Communication plays a vital role in the major aspects of life both personal and professional. The ability to communication effectively is the policy that all workers must take to ensure a productive and positive work experience. In the event of a communication failure as in the case that this paper is studying, the major players have let the communication process breakdown causing a stoppage of the productive work force and left the company venerable.
In this one case scenario for Friday 13th it is hard to assess the total work performance of Herb. Everyone has a bad day and not one can be fired for that particular day. There are some other factors in the workflow that seem to indicate that Herb is not a good manager. Having the accurate and correct information is paramount for a manager and Herb was lacking in that area. Again possibly a one time occurrence but not likely, as this seems to be the method that Herb communicates. Even when you have the right information if t is not communicated correctly it leads to difficulties, misunderstandings, confusion and wrong processes as in tis case.
The senior management in this case may have made a few mistakes in passing the information to Herb causing the communication to be incorrect or delayed. The communication may be inaccurate or misleading depending on how Herb understood hat was being asked of him to do. The conclusion can be reached of the senior manager that good feedback on herb’s understanding of his tasks was not obtained. The results indicate that Herb did not understand or misunderstood what the senior manager told him and improvement in the communication of the senior manager and Herb definitely need to be put into practice.
A project manager is the heart and soul of a team and therefore of a project. Managers are expected to have good communication skills, as much of their job is communication. Great project leaders are trustworthy, objective and focused . Project managers must have the trust and confidence of their team if they are to lead the group. People respond better to a leader that they know that they can count on to have their back in all counts.
Transparency goes hand in hand with trust. Leaders should be transparent and not persecuted as hiding any thing to their team members. A leader cannot give his team the impression that there are hidden agendas in the communication to them or force them to read between the lines. In addition, leaders need to focus and have a stable relationship with the team and keep the main project element in view of all who are in concerned with doing the tasks. Some times the project is just too complex for the team and as in the case of Herb he was not the person for the role that he was in. The manager has to be able to put the right person in the right position for the team to act in a unified cohesive group.
Often a manager will have to address shareholders or upper management. It is important that the manager have confidence in his or her team. The shareholders will pick up on a manager who is insecure and begin to wonder if that person is adequately reporting to them. Confidence is not arrogance. Arrogance is a quality that makes people uncomfortable and is boisterous rather than allowing the management to feel that they have the right person handling the job.
Of course not every manager comes to the company with all of these traits or talents on a resume. And since being a leader is not an innate characteristic for many it may be a quality that needs to be learned by many. There is no perfect combination of traits that makes one person a good leader and the other one not so good. Personal characteristics of ethical behavior, trustworthiness, and a basic concern for others are moral characteristic that help to make a good leader and are generally not something that can be taught. The person either has then or not. Teaching leadership can be done in college course to some extent. Many leadership training centers and developmental courses are offered in corporate training programs. In an organizational situation a good leader is the best teacher. By having people in senior management to offer mentoring to those coming up the ranks is a highly visible and encouraging training program.
If a manager is good at their job but lacks strong communication skills there are not many formal training system available to instill the skills necessary for effective leadership. Mentoring and higher education classes may help to improve some communication skills. The use of the personal development resources through the human resources department may add to the leadership skills of some of the mangers that are lacking in effective communication. Many times it is just not the personality of an otherwise skilled individual to take the leadership role. That is a decision that the employee and upper management need to take to reassign the correct people in leadership roles.
For the communication problem with the team, Alice, Bob Betty, and Frank there was a breakdown in the whole communication system including encoding, decoding, feedback and noise. Effective communication in organizations is a constant struggle and often leads to conflicts and those conflicts influence the overall performance of the tea,. A healthy environment was not provided for the team to work together and for that the senior management did not correctly encode the messages that they were giving to the team. It is a crucial and essential that no barriers exist between the workforce and the management. Team members have to freely decode the messages that are being communicated for the proper responses. A lack of feedback from management to the team often results in the prior end product, as this team was responsible for.
The person who takes over Herb’s job will need to be an effective communicator. The four processes of communication will need to be a part of the everyday workflow to engage the team to follow the instructions of the new leader. The new leader, in order to be effective, should have great interpersonal skills and not be affected by the Friday 13th scenario. A leader must be able to present the ideas, transfer them and give clear and concise directions. The team has to trust the information that they are given as an accurate direction that they need to working. When the situation arises for technical information to be transmitted research shows that using a classification scheme to create a link between the data and the individuals helps to carry the appropriate message.
In conclusion, my place of employment is full of very ethical leaders. They have the respect and cooperation of the team and most members will do any thing that the leaders ask of them. This occurs because the leaders give accurate and easily understood directions. The message is received in a fashion as to provide a complete understanding of the project. As questions come up the leaders are very willing to accept and help the individual asking the questions. In this manner of cooperation the team functions as a productive team. Each member of team does their best to accommodate and help the leader portray a positive image of our group.
References
Bibliography
Alexander, M. (n.d.). Eleven communication techniques for managers. CIO .
David Wilkinson. (2002). Journal of Information Science .
