The communication business in business

Suddenly, there’s much chatter about ‘toxic work culture’ doing the rounds. In this context, managerial leadership is rarely a solo skill. Organisations thrive if they are led by a motivated team instead of an individual tasked with addressing existential issues. Getting a group of individuals to share a vision requires dialogue and drive to rise above efficiency-sapping bureaucracy. A leadership team fails if it loses its strategic focus or ability to communicate with employees. Very often, leadership failure is associated with the former, even as the latter can be as damaging. This is why organisations resist adapting to working cultures that appear alien under new leadership. The onus is on the leadership to alter culture at a pace the organisation can handle without too many stress points emerging.

The culture issue is more pronounced when leadership is grafted on to public sector institutions from private business. Insights a business leader brings to government institutions make for better outcomes if they can be converted into a strategic organisational vision acceptable to a group of stakeholders. The public sector typically adapts slower than companies, given their wider social outreach. But changes tend to stick. A new leadership can be highly effective, though, in introducing organisational efficiency metrics that encourage continual change. Since survival makes business more adaptable to the external environment, a business leader can transmit a sense of urgency to institutional reform. This process need not be adversarial of the classic ‘testosterone-driven’ kind if the leadership gets its communication strategy right.

Communication may differ between profit-driven and non-profit organisations. Yet, both work to principles of organisational efficiency. This is critical because lateral movements between public and private sectors increase with economic sophistication. A vision of the future shared in terms an organisation can comprehend is a key employee motivator. The messaging is as important as the message.