As an organizational leader, you’re responsible for setting your firm’s direction. Aligning its vision, mission, strategy, and identity is critical for contextualizing and planning a purposeful trajectory.
Yet communicating organizational direction is just as important as planning it. According to research by employee communication firm Haiilo, three-quarters of employees rank effective communication as the most important leadership attribute. Less than one-third, however, believe their organizations’ leaders communicate effectively.
In the online course Organizational Leadership, Harvard Business School Professors Anthony Mayo and Joshua Margolis break down leaders’ responsibilities, including setting direction and effectively communicating it to teams.
“Formulating your organization’s direction in writing is a crucial first step for you to figure out where the organization is headed,” Mayo says in the course. “Communicating it to others is how you bring that direction to life.”
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DOWNLOAD NOWWhat Is Organizational Communication?
Broadly, the term organizational communication describes how a firm’s information is shared internally and externally.
Examples of internal organizational communication include:
- Newsletters
- All-staff or team-specific meetings
- Messaging platforms
- One-on-one meetings
- Casual in-office interactions, such as a watercooler chat
Examples of external organizational communication include:
- Press releases
- Social media posts
- Check-in calls with clients
- Meetings with stakeholders
Communicating Organizational Direction Internally
When carried out internally, organizational communication is the process of relaying your firm’s direction to your team.
Whether you’re the CEO or a new manager, you must be adept at communicating direction to ensure your team members are aligned and motivated.
When communicating direction, you should be:
- Clear: Will people understand the direction?
- Compelling: Will people be motivated by and care about the direction?
- Concise: Is the direction succinct enough to be easily internalized?
One challenge of leading at scale is that you likely won’t be able to speak to each employee directly—which is why effective communication is critical.
“Leading at scale and scope requires you to treat communication as a tool to reach out to people, captivate heads, and move hearts, so those you’re leading understand your actions and goals,” Margolis says in Organizational Leadership. “And, perhaps more importantly, so they understand where they fit and why their work matters.”
Here are the five dimensions of communicating organizational direction outlined in Organizational Leadership to help you become a more effective leader.
Related: 8 Essential Leadership Communication Skills
The 5 Dimensions of Communicating Direction
1. Know Your Audience
To communicate effectively, you must first define your audience. For example, how you speak to other managers may differ from how you speak to your entire organization and stakeholders.
Consider your audience’s perspective, how much they already know about your organization’s direction, what factors matter most to them, and any questions or concerns they may have.
2. Cater the Content
Once you’ve determined your audience and understand what’s important to them, cater your communication’s content to fit that.
For example, imagine you’re trying to communicate that your company is entering a new market. When letting stakeholders know about this direction, you may prioritize the financial reasoning behind the decision and the goals you expect your firm to reach.
When communicating the same information to your employees, however, you may emphasize how the change will impact their daily work and how each person’s tasks will help the organization reach new goals.
Catering your communication to each audience shows you care about them and understand what they value and need to succeed.
Related: How to Communicate Organizational Change: 4 Steps
3. Align on Purpose
The next dimension seems intuitive but can be overlooked: Ensure you know the communication’s purpose for each audience. To do so, ask yourself: What do I hope to achieve by communicating this content to this group of people?
“Are you seeking to inform, solicit input, gain approval, galvanize action, or some combination of these?” Margolis asks in Organizational Leadership.
Remember that the purpose may differ between audiences; for instance, gaining input and approval from shareholders versus informing and motivating employees.
4. Design the Process
The fourth dimension of communication is logistical in nature. Once you know your message’s purpose, audience, and content, you need to design the communication process.
Consider:
- Timing: When will you deliver this communication?
- Frequency: Is this communication a one-time or recurring event? If it’s recurring, how often will you provide updates?
- Channel: What channel will you use to communicate? For instance, addressing the company at an in-person all-staff meeting may be received differently than sending a company-wide email. If you’re aiming for a more casual approach, a note in your company’s messaging platform may do the trick.
- Pattern: Who should deliver the information? Is it more appropriate for every employee to receive the communication at an all-staff meeting or from their direct manager?
There isn’t one correct way to design the communication process; it depends on your organization’s dynamics, your role, and the information you want to communicate to each audience.
5. Curate Tone and Style
Finally, you need to deliver the message with deliberate tone and style choices. This step works in tandem with your message’s content. If you don’t deliver the message with the proper tone and style, the content won’t have its intended impact.
In Organizational Leadership, Mayo and Margolis describe the six attributes of tone and style, known as the “six C’s”:
- Compassion: Do you show your audience you care about their perspectives?
- Clarity: Do you communicate clearly to someone unfamiliar with the message?
- Conciseness: Is the message short enough to be internalized?
- Connection: Do you make an emotional connection with your audience?
- Conviction: Do you demonstrate your commitment to the good of the organization?
- Courage: Do you demonstrate confidence in your ability to lead through uncertainty?
“To be heard, you must consider how your audience experiences you,” Margolis says in the course. “You may have heard the phrase ‘it’s not what you say but how you say it’ to describe the resonance of communication.”
These considerations are particularly important in cases of extreme change or crisis; your team needs to know that you’re attuned to their needs and they can trust you to lead the organization through turbulent times.
Maintaining the Big Picture
When communicating organizational direction using the five dimensions, Mayo recommends not focusing too heavily on one of them.
“You may be tempted to focus predominantly on the content of your communication,” Mayo says in Organizational Leadership. “Make no mistake: The content is very important. But, as you work out the content, think about the other four dimensions. These will be as important for the impact you have and, it turns out, also shape the content.”
Communicating direction is a dynamic responsibility—circumstances constantly change. It requires an evolving strategy and consistent messaging as elements shift.
Guided by the five dimensions, you can navigate the changing business landscape and effectively communicate direction to your organization.
Are you interested in elevating your leadership skills? Explore Organizational Leadership—one of our online leadership and management courses—and learn how to communicate direction and lead at scale.
