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Continuing Education Forum for Health Communication Professionals
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Reference Library
Lectures and Papers | Research Reports | Reports from the Field | Training Materials
Leadership
= Vision + Communication
Leadership requires vision. Leaders are like captains, guiding their
ships to port, showing their crew how to navigate through hazards
to their destinations. Leadership also requires communication. Leaders
must be good communicators. Using the communication steering wheel
metaphor, effective leaders need to communicate well in six different
directions:
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1) Up
- with superiors
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1) Communicate Up, with Supervisors
Example:
Your superior wants to establish a project to give rural women
access to prenatal care, but competition for funding is fierce. After
persuading your superior that you can produce rapid, measurable, and
popular results, you assume responsibility for building support for
the project. You begin bymobilizing key allies. our journalist friends
assist by publicizing case studies of pregnant women whose lives could
have been saved by routine interventions. Lawmakers are moved by the
publicity and vote to partially fund your project. Obstacles remain,
however namely that you don’t have funding for vehicles to transport
health professionals and supplies to rural areas. You present the
problem clearly to your superior, suggesting it might be possible
to partner with another agency that has vehicles and clinics but has
limited staff and supplies. Your superior agrees that you should actively
seek partners. Your communication with your superior has been essential
to starting up the project.
What are the Elements of Strategic Communication Up?
- Help Achieve Superior’s Goals: First ensure that you understand your superior’s goals and your role in achieving those goals. Check that your priority list for achieving results matches your superior’s. Then assume responsibility for results.
- Mobilize Key Allies: Seek credible allies within and outside your organization. Clarify the benefits of supporting your position to potential allies and link the benefits to their interests. Cultivate media allies who can air your issue when you need publicity.
- Make Clear Cogent Points: Don’t focus on complex and confusing details. Apply the three points per meeting rule and make sure they are relevant and clear. Address unpleasant issues by offering solutions, not just problems.
Minimize requests for resources: Look for creative solutions to limited resources. Leadership comes from working within your Circle of Influence, not from assigning blame for lack of resources. Focus on the things you can improve. Consider exchanging resources with other divisions or agencies.
2) Communication Across, with Peers
Example:
The directors of three African institutions colleagues in the Ministry
of Health were in continual conflict over authority in their district
health system. The director of the Health Research Center had international
resources, the Hospital Director had much experience with patients,
and the MOH District Director had the exuberance of youth and the
authority of the government. When the young District Director held
monthly health management meetings, however, the other directors would
not attend. Meanwhile, health problems in the community worsened.
Finally, the District Director visited the other organizations, really
listened to their complaints, and asked what they wanted to do to
strengthen the programs. After it became clear that the older directors
wanted to share authority with the younger man, they all agreed to
rotate the chair at the monthly meetings. Soon, the meetings became
a viable forum for the colleagues to address problems. When they disagreed,
they sought outside experts to give them perspective. The three directors
began cooperating on real health issues, rather than issues of authority
and ego.
What are the
elements of Strategic Communication Across?
- Share and Learn: Peers can be great resources and teachers. Your peers can be sounding boards to test new ideas, or they can alert you to pitfalls in areas where they have more experience than you. Try to make your peers allies, not competitors.
- Reinforce: Peers can reinforce your convictions and strengths. Healthy competition among peers encourages excellence; bare-your-knuckles competition creates hostility and limits productivity.
- Enjoy: Exchanging experiences, knowledge, and ideas with peers can be one of life’s greatest pleasures. Peers can be a deep source of satisfaction, support, and enjoyment.
3) Communication Down, with Subordinates
Example:
The concept of a leader who serves helps as well as leads his subordinates
is a challenging one. It can be difficult to implement, however, because
it requires a huge paradigm shift from the more common give orders,
expect results mentality. A CEO in an international pharmaceutical
firm was a leader who served/helped his colleagues. Managers new to
the firm soon realized they were operating in a truly empowering environment.
Instead of telling them what to do, the officer asked what he could
do to help them. One manager learned to plumb the CEO for his wisdom
and experience. When I asked him how I had handled a particular situation,
he never told me what I should have done. He always began, ‘Well,
you might consider....’ Productivity in the manager’s operation
increased rapidly. I knew the goals I had to reach, and I felt full
responsibility for them.
What are the elements of Strategic Communication Down?
Reassure: Develop trust. Let your subordinates know that you are a resource to help them. Endeavor not to interfere, control, or micro-manage.
- Clarify: Be sure your subordinates comprehend their division’s goals and how their role fits into the overall organizational vision.
- Delegate specifically: Ensure that subordinates, especially professional subordinates, know what they are responsible for achieving, but allow them to figure out how to achieve their goals. Hold them accountable for results, not methods.
- Enable and empower: Give subordinates whatever support they need to get the job done. Supportive leadership allows the subordinate’s conscience to be the driving force to achievement. Don’t be quick to solve problems that subordinates should solve for themselves.
- Inspire: Encourage subordinates to use their creativity to find newer, better ways to do things. It has been said that vision is the breakfast of champions, feedback is the lunch of champions, and self-correction is the dinner of champions. Why not inspire subordinates by feasting at the table of champions?
Be a mentor: Be the coach who develops the capacities of individuals or teams. True mentors help strengthen judgment, character, and intelligence in mentees. Becoming an effective mentor may require a break with traditional ways of seeing and doing, but the results are worth it.
4) Communication Against, with Adversaries
Example:
When emergency contraceptive methods, which prevent fertilization
and implantation after unprotected sex, were introduced (products
such as PREVEN and Plan B), opponents denounced them as abortifacients.
These products, however, do not prevent implantation or even fertilization
in many cases. A real conflict was under way. How to respond? Sponsoring
organizations called in experts from WHO, the US Food and Drug Administration,
and other medical institutions to confirm that the methods are preventives,
not abortifacients. The result: the hostile publicity helped call
attention to the availability of these methods while authoritative,
scientific responses reassured many. Using a scientific approach made
it possible to identify the real adversaries of all forms of family
planning from those who only were against abortion. Thus it was possible
substantially to reduce divide and conquer the opposition.
What are the elements of Strategic Communication Against?
- Listen: The first step in any negotiation is to listen so you understand your adversary’s points. Before we speak, we listen. Real listening shows respect and opens the way for consensus. The only way to understand an adversary’s perspective is to stand where he/she stands and see what he/she sees. When this happens, adversaries may find themselves on the same side of the table looking at solutions together.
- Marshall the facts: With facts, not just opinions, at your command, you are in a stronger position to reach your goals.
- Marshall experts and allies, but keep it simple: If your adversary publicizes incorrect information about your organization or the issues you represent, find the most credible expert available. If possible, spotlight the expert and stay in the background so the expert can present your case.
- Stimulate positive emotions: Emotion is a powerful tool to gain support for your position. Women’s groups at the UN, for example, used emotional appeals about mothers’ and children’s health to stimulate country delegations to defend the Cairo position more strongly than they might have otherwise.
- Look for
points of agreement: In many situations, cooperation can be
far more productive than competition. Try to find language that
is acceptable to all parties. Seek alternative proposals that speak
to the needs of all the stakeholders.
- Know when to be silent: If your organization or position is attacked by a group that has little influence, silence may be the best strategy. Don’t call more attention to weak adversaries.
- Compromise or not?: Whether and what to compromise may be the most important decision you make in communicating with adversaries. There may be many details you can compromise on as long as you maintain your basic principles.
Remember: Conflict attracts attention. You can sometimes benefit from adversaries if they attract more attention to the issue and you have good data and arguments to support your position.
5) Communication Outward, with the Public
Examples:A
Gold Star in Egypt assures clients they will get quality service.
A Green Umbrella in Bangladesh tells people where to get total
health care. A Blue Circle in Indonesia beckons the middle
class to trained, private, fee-for-service providers.A Lilac Tent
in Bolivia involves whole communities in health care education.
What
do such programs in different parts of the world have in common?
They are all examples of effective Strategic Communication Outward,
and they all:
- Offer a clear benefit: Take services, stay well is the clear benefit of Bangladesh’s integrated services program.
- Use simple memorable language and colorful symbols that elicit positive responses: "Decidir te hace diferente." Deciding to be responsible makes you special.
- Identify convenient locations: Make the location accessible to clients. Blue Circle providers were clearly identified so that potential clients knew just where to go.
- Address people as individuals: Base programs on audience research. The Gold Star in Egypt gave people what they had asked for; services they could trust.
- Repeat again and again: Once is never enough. Reinforce messages through multiple media radio, TV, newspapers, brochures, posters, meetings, counseling and repeat often.
6) Communication Inward, with Self
Example:
A newly hired dean in a large university discovered that the college
he headed had very little money. Although the dean preferred to stay
on campus and deal with academic issues, he acknowledged that his
unique gift for fundraising would be more helpful at this time. With
the University president’s permission, the dean embarked on a
fundraising tour throughout country and delegated academic concerns
to an associate dean. The faculty was not used to an absent dean,
and they complained at first that they had no one to make important
decisions on their problems. Before long, the dean’s mission
yielded lucrative results, and the college was on firmer financial
footing. The faculty by now was so impressed with the dean’s
accomplishments and sacrifice that they encouraged him to continue
his important mission while they would cooperate with one another
and the associate dean.
Strategic communication inward is the most important direction because it deals with the driving forces that make effective leaders: the principles we live by and the capacity we possess to stand apart from ourselves and examine what is most important.
Four
H’s summarize the elements of Strategic Communication Inward:
- Be honest: about yourself, what you stand for, and what you really can do to meet the most important needs of your organization. Follow your internal guiding system your conscience which connects you with basic ethical principles and gives you a sense of your unique gifts and mission.
- Be humble: Nothing is accomplished alone. Everything we do is interdependent and deals with all six directions of communication. The accomplishments we take credit for, as well as the discoveries we credit to great men, all rest on the work of others who cleared the path for our work to succeed.
- Be hopeful: Was there ever an effective leader who told his subordinates, This is not going to work, guys, but we have to do it anyway? Hope creates the imagination to envision a better future. Hope enables us to see ourselves better off than we are at present. Hope empowers us to keep our mission burning bright even under the most challenging circumstances.
- Be holistic: Lead a balanced life. Balance past accomplishments by increasing your capacity to accomplish more in the future. Continue to learn, acquire new skills, and apply the principles that create quality results. Look at the big picture. Live by your vision.
And the final
elements of good communication in all directions are:
- Learn to
listen and listen to learn.
- To change others we may have to change ourselves first.
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