Many factors can inhibit the establishment of conditions that tend to characterize superior-functioning organizations .Leaders’ own below-the-line beliefs, values, and assumptions, however, can be particularly problematic.
Consider, for example, the following:
- Unexamined assumptions that one is already communicating sufficiently with employees
- A failure to establish formal mechanisms to assess the quality of organizational communication systems
- Need-to-know approaches to communication and decision-making
- A belief that communicating thoroughly with employees is prohibitively labor intensive and time consuming
- An attitude that equates information with power, and a related fear of losing power by sharing information
- The belief that employees are capable of understanding only rudimentary levels of information
All of these pose significant impediments to the construction of productive patterns of organizational communication . What leaders believe about themselves and others, then, can be as important to building an effective workplace as what they say.
Leaders whose beliefs are aligned with the principles of the human knowledge base will find appropriate and effective channels of communication as a matter of course. They and their employees will develop the patterns of communication suited to their own particular circumstances, and misunderstandings will be corrected by the two-way dialogue of conversation.
If leaders’ beliefs are not aligned with those principles, however, no amount of reorganization or structural tinkering will suffice. If they fail (or refuse) to embrace the human-to-human nature of communication, a culture in which employees thrive and excel will remain beyond reach.
The attitudes above, then, constitute an important area for leadership reflection and consideration.