Put simply Communication Leadership is communication that leads to some form of change. But that’s a little vanilla, so to put it differently, Communication Leadership creates positive change and new possibilities! (That’s more like it.)
Let’s break it down:
- Communication: It’s not just your words, but also your tone of voice (auditory), the micro-expressions on your face (visual), how you animate as you communicate (kinaesthetic) – plus it’s what your behaviours communicate and how you talk to yourself on the inside (self-talk). So, communication is a set of verbal and non-verbal signals that package together to send a message.
- Leadership: To lead is to go somewhere and take people with you, (influence and change).
- Positive change: We can’t turn influence on or off. We are constantly influencing others through how we communicate for better or for worse and in my view, it’s not leadership if we’re doing harm. Communication Leadership is about communicating in ways that create positive change in life and at work.
- New possibilities: What’s made possible when communication improves? Given how instrumental communication is, I’d say a lot.
What are some practical examples of someone exercising Communication Leadership?
- Diverse Thinkers: Channeling diverse thinkers within a team towards innovation and away from conflict
- Curiosity: Asking, ‘what can I learn from them?’ when ideas are different
- Solution-Focus: Focus on vision, planning and action to create change and not problem and drama
- Win-wins: Looking for win-wins to create sustainable solutions (as opposed to win-lose).
- Actions and intentions: Understanding people’s intentions behind poor actions and helping them to improve
- Emotional-self regulation: Staying cool under pressure
- Direct communication: Giving people good information to work with when raising concerns with them
- Positive intent and enquiry: Raising issues whilst giving room for people to own their mistakes and share their perspectives
- Ambiguity: Spotting ambiguity and using clarifying techniques to ensure people are on the same page
- Bias: Being aware of our own bias programmes and activity working to counter them
- Integrity: Calling bad behaviour, knowing when to shut it down and set expectations
- Blind spots: Recognising we all have blindspots and inviting feedback to uncover our own
These are just some examples of Communication Leadership. Ultimately, ‘C-Leaders‘ have a heightened awareness of communication and use it with integrity for positive outcomes.