Leadership Communication as Citizenship Book

List of Tables xiv

Preface xvi

Unit I Understand Your Power As a Direction-Giver

Chapter 1 So, You Want Other People to Work Well Together? 3

Groups Can Create a Community, Calm a Complex Organization, or Move Millions 4

Grouping, Group Direction, and Direction-Giving Are Human Responses to Exigencies 8

Direction-Giving Types Include the Work of a Doer, Follower, Guide, Manager, and Leader 13

Everyone Has the Obligation to Help His or Her Group to Thrive: The Social Contract of Citizenship 20

In Conclusion 22

Chapter 2 Distinguish Between Three Direction-Giving Options: Doing, Following, and Guiding Well 25

Specific Exigencies, Credentials, and Competencies Frame Each Type of Direction-Giver 26

Giving Direction as a Doer Requires Competence 29

A Group's Need Creates an Exigency for a Doer 31

Credentialing as a Doer Requires You to Accomplish Something Competently 32

Communicating Competently Blends Your Act as a Doer Into the Group's Need 33

Giving Direction as a Follower Requires Affiliative Receptivity 34

A Direction-Giver's Initiative Creates an Exigency for a Follower 37

Credentialing as a Follower Requires Showing You Offer an Able and Desirable Affiliation 37

Communicating Competently Blends Your Followership With a Direction-Giver's Efforts 39

Giving Direction as a Guide Requires Credibility 41

Every Group Needs Direction at Many Points in Time, Creating the Guideship Exigency 42

Credentialing as a Guide Requires You to Create an Impression of Credibility 43

Communicating Competently, Your Guideship Ought to Take Care With a Group's Attentions 44

In Conclusion 45

Chapter 3 Understand That Other Direction-Giving Options May BeNeeded: Managing or Leading Well 47

There Are Many Names for Leadership: Definitions Too 48

Giving Direction as a Manager Requires the Ability to Marshal Resources 51

The Odious, the Complex, and the Everlasting Provide Exigencies for a Manager 53

Credentialing as a Manager Is Based in the Stories You and Others Tell of Your Experience 56

Doing and Interpreting Your Management Work for the Group Requires a Variety of Skills 57

Giving Direction as a Leader Requires Articulating a Group-Transformative Vision 61

A System-Threatening Crisis or Opportunity Provides the Exigency for Leadership 64

Credentialing to Be Seen by Others as a Leader Requires You to Articulate a Salient Vision 66

Your Effective Leadership Is Not Necessarily Tied to specific Communication skills 67

Beware Easy Misconceptions About These Five Types of Direction-Givers 68

In Conclusion 69

Unit II Develop Your Own Strategies For Giving Direction Well

Chapter 4 Use Leadership Theory and Research to Prepare Yourself to Give Direction 73

The Traits Perspective Focuses on Who You Are to Explain Your Effectiveness 74

Developing Emotional Intelligence and Resilience May Matter More Than Your IQ 76

Self-Monitoring and Rhetorical Sensitivity Orient You to the Resources Available Around You 78

Situational, Styles, and Contingency Perspectives Focus on Behavioral Choices You Make 80

Great Leaders During Times of Crisis and Hemphill's Work Show That Situation Matters 80

The Styles Perspective Says Pick the Right Way to Treat Those With Whom You Group 83

The Contingency Perspective Says You Need to Adjust to Recurring "What Ifs" of Grouping 86

The Functional Perspective Focuses on What You Can Do for Your Group 89

Benne and Sheats Say Every Group Must Serve Task, Relational, and Individual Functions 90

Blake and Mouton's Managerial Grid Says You Need to Balance Those Functions 91

Your Grouping Choices Also Need to Earn You at Least One Process Prize From Grouping 91

Explicit and Implicit Theories of Effective Grouping and Direction-Giving Are in Play 92

In Conclusion 93

Chapter 5 Develop a Framework and Position Yourself for Giving Direction 95

A Direction-Giving Framework Should Have a Philosophy, Exemplar Model, and Guidelines 96

Taylor's Scientific Management Is One Framework for Giving Direction Well 97

Mayo's Hawthorne Effect Shows the Need for a Different Framework 99

Develop Your Own Effectiveness Framework for Each Type of Direction-Giving You Provide 101

Your Philosophy Should Put Your Values Into Your Framework and Then Into Action 102

Your Exemplars Provide Aspirational Stories and a Sense of What "the Best" Can Be 104

Your Guidelines Animate Your Philosophy and Exemplars in Your Own Direction-Giving 105

Position Yourself as a Key Direction-Giver in the Story of Your Group 106

A Process of Residues Helps Us Decide on Whom We Will Focus Our Attention 107

Take Stock of the Credentials You Have and What Can You Do to Help Your Group Thrive 109

Recurring Types of Situations Can Help Put Context to Your Direction-Giving Preparations 109

Some Advice That May Be Useful as You Position Yourself 111

In Conclusion 116

Unit III Develop Your Communication Skills To Enhance Your Direction-Giving

Chapter 6 Figure Out How to Communicate Effectively 119

Communication Is a Tool Used to Transfer Information and a Process for Making Meaning 120

Accurate Transfer of Information Requires Fidelity 120

Making Meaning Involves Finding the Utility Involved 122

People Communicate for Purposes of Inquiry, to Influence Others, and to Build Relationships 126

Inquiry Is the Imperative to Make Sense of What Is Happening to You 129

Influence Is the Imperative to Get Others to See Things Your Way or to Do What You Want 130

Relationship Is the Impermative to Have Social Contact and to Get Along With Others 130

Attaining a Symbolic Convergence of Terms, Meanings, and Stories Requires Effort and Skill 132

Create Messages That Gain Attention, Enhance Understanding, and Encourage Identification 133

Receive Messages Reflectively, Oriented Toward Understanding Ideas and Finding Utility 136

In Conclusion 138

Chapter 7 Shape Effective Experiences and Expectations for Citizenship in Your Group 139

Help Shape Stories of Effective Group Experiences for Your Group 140

A Human Experience Is a Constructed Understanding of What Is Meaningful 140

Stories of Past, Present, and Future Experiences Are How You Give Direction to Your Group 148

Constitutive Rhetoric Is How You Co-Construct a Sense of Your Group and of "The Others&ldquo 152

Help Shape Stories of Experience That Create an Expectation of Citizenship in Your Group 154

Citizenship Experience Stories Stimulate Participation, Criticism, and Reasoned Conformity 154

How Groups Perpetuate Themselves Shapes the Experience of Citizen-Members 156

Play Your Part as a Citizen of Your Group 157

In Conclusion 159

Unit IV Use Stories To Unite Your Group's Efforts

Chapter 8 Help Shape the Story of Your Organization, Team, or Community 163

You Can Use Stories to Unite Your Group and to Give It Direction 164

Find Coherence in Co-Constructed Stories of Your Group's Experience 165

Narrative Provides a Potent Tool for Shaping Effective Group Experiences 168

Seek and Shape Stories That Show or Start Something Special in Your Group 169

Making Accounts, Sensemaking, and Defining Stories Are Foundations of Narrative 171

Characterization, Ideographs, and Rhetorical Depiction Are Potent Forms of Narrative 172

The Master Narrative Is the Overarching Story of Your Group's Experience 174

Create Coherence in Memorable Messages, Critical Incidents, Teaching Tales, and Nuggets 176

Figure Out What Others Will Hear in the Experience Stories You Tell and Help Shape 179

In Conclusion 181

Chapter 9 Develop the Framing Skills Needed by Every Direction-Giver 183

Framing Is Basic to All Communication: Your Frames Shape Your Direction-Giving Accounts 185

Frames, Like Definitions, Are How We Attach Meaning to Things 187

Frames Show Motives, Shape Experiences, and Provide Authoritative Weight in the Group 188

Develop the Framing Skills You Need to Use to Be Effective as a Direction-Giver 190

Naming, Faming, and Blaming Are Basic Aspects of the Process for Making Meanings 190

Claiming and Taming Are Elaborated Constructions of What Is Meaningful 198

Frame Your Group's Purgatory Puddle, Way/Process, Vision/Outcome, and Savior Complex 202

In Conclusion 203

Chapter 10 Leadership Vision Can Be a Crisis-Based Direction-Giving Story 205

Do You Need Vision as a Planning Tool or Do You Need a Vision That Transforms Your Group? 206

Vision/Outcome Represents All Your Group Products and Purposes 208

Conceptions of Vision Range From Low- to High-Intensity Forms of Direction-Giving Action 209

What Is the Relationship Between a Vision and a Direction-Giver? 214

Are You Prepared to Give Direction During a Crisis? 217

Crisis Is Different Than the Typical Pitfalls and Problems You Face in Every Group 217

Rhetorical Resources (and Your Responses Should) Vary Across the Circumstances of Crisis 220

You Can Prepare for Crises That Resemble Fires Needing to Be Put Out 222

You Should Understand Direction-Giving Communications During Transformative Crisis 222

Do Not Misuse Crisis: From Mistakes to Faux Crisis, False Pretenses, and Manipulations 224

In Conclusion 226

References 227

Index 239

About the Authors 247