What Data From 6,000+ Leaders Reveals About Leadership Communication Styles 3-minute read Written by Justin Deonarine, I/O Psychologist During last week’s webinar, we examined the change styles that 6,371 leaders preferred, based on their Work Personality Index data. In this blog post, we’ll explore the same dataset to discover communication style trends within leadership, and the implications of these preferences. Communication Styles Before looking at the data, let’s consider the following 4 communication styles: Extraverted Visionaries: Outgoing communicators who focus on broad goals, future opportunities, and what could be. Extraverted Realists: Energetic communicators who focus on current challenges and needs, implementation and execution, and what is. Reflective Visionaries: Thoughtful communicators who thoroughly consider issues and focus on visions for the future, ideas and possibilities, and what could be. Reflective Realists: Thorough and detailed communicators who value precision, and focus on practical issues, important details, and clarity. How Leaders Communicate 60% of leaders rely on an Extraverted Realist approach to communication. As a result, the majority of leaders communicate quickly and focus on the here and now. This is consistent with our findings from the Psychometrics 360 data for leaders, where we find that leaders are focusing too much on the day-to-day operations, rather than the bigger picture and long-term strategies. Their communication style aligns with this approach. The Reflective Visionary style is utilized the least. Significantly fewer leaders take the opportunity to reflect on the challenge at hand and consider the long-range implications before communicating with those around them. Without clear and thoughtful communication about the organizational strategy, teams can find themselves operating without a unified direction and with little understanding of the long-term vision. This makes it impossible for individuals to link their current activities to the strategic plans of the organization, which is an inefficient and demoralizing experience. A Different Way To Approach Communication Now that we’re aware of what might be missing, how can leaders best communicate critical information to everyone? Try this communication cycle: Start with the vision. Establish the end goal or result. Focus on what could be. This provides a clear context or framework for everyone to work with. Provide the details to complete the picture. What are the current challenges? How were solutions implemented? Focus on what is. Return to the big picture. Connect the details back to the goal or result. Describe how “what is” became (or could become) the “what could be”. By utilizing this cycle, leaders will speak to both the vision and the reality, then connect everything together for those who may struggle to do so. This will help keep everyone aligned and motivated. Additionally, by planning this structure ahead of time, a leader will have the opportunity to reflect on and refine the message. In our next blog post, we will explore how leaders manage conflict. Justin M. Deonarine is an Industrial/Organizational Psychologist with Psychometrics Canada. He specializes in the application of data-driven decision-making to areas such as selection, leadership and corporate culture. He has worked with organizations around the world, from local non-profits to multinational corporations. Justin enjoys sharing his experience and knowledge with others, having published articles about leadership, corporate culture, diversity, emotional intelligence, innovation and entrepreneurship for a variety of business and HR resources.
