Africa-Press – Lesotho. It is very common in leadership to consider a leader being the one at the top of a pyramid, whose wishes are carried out by people on lower areas of the pyramid.
Most of this carrying out is directive, meaning the leader tells people what to do with the expectation it will be carried out. If employees do not execute as directed, the consequences are negative and can include a variety of
punitive actions, such as getting fired, not receiving promotions, or being denied training opportunities. Based on the changing trends in leadership and management, that organizational model
struggles to survive. Companies and Organizations leaders have recognized that the old-style “command and control” methods do not work anymore. We now understand what it actually takes to engage people, and we know the people
carrying out the work are intelligent, innovative, and valuable. Today’s employees have the ability to drive success (or failure) through the culture of
the organization by their attitude and through their own leadership qualities. The Manager must intentionally use dialogue as a core process to achieve the
strategic objectives of the core business. This is normally referred to as Conversational Leadership as defined by Carolyn Balwin (an educator, Appreciative Inquiry
practitioner, and World Café host). Spurred by financial crisis and the prospect of an increasingly uncertain future, leaders and managers in all sectors must seek new and innovative ways to
leverage organizational and community resources to produce greater strategic impact. Efforts must be taken to cut costs, be more efficient, and compete more
effectively. Yet many such initiatives fall short of archiving their intended aims and create unintended consequences. The success of this efforts depend on
our intentional focus of a deeper process of conversation among employees, partners, stakeholders and target population in our core business. Organizational conversation creates a shift at a fundamental level through the Four I’s:
Intimacy
: Conversational intimacy in leadership flourishes when leaders sense that the gap between themselves, employees,
partners and/or stakeholders is shrinking. It is not always easy though, and for a leader to create a closeness with staff, they’ve got to be trusted, approachable, and likable.
Interactivity:
When a company uses media to take care of large scale communication, then they are often relying on one-way transmission of messages that involve just a single voice. A commitment to interactivity provides the place for employees, partners and stakeholders to speak up and to enter the conversation.
Inclusion:
When employees are involved in what was formerly a corporate communications role, the mood of those communications becomes more personal. It also helps raise the morale and engagement of employees who get to be much more involved in what’s going on in their workplace.
Intentionality:
Intentionality, leads to a specific destination. The questions asked in discussing intentionality include: Creating a conversational strategy sometimes
referred to as Communication Strategy that includes the plan for how to conduct organizational communication, as envisioned by the organization’s leaders
is one crucial step to consider. While it might seem counterintuitive that a conversational strategy is needed for what is really simply defined as a conversation, you’ll see that having a strategy facilitates an essential
connection between the business, employee contributions, and the marketplace. The main goal is to improve performance and achieve better results for the
business. It is highly crucial for the employees, partners, stakeholders and the target population to understand the context, intended outcomes (business
intent) and key messages though appropriate mediums. Students of conversational leadership have discovered that the way the organization or company brand is discussed outside is inseparable from the
conversations inside, and this is why strategic conversation is so important. Organizational conversations need to be aligned with the direction and goals of the company,
and they need to provide support so that employees come to a unified organizational vision. If you want to really access a diversity of thought and collective wisdom, it’s
critical to invite the right stakeholders. Some of the great examples we’ve heard of include inviting a cross-section of internal staff as well as external
product and service users in developing conversational management or leadership strategy. Conversational Management takes root when Managers see their organizations dynamic webs of
conversations consider conversation as a core process for effecting positive systematic change. Taking a strategic approach to this core process can only grow intellectual and social capital, but also provide a collaborative advantage in our increasingly networked world.
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