So, what education or training should be provided to develop the leaders and influencers needed to grow your company, solidify your brand culture, and achieve your business revenue goals in the future?
How Do We Communicate Today?
Let us focus on one of the main features that a leader must possess, which is effective communication.
There are several ways we communicate as a society today:
- Verbal communication: face-to-face via words and speech.
- Written communication: either via email, text messages, or posts and tweets on social media.
- Non-verbal communication: through body language.
- Understanding the Environment: “Prevailing Climate and Cultural Patterns.”
Your current and future leaders must be able to communicate in all these ways. Today's methods are different from those of the past and will differ from those of the future, as it is a constant change, yet no matter how they communicate, some things won't change.
Perception is Reality
The way others listen to you and see you is true for them, not your interpretation of the situation. If you are talking to someone who is constantly looking at their phone or staring at what the person behind you is doing instead of focusing on you as the center of their attention, what is your perception or cognition of this situation? Do you think they’re listening to you and showing you respect as an individual?
Perception is a reality, and whether you listen carefully as you stare at a distance during your conversation with someone else or not, the person you are dealing with will soon interpret your action as a lack of interest and rudeness and will soon end their interaction with you.
Do you want the kind of workplace culture that is seen as indifferent to employees? Future leaders must have a high degree of self-awareness along with the ability to observe and be able to do something completely different from what they used to do, and organizations must invest in their employees to improve self-awareness, understand that perception is reality, and proactively deal with the impact of communication on their public culture.
Employees’ Impressions Are Not to Blame
First impressions are 80% of what employees think about you, which happens within the first 90 seconds or less. Changing the initial impression your employees have of the company takes a lot of work over several hours, sometimes even days, and in today's fast-paced world, your words or messages and the way they are delivered will either catch your employees' attention or distract them.
Body language indicates what happened, as your awareness of your facial expressions, steps, and eye contact—to name a few—can give a very negative or very positive impression. In addition to that, behaviors are interpreted as actions, whether verbal or not.
What does your organizational culture tell you if everyone at a manager's meeting is sitting around the table with their arms bent, checking their phones? Learning more about non-verbal communication can help you achieve the return on investment you aspire to.
Sudden Change Leads to Problems
We mentioned earlier that change is a constant. If an organization is to achieve its revenue goals, it must be able to keep up with the constant change and reduce any chaos associated with how work can be done differently. We hear that current and future cultures must accept this to remain competitive; hence, it becomes one of the primary responsibilities of leaders to help employees get through the stages of change as quickly as possible.
Some organizational cultures that are undergoing constant change often believe that the sudden change method is the best since everyone is mature, they have to move beyond the past, live, and deal with the adjustments, and leaders suddenly put all the adjustments on the table and essentially tell their employees to accept it or leave.
Have you tried this? If your answer was "yes", what was your reaction? What did your colleagues think, and how did they act? Did employees behave differently when the next change was made? Did it help you become more productive?
Experts say, "No." It causes people to want to think about the past and how things were, prevents them from moving forward, and slows down your team and your productivity. Tomorrow's leaders must learn techniques for eliminating the frightening effects of change.
These are just a few examples of how communication can influence your organizational culture. These examples are not taught or practiced in high school or at university. Instead, for companies serious about their future, they become part of their leadership development as they develop leaders to meet the changing needs of their company's future.
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