A Novel Insight Into World-Class Leadership Communication

A Novel Insight Into World-Class Leadership Communication

This is about the importance of effective leadership communication and how it affects staff retention. We look at one of the essential characteristics of great leadership and go one step further by offering a practical way to achieve trust throughout your business.

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2024 may be the Year of the Dragon, but HR professionals, deploying the full range of their creative impulses, call it the year of … retention.

This is serious though. According to Work Buzz, keeping employees has jumped to the top of HR priorities in 2023, up from third place in 2022. With the current economic challenges and cost-of-living crisis, employee well-being and recruitment have become big issues.

The study showed 17% of organisations still don’t listen to their employees regularly, and fewer are now using tools like pulse surveys, which became popular during the pandemic. This is worrying because engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave their jobs.

There’s more: Over half of HR pros (64%) say employee engagement has stayed the same or worsened in the past year, continuing a trend from 2022. Without regular feedback, how can companies know what their employees need?

The bottom line is the retention issue is getting tougher. 89% of respondents said it’s either getting worse or not changing, with only 11% saying retention is getting easier. Losing employees means losing valuable knowledge and expertise, which hits the company’s performance and finances hard—replacing an employee can cost six to nine months of their salary (source: Society for Human Resource Management).

Make no mistake, regularly listening to and engaging with employees is crucial to maintaining a stable and financially healthy workforce.

The Power of Workplace Communication

Workplace communication is the backbone of any organisation. Get it right and employees feel more engaged, understood, and valued. Getting it wrong can lead to misunderstandings, frustration, and disengagement.

More details on this in a moment, but first let me show how bad things can get when things go wrong. In his book Leadership is Language, L. David Marquet highlights how crucial good communication is for any organisation. He tells the tragic story of the El Faro, a container ship consigned to the depths in 2015 after sailing into the eye of Hurricane Joaquin. Marquet explains how the disaster was due to a communication breakdown—rigid hierarchies, a lack of open dialogue, and critical concerns being ignored by leadership —all of which led to the loss of the entire crew.

The sinking of the El Faro highlights why bad communication isn’t just a small issue; it can lead to major failures and even tragedies. The bottom line is poor communication can result in lost talent, low morale, and decreased productivity. Marquet’s insights emphasise the importance of creating a workplace where open communication is encouraged, no question is a stupid question, and everyone’s voice is heard.

Leadership Communication: Setting the Tone for Success

Here’s something interesting. A study from the Novak Leadership Institute at the University of Missouri shows how crucial good leadership communication is for building a respectful workplace culture. When leaders communicate well and recognise individual achievements, employees feel more engaged, valued, and respected. The research surveyed over 1,500 workers and found positive leader communication boosts job satisfaction, resilience, and mutual respect among employees. Every organisation would benefit from these outcomes.

Don’t take my word for it, look at the impact Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, had on his business by employing a transparent and empathetic communication style. Insiders say his approach has transformed Microsoft’s workplace culture. By recognising individual contributions and fostering an environment of trust and respect, he has, reportedly, increased employee engagement contributing towards the company’s continuing success. 

Practical Lessons In Building Trust 

Do you trust your subordinates? Most leaders say they do. Most subordinates think not so much. Even respected leaders will often act subconsciously in communicating a message of distrust by eroding ownership and responsibility of team members.

The point is, trust is the foundation of any successful relationship, including and especially those in the workplace. Important but conventional ideas of trust being built through transparent communication or active listening are only a part of the story. These are essential tools to learn and understand. 

Let me switch gears here though, and move from concept to practical application. Will the approach I explain below work for you? Maybe, and maybe not. It’s an ambitious approach to building trust and transforming business hierarchy – an intellectual challenge and a practical maelstrom compared to ordinary approaches. See what you think.

Push Control Downwards

Here we go. The most powerful way I know to build trust is this: Collaborate in a process of leadership where you eliminate top-down monitoring systems. Stay with me because if the Captain of a US Nuclear Missile Submarine can make this work with all the implications of a disaster caused by a misstep in his workplace, then it might be worth considering in your rather less combustible offices, factories or stores.

The idea is simple. Push control downwards to increase competence and so build trust. The short answer to how this looks on a practical level begins with training team members to boost competency to necessary levels. Your people have to be at least as skilled as you are in understanding the nuts and bolts operation of the role. This opens the door to you being able and confident in delegating more decision-making to the proven-to-be competent team member.  This increased decision-making responsibility has the knock-on effect of realising a more engaged, motivated and responsible team who now have tangible evidence of your trust in them. Morale will soar. Productivity too. 

Optimal Leadership

Tangible leadership trust, and leader vulnerability, can be more impressively achieved only to the degree the leader can move their responsibilities downwards to their subordinates yet continue to be accountable for all missteps their team makes.

The thing to do is this: Train your team members to be competent in the technical details, then have them work as if they were in your position. Reports to you should anticipate the reservations and questions you may have or ask. The closer you get to zero questions the closer you get to optimal leadership. 

The fact is this level of team collaboration is rare, but where it happens communication channels are wide and deep with staff retention levels extraordinary, and trust real and practical.

Dare you try? From executive coaching to storytelling and leadership behaviours, we have solutions to elevate your leadership communication. Let us know how we can help.

More resources

Unlocking Leadership Excellence – The Lift Podcast

Leadership: Help You and Your Team Thrive – The Body Talk Podcast