Essay: Importance Of Communication And Leadership At Workplace.

Trust and Confidence

Describe about the Organization Leadership for Importance of communication and Leadership at Workplace.

In order for any organization to move forward, there needs a proper execution of roles by the team and various sub teams need a very stable and efficient, leadership and management team, however the chain can only be as strong as its weakest point, the management and the team really affect each other, in the process of role execution. This paper will be examining importance of communication and leadership at workplace at a personal observation, it will also cover instances whereby, proper communication and stable leadership has worked and instances whereby managers and teams have challenges and opportunities to perform their leadership function in an organization.

To build trust and confidence between the staff and   management, communication is very vital, while working one notes that, it is the responsibility of any great leader to great team members and call them by their names.  (Brad berry & Greaves, 2009, p.140). Greeting the team members by their names shows that one values his team or the workforce, it portrays the team leader is in a position to identify the team members uniquely. Knowing people beyond faces enables a team leader to increase the social awareness. During meetings, movements and body language of the employees , has also identified  communication at workplace, it is notable  conservative and a keen leaders while in meetings  they are capable of noting when people are bored, when they are tired, annoyed and when the topic or subject matter is becoming uninteresting, during such moments  it  enabled  the team leaders to change the subject matter or get full control of the meeting.

Leaders are able to control  their emotions through  emotional intelligence, great leaders should be irritated by people sentiments and actions though they shouldn’t vent or show their anger or differ in public, they don’t make decisions without involving people and they take every complaint and feedback with utmost importance, feedback helps a leader to analyze what has been working and what needs to be changed for roles execution (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009, p 69-70).

True and honest leadership at workplace takes feedback as an opportunity to communicate and thus great leaders are very attentive in listening, they encourage their team members to communicate on issues affecting them at work place, they correct team members in a most professional respectable way, they also take the leadership challenge of being a role model in respectful conflicts resolution (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009, p. 46)

Emotional Intelligence

While at workplace one notes, organizations are normally affected by the change in the market trends. A change in the technology , create a room for high performing teams or the most innovative people in the organization, to focus on equipping themselves with new skills and grabbing every opportunity presented by change of the systems and technology advancements. Organizations on the decline curve ought to device ways of adapting to the market changes (Kotter, 1996, p. 1). Organizations management role of communication in case of changes is a hard task, change is quite a long process, an organization can have well laid plans for expansion, it is the duty of the leadership of an organization to come up with a vision and have a very clear communication to the workforce for proper direction and vision realization.

Any organization with leaders that are rigid and oppose change forecast a downfall for the organization (Kotter, 1996, p. 7). While performing office duties, leaders were having an open door policy to communication and feedback, which created an opportunity for the team members to express their sentiments on how a task can well be achieved. For example, the organizations had employee feedback week or innovation employee suggestion box. Great leaders ensured the corporate goals, rules and positioning of an organization are in sync with the overall effort of the employees. It enabled proper communication and eased task at hand. The goals to be achieved were a challenge to the management. In every workplace there is a number of employees that will support a cause of an organization while another number will greatly oppose the cause of being campaigned for by the organization. It is a trying moment for the management to communicate during the change period. As a result of the opposing forces in the organization, one notes, the managers might tend to communicate the changes a win prematurely. Many organizations experience slow process in role execution immediately after the managers declare a win (Kotter, 1996, p. 7). Lack of a vision prevents the management from noting the competing factors, ending up declaring a win prematurely causing the level of efficiency to go down. Great organizations with a vision use the short term achievements to declare a bigger war or battle, the achievements are used as a motivating factor for employees to achieve a more detailed goal. For every challenge or opportunity that an organization discovers, it should convene a meeting and have a team that will deal with the issue depending on the urgency of the matter, the team should also come up with a vision (Kotter, 1996, p. 7). An organization ought to empower its employees towards making the vision reality, it can be achieved through training and updating the team on the status of the issues presented.

Feedback and Conflict Resolution

Change is a gradual process, the organization should set short term and midterm goals since after some time the employees may call of the vision if there are no results seen, in the process of proving the findings right. (Kotter, 1996, p. 8). It is notable while at workplace the organization should strategically come up with changes, once changes have been effected, it is the role of any organization to make the findings to be part of its corporate values. Every challenge or opportunity of an organization to improve, is highly dependent on the leadership style of the institution and also communication at that particular moment. Leaders have a challenge to communicate change to the team. They should communicate on how change has resulted to performance previously and had a boost in both individual and corporate earnings. Before a new team gets into an organization either at a junior or senior level, the organization should have an opportunity on communicating change, to ensure the new team will not find it challenging to cope with the corporate goals, vision and mission of the organization.

Leadership is a combination of a leader and followers who want some change. Transformative leaders are in a position of influencing the followers of any organization towards a common vision of the organization, they communicate to influence. Whether leaders are born or made it is a debate, people are born with leadership skills, it is the responsibility of any organization to develop skills of the employees for business enhancement, organizations should not only train on the inherent skills but also technical skills to make the employees more capable of using the leadership skills together with the technical skills (Lussier & Achua 2012, p.26).

Every day leaders had an opportunity to influence their followers in an organization and feedback from the followers helped the leaders to influence. Exposing team members to high level of training develop a legacy in an organization. Different responsibilities or ranks in an organization come up with different responses to situations. In an office setting, the manager should be in a position to handle the technical skills person and the supervisor, the manager’s role is mainly making decisions, it can be a conflict at work and change adapting. He or she makes a decision and communicates effectively. Managers assign resources where need be. Every meeting or convention at workplace will never escape communication about leadership. Outstanding leadership requires one to be a great communicator, develop the team member’s skills and be in a position to make decision that will have an impact on the organization relevance (Lussier & Achua 2012, p. 30).

Managing Change

Managers should take advantage of the opportunities present to fine tune their communication and leadership skills, in most organizations managers tend to be the spokespersons of their organizations, the opportunity to address meetings and conferences enable the managers to build their self-confidence while addressing people, they creatively develop slogans to be the punchline of their meetings while having the vision of the organizations at heart.

Leadership in an organization can also be challenging when managers are evaluating performance and coaching. Managers should be in a position to train and communicate to team members for the realization of the organization’s vision, coaching might not be an easy task, it involves calling people from their comfort zones and equipping them to be visionary one might differ with team members especially when they are being pushed off limits. Performance evaluation is a tool which proves the relevance of employees in an organization, it helps managers to justify the relevance of their workforce and also to evaluate their decisions through the individual performance (Lussier, & Achua, 2012, p. 87). 

Politics and power at workplace can work at an advantage or a disadvantaged point to a given institution, leadership should provide an opportunity in teams to communicate on issues that they feel they affect them, (Vigoda-Gadot, & Drory,2006, p.122). Organizational politics provide a feedback to the leadership, the politics might be as a result of stress or staff demotivation, politics shouldn’t be avoided but leaders should communicate the issues affecting the employees.

There are times when power threatens a leadership function, Leaders should maintain a good relationship with the management like the board of directors to, it will help to know how to bargain on behalf of their teams and to manage stress as a team leader while handling powerful figures in an organization (Clay, & Olitt,2012 p.45). 

A leader works in and out of the office, leaders tend to be the liaison persons, they communicate on behalf of the organization to the public, develop relationships and represent the organization in meetings and also professional associations (Lussier, & Achua, 2012, p. 88).

Leaders are capacitated with making decisions of an organizations. They communicate on where the resources should be allocated and they justify their decisions to the public. In instances whereby there is a crisis in an organization, for instance if fire or burglary takes place, it’s the leadership function to communicate on the happenings and the organization stand as far as the crisis has occurred. Leaders or managers have the bargaining power on behalf of the organization, for example they look at the organizations budget and decide who is awarded the tender to supply office stationery or basic things like cleaning services and security (Lussier, & Achua.2012, p. 92)

Influencing Followers

Leadership can be analyzed through theory of leadership, which examines leadership at workplace between a leader and individual followers, the theory analyses the leader at different settings, it focuses the impact of a leader at an organizational mirror, and a leaders influence universally in an organization. (Lussier, & Achua, p.95).

Verbal communication has been overlooked in organizations (Lewis, James P. 2003 p. 127). The representatives of the organizations and leaders should be highly empowered when representing the organization, words once spoken can cause employees to move towards a very noble cause influenced or motivated by managing change.

Ethically some codes of conduct like dress codes might not be appealing to the team members It’s the duty of a leader to communicate within the professional codes of conduct (Tavani,2011, p.111). it has been noted that at times the professional codes of conduct might tend be vague, though being very specific is a danger, the leader should analyze the professional code of conduct at an organization and endeavor to change and motivate the teams while not missing the vision of the organization.

Managing directors and general managers might be all rounded, or poses all attributes as far as leadership in business is concerned though their teams should. A visionary leader should have a team that is capable of focusing his or her weakness and generally the organization challenges based on the competition at stake (Conchie & Rath, 2008 p. 2). 

Leadership should focus on making team members more competent, it the leadership function to communicate on making sure the strengths of team members are developed more and more, talent should be exported from where it is less used and deployed to the area of expertise. Organizations with the help of the human resources department, ought to ensure that various subdivisions or departments promote people based on their capabilities and strengths, equipping them to deliver more. Leadership should look at the requirements for the vision realization and deploy various team members to places whereby their strengths will be highly utilized. Leadership that focuses more on people weaknesses achieves nothing in the long run.

An organization that is run on strengths embraces brilliance than loyalty, people should be promoted because of what they can offer not because of how friendly they are to us. Brilliance and strengths should be the communication across the organization. While the organizations yet to be future oriented and maximize on the opportunities ahead, it is very challenging to communicate to the team, a focus on the current events while having a vision for the future events for the organization (Conchie & Rath, 2008, p.22). Even though there might be challenging times for an organization, a leader should be heard communicating hope to the teams, team leaders at the workplace understand that a vision is greater than any individual, they believe in giving hope to the team since success is made by a team effort (Conchie & Rath, 2008, p. 216). 

Managerial Roles

Leaders should be keen while addressing team members based on their gender, while at work place women tend to be open minded and can speak out on issues, men tend to be shy off from issues pertaining work, men use report talk while women flow with creating rapport. It is important that a team leader to know how to correct a woman or a man colleague at work without sounding offensive. Leaders should avoid favoritism based on gender, promotions should come handy with brilliance (Lumsden & Wiethoff, 2009, p. 208). 

Communication and leadership at work place should strive to achieve a win to win situation. Meetings, decision making processes and conflicts resolution should be full of dialogue. In dialogue people will avoid arguments and being defensive, dialogue provides an opportunity for cohesiveness in a team, it enables the leaders to understand the team members better, dialogue provides an opportunity for the team members to understand the vision of an organization. The team brings ideas on the table and help the organization achieve the role while leaving everybody with a feeling that they have contributed to the corporate goal (Lumsden & Wiethoff,2009, p. 212)

Irrespective of how leaders are annoyed they should be mindful of their language given an opportunity to communicate. Leaders should use polite language, they shouldn’t use slang language or offensive language, they should be assertive of their publics. (Lumsden & Wiethoff,2009, p. 214). Leaders have an obligation of separating their families from the organization even when the business is a family business, home issues should be separated from the business.

While communicating and during leadership at the workplace it is the responsibility of the leaders to act on nonverbal cues, whether speaking or not their actions do communicate, a leader shouldn’t have certain postures while in public for example communicating while pocketing hands (Wiethoff,2009, p. 221).

Conclusion

In conclusion communication is the vital key in an organization since it connects the leadership and the team, the team delivers after the vision of an organization has been well communicated. There will be instances whereby an organization will have team members that are not eloquent or great communicators though they can perform tasks remarkably, it is an opportune moment for the organization to develop their skills, making sure that their competencies are deployed to the area of expertise. Many leaders have a challenge working with teams that are different with what they believe. True leadership should choose brilliance over loyalty at the workplace. Leaders ought to have in mind they carry their brand wherever they go. They represent the organization in public, they communicate on behalf of the organization, their actions words dressing and behavior in the public matters a lot. It’s the leadership function to motivate the team, to give hope and sell the company vision to the team. The team should communicate on their ideas, to the management. A leader should correct the team members without sounding offensive and the leader should have in mind gender while communicating.

References

Achua, C., & Lussier, R. N. (2010). Leadership: theory, application, skill development. Singapore: Cengage Learning.

Bradberry, T., & Greaves, J. (2009). Leadership 2.0. TalentSmart

Clay, C., & Olitt, R. (2012). Peer power: Transforming workplace relationships. John Wiley & Sons.

Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading change. Harvard Business Press.

Lewis, J. (2003). Project leadership. McGraw Hill Professional.

Lumsden, G., Lumsden, D., & Wiethoff, C. (2009). Communicating in groups and teams: Sharing leadership. Cengage Learning.

Rath, T., & Conchie, B. (2008). Strengths based leadership: Great leaders, teams, and why people follow. Simon and Schuster.

Tavani, H. T. (2011). Ethics and technology: Controversies, questions, and strategies for ethical computing. John Wiley & Sons.

Vigoda-Gadot, E., & Drory, A. (Eds.). (2006). Handbook of organizational politics. Edward Elgar Publishing