Leadership Hacks, 2nd Edition

Chapter 3Communication

A leader's ability to communicate is critical to their success and that of their business. This is common sense: everyone knows that communication is a critical tool for anyone in business.

A number of years ago I worked with a leadership team for a large international franchise organisation. They had achieved fairly modest growth. However, it appeared that they had plateaued and the CEO wanted us to work with his leadership team to improve their impact on their employees to enable the organisation to reach the next level of strategic targets.

During the first session of the year‐long leadership program, we looked at how the leadership team viewed an ideal leader versus a completely ineffective leader. Using the results of this session, we provided the leadership team with 360‐degree feedback about the impact their leadership had on the people around them. When the CEO received his feedback he was a bit confused. It showed that his leadership style affected people in a very negative way, similar to what he and the leadership team had just identified as ineffective leadership.

While reflecting on his feedback, the CEO walked around the office and approached four of his direct reports individually. Looking them straight in the eye and holding up his feedback form, he said, ‘This says I don't listen and I just bark orders at people. I don't do that, do I!’ The way he said it was a statement, not a question. Each of his direct reports responded in a similar ...