Most leaders believe that effective communication helps to inspire and direct stakeholders. The best leaders, however, believe that effective communication helps to facilitate and equip stakeholders to take action. These leaders realize that their role is less about driving stakeholder buy-in to a set strategy and more about enabling stakeholders to adapt and be agile.

As a result, the goal and type of support that Communications provides leaders must evolve. As I argued in a previous post, it’s no longer enough to craft polished speeches for an executive. Your role as communicators must move beyond just speech writing to include activities such as building leader comfort with informal dialogue and everyday communication.

Help Shape CEC’s Research on the 3 Most Common Challenges of Leadership Communications

It’s difficult to help convince and coach leaders to make the shift from commanding and controlling to facilitating and enabling. And while we can’t solve every problem overnight or with this lone post, we can debate where to focus CEC’s research efforts across the next month!

Here’s a look inside my mind right now as I think about where to direct CEC’s resources to supporting communicators’ biggest challenges related to leadership communications. Which question are you struggling with most? Which product idea would you find most valuable? Share your thoughts in the comment section or email me to set up a conversation at kokeefe@executiveboard.com.

1. Engaging Stakeholders

• How do I help leaders to engage with stakeholders? Should we start a CEO blog? How do we make town halls more of a two-way dialogue versus an hour-long strategy presentation? Which communication channel would be best given a leaders’ style, the audience, and the intent of the communication? Leader stakeholder engagement encompasses a wide range of challenges for communicators.

CEC Potential Support: What if CEC created and shared a database of the best tactics communicators are employing for the specific purpose of building leader-to-stakeholder? Here are a few basic principles to follow at your next leader town hall to build engagement with employees.

• How do I build a leader’s external profile? Whether organizing an executive speaking engagement or hosting a conference, communicators are struggling to devise thought leadership strategies that raise both the executive and company’s presence.

CEC Potential Support: What if we clearly mapped out the key elements of an outcomes-focused thought leadership strategy? Would that help you know how to get started and measure impact? In the meantime, consider the difference between inside-out and outside-in thought leadership strategies.

2. Communication Skill Building

• How do I enable leaders at all levels to communicate more effectively? We’ve heard countless stories of leaders who think that they’ve communicated once they’ve hit send on an employee-wide email.

CEC Potential Support: What if we created an easy-to-use one-pager “Communication Channel Guide for Leaders”? This guide would lay out all of the communication channel options available to a leader with criteria to select the best channel given the desired outcome of the communication. It would be similar in layout and content to our CEC Channel Selection Tool.

• How do I help leaders see the need for communication coaching and support? Leaders often overestimate the effectiveness of their communication. Others simply don’t see the need for communication at all.

CEC Potential Support: What if CEC helped you create a compelling business case for the value of communication? What would it take to convince your leader to adopt a communication style that is less “command and control” and more “facilitate and enable”? Many CEC members have already been using our work on Building a Change-Ready Organization to help executives recognize the important of their communication style in creating a more agile workforce.

3. Onboarding New Leaders

• How do I help a new leader refine his communication style? The communication style that worked for a leader on his small team may not be the same needed to take on his new role as the head of a business unit.

CEC Potential Support: What if CEC created an Audience Understanding Diagnostic that would allow you to assess how much the leader understands his key stakeholders (their priorities, their preferred methods of communication, etc.) to help you prioritize the type of support to provide? If you want to help your leader today, we’re a fan of GlaxoSmithKline CPSE’s efforts to build leader self-awareness of leader communication signals that stifle agility.

• How do I help a new leader communicate her priorities? You only get once change to help a leader make a first impression. What tone should the leader set? Which venues should they appear in?

CEC Potential Support: What if you had a Market Context Checklist where you made sure that your new leader was not simply justifying decisions made but sharing the type of competitor or market information influencing the company to spark dialogue and encourage employees to think about how their role is likewise influenced. What information would be helpful? Get started with ConAgra’s simple questions to share market context with employees.

Which of these ideas struck your fancy? What’s missing from my brainstorm to help you out?

Save the Date: We’ll be hosting a webinar in March on Leadership Communications for the Agile Organization. Reserve your spot today!

CEC Related Blogs

• Speech Writing Isn’t Enough to Impress Your CEO
• Redefining Leadership Communication
• What to Ghost Write for Your CEO’s Blog

CEC Related Resources

• Dialogue Training Module for Managers
• See if Your Leaders Display Communication Competencies
• Executive Communications