Leadership (and) Communication

The main questions underpinning this chapter are, what exactly is leadership and how does communication work to impact it? At the end of reading this chapter, you will have learned the following:

Learning Outcomes for this chapter will

1. reinforce basic knowledge of the fundamentals of human communication, its functions, processes, and models

2. develop a basic understanding of leadership definitions

3. synthesize the relationship between leadership and communication

Thought-Provoking Questions

1. Have you ever thought about what a leader actually does and how did they know how to do it?

2. What is the difference between a manager and a leader and what does that difference mean in the physical work they do?

3. How do you become a leader, or are leaders just born?

Chapter Outline Snapshot

• Definitions of Leadership and Communication
• Communication Functions, Styles, Models, Processes
• YouTube TedX Talks Links
• Why is this meaningful?

Definitions:

Leadership:

Leadership is a skill that an individual, or a group, or an organization have to influence or guide other individuals, small groups, teams, or organizations in a particular way. But this is general and only my short answer. The fact is that definitions of leadership are variable and often contested. For now, we will go with this sentiment. In the next chapter, we will expand on it.

Communication:

“Most people think they are great communicators. However, very few people are “naturally” good. Communication takes time, skill, and practice. To be a great communicator, you must also be a great listener. It requires proficiency and competence. Think about someone you know that is not a good communicator. Why is that person not good? Do they say things that are inappropriate, rude, or hostile?” (Wrench et al., p. 3).

Poor Communication Habits: (Think about the people you know. Do any of them ever demonstrate poor communication habits?)

Conversational Narcissist – The person who always turns the conversation back around to them and what they have experienced.

Aggressive Listener/Interruptions – The person who either interrupts others when they speak, or only listen to find fault or critique with others.

Multitasker/Distracted Communicator – The person who divides their attentions among multiple tasks while listening and speaking.

To improve communication behaviors, we first have to understand the needs for communicating with others. According to Wrench et al.  (XXXX), :

Physical – communicating with others is good for our health! (p. 4)

Identity – communication helps us discover who we are as an individual (p. 5)

Social – communication helps us to establish/build our relationships (p. 5)

Practical – communication helps us to navigate our daily tasks/life (p. 5)

Can you imagine what life would be like if we never communicated with another being? If you have not watched the film, Castaway (2000) (with Tom Hanks), you should. You will see what happens to a human being when they do not talk with another human being.

Another definition that Wrench et al (2020) advance is, “a process by which we share ideas or information with other people” (p. 6-7). The rest of this section comes from the textbook, Interpersonal Communication: A Mindful Approach (2020), by Jason S. Wrench, Narissra M. Punyanunt-Carter, and Katherine S. Thweat.

Principles of Communication:

1. Communication is Symbolic – This means that communication arises from symbols and representations. For example, the words are arbitrary combinations of linguistic symbols (letters) that we write, speak, translate into codes, etc. Additionally, we do not need to use linguistic symbols directly to communicate, though they are usually part of the interpreting or decoding process, as we often use images, shapes, and other kinds of nonverbal communication to transfer a message.
2. Communication Is Shared Meaning – Since linguistic symbols and what they relate comes from a shared understanding and agreement, we need others to create such an elaborate system of message sharing. Language and meaning always evolves through individuals negotiating the meaning together.
3. Communication Involves Intentionality – There is some kind of intention for particular communication exchanges. This does not mean that the intent that creates the message will be the same once the message is received, but it does point to some level of intentionality underscores the creation of a message.
4. Communication has Dimensions – All communication holds implicit and explicit dimensions such as content and relationship. While we might not explicitly state a relationship, the choices made in the communication exchange reflects the kind of relationship between communicants and interlocutors.
5. Communication is a Process – There is a specific process that occurs in a communicated message. The models below discusses the various processes. These processes can become very complex.
6. Communication is Culturally Determined – Culture and cultural value inform and shape how people communicate.
7. Communication Occurs in Context – Since individuals exist and live within narratives that are filled with tradition, enculturation, experiences, and sensibilities, all communication is situated within narratival neighborhoods (Schrag, XXXX).
8. Communication is Purposeful – There is a purpose for communicative messages, it might be to a particular end or it might be to open possibilities. Since human egos drive human communication, the ego acknowledges a purposeful existence.

Communication Styles – There are various styles of communication and while we might have engaged each of these styles at one time or another, we likely also have a preferred style or styles, or a personal preference for communication.

Passive

Aggressive

Assertive

Manipulative

Collaborative

Competitive

Models of Communication – there are three main types of communication models

Linear/active

Interactive

Transaction

• Linear or Action Models – This is where communication is seen as a one directional transmission.
• Interaction Models – This is where there is increased focus on feedback being multidirectional.
• Transaction Models – This is where individuals act as both sender and receiver simultaneously; it is more complex and accounts for environment more than other models. There are also other aspects involved in the transactional models that make these models more complex and dynamic than the other models.
  
  • Cues – public, private, behavioral
  • Context – social (rules and norms that govern how folks communicate); Cultural (cultural and co-cultural identities that bring people together); relational (the bond between people)
  • Noise:
    • Physical – in environment (a fan or a car horn)
    • Physiological – body’s response (internal: hunger, headache, hearing loss; external: cold/hot, color, comfort)
    • Psychological – emotional state, thoughts, perceptions, etc.
    • Semantic – meanings in words

In each model there are encoders (people to create the messages) and decoders (people who interpret the messages).

Transaction Models depict communication as complex, continuous, and dynamic (and a simultaneous shared experience).

A significant aspect of the human communicative experience is our perception. Our perceptions may complicate the encoding and decoding.

–Perception involves: Attending, Organizing, and Interpreting. These actions occur dynamically (and not in this particular order). But, a lot can go wrong in the process of understanding our perceptions.

WHAT IMPACTS OUR PERCEPTIONS?

Personal Experiences

Personal Involvement

Our Expectations – about what we see or think we see.

Assumptions that we make about utterances or nonverbal communication.

Relational Satisfaction – This refers to where we are in our personal relationships.

The Physical Environment (lighting, noise, familiarity)

–Verbal and Nonverbal Communication – As human beings we communicate more often nonverbally than we do verbally. This is because nonverbal communication is often overlooked unless we can watch ourselves in a mirror as we are communicating. The fact is that we focus more of being effective and efficient verbal communicators and we pay less attention to what we communicate nonverbally. There will be video links to nonberbal communication videos below for additional information.

Nonverbal Codes

Verbal Rules

Words matter. Words lead us to meaning, they reflect our attitudes about something, they do exist in abstraction though, so they need us to apply them in context, and much of there meaning is denotative (dictionary definition) and connotative, (expanded understands based upon subjective experiences).

Conclusion

So, what is at stake? Everything.

Paula Tompkins (2011), Professor Emerita at St. Cloud State University, argues that “Practicing ethics involves discerning ethical issues and making decisions about how to act. Ethical discernment is the ability to recognize ethical issues and make ethical distinctions in order to formulate judgments about what is good, right, or virtuous. In ethical decision-making, an individual uses those judgments to guide her decisions about how to act ethically” (p. 5). Professor Tompkins understands ethics as practical philosophy and suggests that “communication ethics rests on the idea that individual acts and episodes of communication are important; they are not trivial” (p.6).

Because Tompkins identifies communication as ephemeral, rhetorical, and transactional, with dimensions of content, relationship, authenticity—there involves a constituent process of communicative engagement—and all of these aspects suggest that what, how, and why we communicate matters. For Tompkins, all communicative gestures, transactions, and even unintentional acts/behaviors have ethical dimensions. Therefore, we cannot continue to communicate on a daily basis without thinking about our communicative practices and what impacts they have on ourselves, others, and society as a whole.

Let’s unpack her description of communication which will help us to see why all communicative gestures have ethical dimensions.

Communication is:

• Ephemeral – because communication, especially when spoken, vaporizes once it is said. Even written communication vaporizes its possibility of meaning and simultaneously it is irrevocable – it is stated in some fashion and then it cannot be taken back or taken away. Its possibility is no longer present in existence but the message, its meaning, its impact is eternally present while not being tangible. Sometimes we try to explain or clarify, but in most situations, the original “saidness” is never forgotten; it remains in its absence as everpresent.
• Rhetorical – communication has the power to manipulate, persuade, and impact other people, entities, environments. Because of the rhetoricality of communication, there is also an inherent responsibility to the other that is undeniable and inescapable.
• Transactional – communication is between people, between people and environments, between people and entities/organizations. This means there is a transactional, interdependence that occurs naturally in human communication.

Communication has dimensions of:

• Content – the message (logos)
• Relationship – people (pathos)
• Authenticity – ethics (ethos)

Some philosophers create very specific criteria for what makes something ethical or an ethical matter. For Tompkins, the act and event of communication is inherently always-already ethical. There is no avoiding ethics in communication. We will hear more about this in a later chapter.

YouTube TedX Talks Links

Simon Sinek:

–Five Fundamentals of Leadership

–How to Master the Art of Leadership

Drew Dudley:

–Lollypop Moments

The last word. Why is this meaningful? The more we know about communication and how it works, we begin to see the value of effective communication to leadership and its actions and experiences. Generally, all communication has the potential to impact others, either positively or negatively. Knowing this we can avoid certain communicative environments or commitments. So, the stakes are lower. But in leadership, there is no hiding and the buck stops with you as the leader. Everything you do and say absolutely WILL impact others. This can be scary to think about but you need to think about it and practice effective leadership communication so that the impact you bring to others is more positive than it is negative.