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.
The fundamental difference between employee engagement and information is the former focuses on changing employee behaviour to support the achievement of business objectives. The latter is about providing information to employees about what will change, when and why.
Here are 5 ways you can ensure that your leadership communication approach will achieve those outcomes.
1. The first step is to review the current ways you are communicating with employees and determine whether your leadership communication methods are engagement tools or simply information tools. So this first tip is to gather up all the ways you communicate with employees and decide whether they are one way or two way communication vehicles and whether the messages are information or could be enhanced with an engagement strategy.
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.
Benefits of focus group research are that they are a good format for allowing topics to be explored further and frequently will uncover issues or ideas which hadn't been considered prior to the session. Focus groups generally are held for one and a half hours duration and in groups of 8 - 10 participants. The facilitator should lead the discussion but leave the actual dialogue to the participants, and steer them around to the main issue if they have gone off topic and to ensure that all the topics that you wanted to cover within the timeframe allocated are. Well facilitated focus groups identify the key messages to focus your leadership communication strategies on as they relate to specific business objectives.
4. This fourth step is all about what you do next with the outcomes of the focus groups. It is important that you have identified clearly what employees actually think about a particular issue and the reason for that opinion. If that opinion needs to change then you need to identify specific data that is based on facts to successfully create a paradigm shift in the thinking of employees. Once you do this you will 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. - 16970
The fundamental difference between employee engagement and information is the former focuses on changing employee behaviour to support the achievement of business objectives. The latter is about providing information to employees about what will change, when and why.
Here are 5 ways you can ensure that your leadership communication approach will achieve those outcomes.
1. The first step is to review the current ways you are communicating with employees and determine whether your leadership communication methods are engagement tools or simply information tools. So this first tip is to gather up all the ways you communicate with employees and decide whether they are one way or two way communication vehicles and whether the messages are information or could be enhanced with an engagement strategy.
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.
Benefits of focus group research are that they are a good format for allowing topics to be explored further and frequently will uncover issues or ideas which hadn't been considered prior to the session. Focus groups generally are held for one and a half hours duration and in groups of 8 - 10 participants. The facilitator should lead the discussion but leave the actual dialogue to the participants, and steer them around to the main issue if they have gone off topic and to ensure that all the topics that you wanted to cover within the timeframe allocated are. Well facilitated focus groups identify the key messages to focus your leadership communication strategies on as they relate to specific business objectives.
4. This fourth step is all about what you do next with the outcomes of the focus groups. It is important that you have identified clearly what employees actually think about a particular issue and the reason for that opinion. If that opinion needs to change then you need to identify specific data that is based on facts to successfully create a paradigm shift in the thinking of employees. Once you do this you will 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. - 16970
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