Damian McAlonan on communications and leadership
Communicating to effect change
Damian McAlonan, CEO of The Boost Partnership in London, UK, talks to host Sheelagh Caygill about the importance of leaders being outstanding communicators. He discusses how poor communication can impact all aspects of an organization, including employee engagement, customer relations, performance, and profitability.
You can read more from Damian and also James Murphy In our series on employee engagement and workplace culture:
- Employee engagement: You get what you deserve
- Management role in employee engagement
- Actionable steps to implementing an employee engagement plan
- What is the role of corp comms in employee engagement
- A winning culture will improve employee engagement
Communications and leadership
Damian discusses poor communication skills in leadership or senior managers.
" The root causes of poor leadership communication is lack of awareness. People aren’t aware really what leadership is about, and therefore they don’t see why or how communication is actually a priority.
What exactly is leadership?
In addition, Damian explores people’s visions of what a leader is about, because we become leaders often when we’ve been managers previously, but no one explains the fundamental difference between management and leadership.
" It’s not really taught at school, it’s not taught at college and university and in the workplace. So there’s a real low level of awareness that’s basically exacerbated by the fact that we believe that our past strengths will help us in the future.
Explains Damian: “What I mean by that is that leaders are kind of lulled into a false sense of what got them there, which is often being a really good manager, and those are the same skill sets and traits that will make them a successful leader, but it isn’t. “
As a result, key strategies include:
- Stopping using yesterday’s tactics
- Getting employees on-board to support the organization
- Knowing and communicating about where an organization is going
- Ownership of communication and mistakes
- Finding one’s voice and being authentic
- Always being open to feedback.
Listen to these important messages and more in this episode with Damian.
Find Damian McAlonan online
The Boost Partnership, LinkedIn, Twitter
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