Leadership communication is so much more than letting employees know what is happening in the organization and the reasons why. And whilst information tools such as the corporate intranet, town hall meetings, CEO emails and blogs are important they are only part of the communication mix. Transformational leadership is about engaging employees on the journey of change to ensure that the business objectives are met. The only way to successfully achieve this is by designing employee engagement strategies to compliment information on the change process.
Transformational leadership is about engaging employees in changing behaviours to support the new business objectives. However whilst information is important, as part of leadership communication it only serves to provide information on what is changing and when, it is not an engagement tool.
Here are 5 tips that will ensure that your leadership communication methods do achieve those outcomes.
1. Step one is reviewing all the current tools and methods you use to communicate with employees. You need to scrutinize the content of that communication and determine whether it is one way information or whether some could be adapted as an engagement tool.
2. Step two is very important for transformational leadership because you want to create an "Aha!" moment for employees. This means you convey information in such a way that creates a paradigm shift in their thinking about a topic. The focus for employees needs to be that they finally understand what the change will mean to them, how they can contribute and why it is important.
3. This third tip explains the best type of research to find out what the "Aha Moment" is, and the best type for this purpose is focus group research. Focus group research allows you to ask employees about your business and their thoughts on competitors, to identify the largest gap between what customers think and what staff think customers think, and to identify what would create a paradigm shift in employee's thinking. It also helps you identify how you will measure the impact of your leadership communication strategies in the change in employees thinking and to determine how significant it is to achieving the business objectives.
The use of focus groups is useful as they allow issues to be discussed further and often they reveal issues or ideas which you would not have considered prior to the group session. I recommend that focus groups are generally held for one and a half hours duration and in groups with no more than 8 - 10 participants. The role of the facilitator is to lead the discussion but leave the actual dialogue to the participants, and then to steer them back to the main issue if employees have gone off on a tangent or to ensure that all the topics that you need to cover within the allocated timeframe are covered. The benefits of a well facilitated focus group are that they will identify the key messages for your leadership communication strategies as they relate to a particular business issue.
4. The fourth tip is that once you have the focus group outcomes, you can then begin designing leadership communication strategies that engage employees. You should have a clear understanding about what employees know and what the facts are, and the gap between the business facts and staff perceptions. This forms your key message to create the "Aha Moment".
5. Step five is all about taking the information you have gathered from the focus groups sessions and with that identify a business goal that you feel confident that your leadership strategies will impact. Use of that research data forms an essental part of your leadership communication strategy that can be measured by business achievements.
Once you have gathered all this information you then need to design leadership communication strategies that engage employees around the one central message. Many of these employee communication strategies will actively involve employees in some aspect of change by designing communication methods that will require employees to participate. These engagement strategies are then supplemented by communication information tools.
Transformational leadership is about engaging employees in changing behaviours to support the new business objectives. However whilst information is important, as part of leadership communication it only serves to provide information on what is changing and when, it is not an engagement tool.
Here are 5 tips that will ensure that your leadership communication methods do achieve those outcomes.
1. Step one is reviewing all the current tools and methods you use to communicate with employees. You need to scrutinize the content of that communication and determine whether it is one way information or whether some could be adapted as an engagement tool.
2. Step two is very important for transformational leadership because you want to create an "Aha!" moment for employees. This means you convey information in such a way that creates a paradigm shift in their thinking about a topic. The focus for employees needs to be that they finally understand what the change will mean to them, how they can contribute and why it is important.
3. This third tip explains the best type of research to find out what the "Aha Moment" is, and the best type for this purpose is focus group research. Focus group research allows you to ask employees about your business and their thoughts on competitors, to identify the largest gap between what customers think and what staff think customers think, and to identify what would create a paradigm shift in employee's thinking. It also helps you identify how you will measure the impact of your leadership communication strategies in the change in employees thinking and to determine how significant it is to achieving the business objectives.
The use of focus groups is useful as they allow issues to be discussed further and often they reveal issues or ideas which you would not have considered prior to the group session. I recommend that focus groups are generally held for one and a half hours duration and in groups with no more than 8 - 10 participants. The role of the facilitator is to lead the discussion but leave the actual dialogue to the participants, and then to steer them back to the main issue if employees have gone off on a tangent or to ensure that all the topics that you need to cover within the allocated timeframe are covered. The benefits of a well facilitated focus group are that they will identify the key messages for your leadership communication strategies as they relate to a particular business issue.
4. The fourth tip is that once you have the focus group outcomes, you can then begin designing leadership communication strategies that engage employees. You should have a clear understanding about what employees know and what the facts are, and the gap between the business facts and staff perceptions. This forms your key message to create the "Aha Moment".
5. Step five is all about taking the information you have gathered from the focus groups sessions and with that identify a business goal that you feel confident that your leadership strategies will impact. Use of that research data forms an essental part of your leadership communication strategy that can be measured by business achievements.
Once you have gathered all this information you then need to design leadership communication strategies that engage employees around the one central message. Many of these employee communication strategies will actively involve employees in some aspect of change by designing communication methods that will require employees to participate. These engagement strategies are then supplemented by communication information tools.
About the Author:
For more information make sure you obtain our excellent free report on how to design transformational leadership communication strategies.
0 comments:
Post a Comment