Strong Effective Communication

It is rightly said that leaders are not born but they are made. Leadership quality is something that is not present from birth but is developed. 'Effective leadership is providing the vision and motivation to a team so they work together toward the same goal, and then understanding the talents and temperaments of each individual and effectively motivating each person to contribute individually their best toward achieving the group goal.' Was defined by Stan Kimer, president, Total Engagement Consulting by Kimer.

This definition explains well how vision and motivation is required, and how a leader should work towards motivation the team towards a common goal. An effective leader should not only lead the team but respect everyone’s opinion in the team, must handle all responsibilities, be a very good communicator, be confident and should be able to make proper decisions. Effective leadership qualities are most for the success of an organization.

Leaders must have strong effective communication with everyone in the organization and not only their own team members. This study is a very good example of how lack of communication by the leaders leads to different adverse effects on the organization. This study draws our attention as to how important it is for leaders to have effectively communicate not only within teams but also with others in organization. The study is the best example as to how lack of communication can lead to the various adverse effects in organizations. Also, it highlights how important it is for a leader to make his team work towards the goal that the organization expects otherwise all that happens is what happened in this study. This case study was regarding different events that occurred in DSS. Initially DSS grew rapidly but just after some time it was affected by different changes as the founders reduced their involvement. Over time there was stagnation in DSS organization. In response to these, there was appointment of two leaders at different levels. Meg Cooke was promoted to the position of Chief operating officer and Chris Peterson was appointed to lead the southwest consulting team. The key issues that I found in this case study are lack of communication, ineffective leadership.

Ineffective leadership covers major part as to the leaders failed to fulfill the responsibilities which were expected out of them. Communication competence is a prerequisite for effective leadership. Both the leaders did not demonstrate proper communication competence. There was always lack of communication. Lack of communication leads to various problems as seen in this case study. In this case study both Cooke and Peterson failed to communicate at regular intervals which was indeed required. Even though Peterson was good at communication within her team, she failed to communicate with Cooke. When Peterson was questioned about status of other teams in organization she was not able to answer that, and Cooke was not happy with that. Due to lack of effective communication Cooke and Peterson were not on the same page and thus finally Cooke did not accept the project. A study by Rehman Toor et al identified poor communication as a leading negative personal factor which make project leaders appear incompetent and ineffective in the workplace. 

Ineffective leadership was a major issue as well. Cooke failed to effectively guide the southwest team. Cooke failed to show good leadership qualities. Peterson asked help from Cooke at times, but Cooke failed t give satisfactory answers. Cooke was able to give time to other teams but not to the Southwest team. Thus, the team felt she wasn’t fair with them and which even I believe was true. She should have allotted equal time to each team. Cooke leadership lacked proper guidance and thus Peterson worked in a way which she failed right. But ultimately failed as the project did not get accepted. I believe Peterson demonstrated better leadership than Cooke. Peterson kept her team motivated at all points wherein they felt Cooke wasn’t fair with them. She took all efforts to complete the project. She failed as she did not have proper direction. The results indicate that there is a statistically significant impact of ineffective leadership on individual and organizational performance in Jordanian institutions. It also reveals the need for new leadership practices that should be adopted and presents certain ineffective leadership practices that deserve to be eliminated.

Better effective communication needs to be created in between different levels in an organization. If the communication is proper it leads to better understanding of the goals. Both Cooke and Peterson should have communication at regular intervals. This can be achieved with regular scheduled meetings, daily or weekly email updates etc. Cooke has to make sure that whenever Peterson and team comes with some difficulty it is addressed properly with fairness. Cooke should be able to solve problems that the team comes with and be fair with everyone. Cooke should change her leadership style in way that her team is clear about the expected goal and not confused like Peterson’s team. Cooke should be better at communicating her opinions to Peterson and team.

According to me the best possible solution for this situation is revolving around better effective communication. Effective communication is must for smooth functioning of any organization. The role played by communication during change in the business organizations is essential for successful change management was concluded by one of the studies by Hussain et al. From my personal example, at my work in my clinic, my front office team did not convey me about the appointment they scheduled for me and I landed up scheduling another appointment a t the same time. And ultimately one of my patients had to wait for entire 45 minutes which I really felt bad about. Thus, proper communication is extremely essential.

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