­mu­nic­at­ive lead­ers use praise sub­ject­ively and stra­tegic­ally instead of object­ively and fairly.
  • Non-com­mu­nic­at­ive lead­ers add lay­ers between them­selves and the prac­tic­al out­comes, like addi­tion­al lay­ers of unne­ces­sary man­agers or meetings.
  • Non-com­mu­nic­at­ive lead­ers are pla­cing their careers before the careers of their teams.
  • Non-com­mu­nic­at­ive lead­ers exclude their teams from par­ti­cip­at­ing dir­ectly in mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sions; they need to place them­selves in a pos­i­tion to fil­ter and manip­u­late any feed­back from the group.
  • Non-com­mu­nic­at­ive lead­ers are hos­tile towards new ideas from sub­or­din­ates because they believe that any­thing that bene­fits someone beneath them­selves in the organ­isa­tion­al hier­archy is a poten­tial threat to their position.

Is excel­lent com­mu­nic­a­tion an out­come of out­stand­ing lead­er­ship?
Or is excep­tion­al lead­er­ship a product of excel­lent communication?

Signs of Good Communicative Leadership

What is required from com­mu­nic­at­ive lead­ers? According to Catrin Johansson, Vernon Miller and Solange Hamrin:

  • Communicative lead­ers coach and enable employ­ees to be self-managing. 
  • Communicative lead­ers provide struc­tures that facil­it­ate the work. 
  • Communicative lead­ers set clear expect­a­tions for qual­ity, pro­ductiv­ity, and professionalism. 
  • Communicative lead­ers are approach­able, respect­ful, and express con­cern for employees. 
  • Communicative lead­ers act­ively engage in prob­lem-solv­ing, fol­low up on feed­back, and advoc­ate for the unit. 
  • Communicative lead­ers con­vey dir­ec­tion and assist oth­ers in achiev­ing their goals. 
  • Communicative lead­ers act­ively engage in the fram­ing of mes­sages and events. 
  • Communicative lead­ers enable and sup­port sensemaking.

Checklist for Leadership Clarity

In my exper­i­ence, over-com­mu­nic­a­tion is always prefer­able to under-communication. 

Some might argue that com­mu­nic­at­ive lead­er­ship is due to more eso­ter­ic qual­it­ies such as charm, cha­risma, and verbal abil­it­ies. While nat­ur­al abil­it­ies are part of it, com­mu­nic­at­ive lead­er­ship in prac­tice often comes down to clarity.

For this, I use this simple checklist:

Checklist for Communicative Leadership

Always make sure that every­one in an organ­isa­tion is 100% clear about the following:

  • This is what we are doing. Is this clear? Do you have any ques­tions? Can you repeat it back to me?
  • This is why we are doing it. Is this clear? Do you have any ques­tions? Can you repeat it back to me?
  • This is who will be doing it. Is this clear? Do you have any ques­tions? Can you repeat it back to me?
  • This is how we are doing it. Is this clear? Do you have any ques­tions? Can you repeat it back to me?
  • This is when we are doing it. Is this clear? Do you have any ques­tions? Can you repeat it back to me?
  • This is where we are doing it. Is this clear? Do you have any ques­tions? Can you repeat it back to me?
  • This is for whom we are doing it. Is this clear? Do you have any ques­tions? Can you repeat it back to me?

Read more: How To Recognise Poor Communicative Leadership in Organisations

Please sup­port my blog by shar­ing it with oth­er PR- and com­mu­nic­a­tion pro­fes­sion­als. For ques­tions or PR sup­port, con­tact me via jerry@​spinfactory.​com.

ANNOTATIONS
ANNOTATIONS
1 Doctor Spin: Overcoming the Leadership Gap (With Fewer Leaders) (2023).
2 I recom­mend Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willinck for an in-depth look at a mil­it­ary approach to lead­er­ship and communication.
Jerry Silfwer
Jerry Silfwerhttps://doctorspin.net/
Jerry Silfwer, alias Doctor Spin, is an awarded senior adviser specialising in public relations and digital strategy. Currently CEO at KIX Index and Spin Factory. Before that, he worked at Kaufmann, Whispr Group, Springtime PR, and Spotlight PR. Based in Stockholm, Sweden.

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How To Improve Communicative Leadership in Organisations

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