Com 425 Effective Leadership Assignment

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Effective Leadership Com 425 Derek Day 06/26/2011 One word that can define leadership is: Influence. If a leader wants to be influential, a leader must know the importance of communication. Communication will determine how the public, employees and stockholders respond to a leader’s instructions. I coach football and soccer at one of our local High Schools. I know the importance of communicating effectively. If I fail in communicating a specific assignment for a particular play, the end result will be failure. Communication is simply transmitting information, opinions and ideas. I don’t think that human relationship would be possible without communication. Our text said, “In this complex and information-rich conceptual society,…show more content…
Communication has the potential to direct and greatly impact the directions of any situation within organizations. Communication is one of the basic functions of any leadership team. In the book Terms of Engagement we can clearly see that, “Communication is the lifeblood of a living system” (Axelrod, 2002). What about the value of communication? L. Sierra said this statement, “The sad fact is that many business leaders don’t understand the value of communication” (L. Sierra, 2003). Personally, I find this fact to be shocking but I can also say that in my personal experience of dealing with people it is true. Sierra gave an equation to show non-communicators the value of communication. Sierra equation is: “Value = (Cost + Effort) Perception; That is, the value of communication is equal to the costs plus the efforts of what you're communicating to the power of perception.” (L. Sierra, 2003). Can we really measure the value communication? The answer is pretty clear; in plain sight, you can’t really see the value of communication in any aspect of life. Well, can you see the value of the wind? Of…show more content…
Although at times these labels may be accurate, many of us determine early in an interaction or presentation that we don’t understand the subject, don’t like the person, or find lit-tle of interest or importance in the message. We then tune out the speaker and spend our time thinking about other matters. By not listening to the message, we have no way to assess accurately the value of what we might have heard. Barrier Two: Emotionally Resisting Messages. Often we react quickly to emotionally charged words or subjects. Internally we think of ways to respond to the speaker and argue our position. In this process we often quit listening to what is being said. We make judgments and respond to those judgments as if the speaker’s position were accurately known to us. Criticisms from supervisors and peers often are met with emotional listening resistance. We hear only the negatives and do not attend to offers of help or ways to improve our performance. We are over stimulated and do not accurately receive messages that could help us grow and develop. Barrier Three: Criticizing Personal Style Rather Than Messages. We often find ourselves criticizing the way a message is presented and ignoring its content or value. We don’t like the message being “read” to us, we find the speaker lacking in experience, or we don’t care for the negative tone of the boss. Our listening focuses on delivery and approach.
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