It’s not polite to tell your CEO, “Hey, you’re a terrible communicator.”
What is more polite (and, ultimately more pragmatic) is to benchmark existing leader communication effectiveness in order to prioritize the type of support the Communications function provides.
Leader communication is the composite of what leaders believe about the importance of communication, say in order to drive stakeholder action, and do to model open communication across their teams. In a previous post, I shared an earlier model of leader communication and a list of smart questions to assess the effectiveness of your leaders at these key drivers of performance. (CEC Members, access the full list of indicators on our site.)
It’s not enough to know what to ask to uncover leaders’ communication effectiveness. For the sake of implementation, you need to know how to uncover leaders’ communication effectiveness (or lack thereof!). Here’s a look at ways to determine leader effectiveness based on the audience you’re seeking information from—leaders themselves, their teams, or the organization at large.
How to Assess Leader Communication Effectiveness
1. Ask Leaders
Assessing leaders directly helps them to:
- Become self-aware of habits that undermine desire to empower the organization.
- Realize heightened responsibility to improve communication style.
Format for assessment:
- Existing leader forum (such as annual leaders meeting)
- In 1-on-1 conversations with leaders.
- Embed into existing leader training
What you’ll need
- Direct access to leaders.
- Conversation guide to draw out leader beliefs.
- Support guide to map Communications support to areas of leader need.
What you’ll get
- Understanding of leader belief in the value of communication.
- Personalized Communications support plan for a given leader
View these sample leader assessment questions from GSK CPSE
2. Ask a Leader’s Direct Team
Assessing leaders’ teams helps the leader to:
- Get a full view into their communication gaps.
- Focus on key areas of improvement.
Format for assessment:
- Existing leader development or on-boarding process.
- Insert relevant questions into existing 360 survey mechanism.
What you’ll need
- Buy-in from multiple stakeholders (leaders, their leaders, direct reports, peers, and self).
- Clear next steps after the survey results are revealed.
What you’ll get
- Identification of scalable opportunities to support leaders.
- Identification of additional guidance and tools to offer leader
View these sample leader assessment questions from Nordea
3. Ask Employees
Assessing larger swaths of employees helps the leader to:
- Benchmark themselves against other leaders across the firm (competition).
- Get visibility into employee perceptions of environment created by leaders.
Format for assessment
- Insert questions into existing engagement survey.
- Use questions in pulse polls as follow-up to events.
What you’ll need
- Survey functionality to “cut” data by individuals .
- Willingness to strip out existing survey questions with new ones.
- Partnership with HR or engagement survey owner.
What you’ll get
- Employee perception of leader behaviors that support agility.
- Opportunity to draw insight from high-performing BUs, teams, or individuals.
View these sample leader assessment questions from Vestas Questions
CEC Related Resources:
- Executive Communication Topic Center
- Help Executives Understand Their Communication Role
- Build Executive Communication Behaviors and Skills
- Improve Coaching and Advisory Capabilities
CEC Related Blog Posts:
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