L04: Creating Written Leadership Communication

L04: Creating Written Leadership Communication

Not only having a clear purpose of communication, understanding the audiences, and having a good strategy would be enough to develop the successful communication; the leader needs to consider an effective medium to communicate with audiences. Different medium is appropriate for different situation. The context and the message we intend to send to audiences will guide us which medium is the best suited to use. For instance, if an organization aims to reach and spread words to mass audiences, the easy and fastest way to do so is to create a blog, which is easily shared, and create connection between the organization and audiences. However, the drawback of creating blog cannot ensure that the message reached the intended audiences. As a result, importantly, before choosing the right medium to communicate with audiences, the company has to clarify own purpose of communication, analyze who is the audience to make a connection with, and develop an effective communication strategy to reach them.

These days, communication through social media becomes so powerful. Social media are changing the face of communication across all industries. Social media can be an effective tool for an organization to build a customer-centric organization that not only communicates authentically but also listens to customers and learns from that interaction. It is important for a company to consider carefully how to approach social media and how to present the company in these very public, constantly changing spaces.

Either developing communication in the traditional way or through social network, the content needs to be organized coherently. We need to anticipate our audience’s response and stay focused on our purpose of communication. Besides, we should aim for the same directness and conciseness throughout the discussion. The statement needs to be easy to read, easy for reader to find what they need to know.

Lastly, formatting is important in creating a professional appearance for all of written communication. Nice formatting attracts readers to the documents and enhances the effective communication. Therefore, we need to ensure that written communication of all types are developed in an effective way and supports leadership communication.

Question

1.What are the most common mistakes of Business E-mail correspondence?

The most common mistakes of Business E-mail correspondence are:

a.    Unclear subject line.

b.    Poor greeting (or none at all).

c.    Unfamiliar abbreviations.

d.    Unnecessary copies (CCs).

e.    Sloppy grammar, spelling and punctuation.

f.     All caps in the message.

g.    No closing or sign-off.

h.    Rambling, not formatted message.

I.      Unfriendly tone.

j.      No clear for action.

2.What is the importance of having a writing skill in Leadership Communication?

a.    In a Leadership Communication, both oral and written communications are fundamental skills, which combined called cognitive skills. Purpose of these skills is to clarify the subject to the audiences.

b.    Moreover, written communication is more critical than oral communication, hence it should be more precise and concise. Professional written communication should have one of two broad types: (1) correspondence (text message, emails, blog posts, memos and letters) and (2) reports (proposals, progress reviews, performance reports, and research documentations). Through their correspondence and reports, leaders assert their influence in a wide range of organizational settings. Leaders write correspondence several times daily. They also write different kinds of reports, from complicated studies and white papers with recommendations and pages of analysis to shorter progress reviews.