Different authors have written books and guidelines on various subjects such as communication and communication skills. They have done so in an effort to explain how the same is done, as well as strategies to gain communication skills. For instance, certain authors have written books on the significance of communication skills in relation to how they facilitate the communication process. Among the authors who have written on communication skill’s ability to facilitate the communication process is Helio Fred Garcia, in the book “The power of communication skills to build trust, inspire loyalty, and lead effectively.” In the book, Garcia explains what communication skills do that makes the process occur smoothly and the associated benefits of perfecting one’s communication skills. According to Garcia, communications skills have the power to build trust, inspire loyalty, as well as promote effective leadership. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to provide a synopsis of the book “The power of communication skills to build trust, inspire loyalty, and lead effectively,” as well as discuss some of the things learned from reading the book.
The book “The power of communication skills to build trust, inspire loyalty, and lead effectively,” by Helio Fred Garcia talks about how communications can be used in leadership. Communication is important for effective leadership since it facilitates the manner in which a communicator connects and relates with his audience, thus delivering a message that is received and understood by that very audience. Garcia’s book describes how effective leadership can be achieved through communication, in an effort to address the issue of failure by professional communicators and leaders to influence attitudes of audiences for the communication process to be equally effective (Garcia, 2012). The book builds on a legendary publication of the U.S Marine Corps known as Warfighting . Through Warfighting , Garcia describes how to employ the proven leadership and strategy of the Corps in all forms of public communication and achieve great and extraordinary results in the process.
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Helio Fred Garcia, world-renowned leadership communications expert, speaker, and consultant describes how orient audiences. He does so by portraying how orienting audiences is associated with recognizing and understanding their centers of gravity, as well as recognizing their most critical concerns. The author describes the need to recognize and understand audience needs in order to tailor communication for effective leadership around those needs. In the book, all three levels of communication, namely strategic, tactical and operational communication, are described for effective leadership (Garcia, 2012). The author also demonstrates some of the elements of effective leadership communications such as taking initiative and controlling the agenda. He describes in detail how one can respond to events during effective leadership communication with the right amount of speed and focus, in a bid to ensure the communication process occurs effectively.
The book further describes the how effective communication in leadership can be enhanced by employing tactics such as preparation and planning. Similarly, the book also mentions how to use the power of maneuver by leaders and professional communicators during communication to prevent instances of misunderstanding and going off topic. The book provides many lessons with regards to the development of communication skills such as crisis management during the process of communication. Crisis management is among the elements described within the power of maneuver, which the author describes as facilitating effective communication, thus the need for leaders and professional communicators o practices crisis management during communication. The author demonstrates the need for a leader or a professional communicator to use the mentioned factors, elements and tactics to develop communication skills and thus become a “habitually strategic” communicator (Garcia, 2012).
Author Garcia further explains that the tactics he describes, such as crisis management in communication, do not only apply in the case of C-suite incumbents but also for anyone who has interest in the success of the organization in which they use communication to delegate and exercise leadership (Garcia, 2012). The book provides guidelines on how to pre-empt looming crisis especially when leaders establish possible mishaps with the type of message contained in their communication exercise. In addition to that, the book provides alternatives to the inability to prevent a crisis. For instance, the author mentions how mitigation can be used in an attempt to manage or control crisis in the event a communicator is unable to prevent it from occurring, thus preventing an aftermath that is disastrous.
The book highlights the significance of establishing and defining the strategic goal as to why a certain message is developed and delivered during a communication process. According to the author, communication is then developed around the defined strategic goal in a bid to promote effective leadership and communication. The book has a three-part framework, which the author uses to clarify how to use communication in an effort to define a strategic goal with regards to delivery of a message. The three-part framework that provides clarity consists of leadership and strategy, leadership and communication, as well as, building skills.
The book draws on extensive behavioral knowledge, which results in chapters full of insights for professional communicators as well as leaders. According to Garcia, speakers who merely enlist support with regards to their vision and values have the ability to succeed owing to the employment of strategy. The author further demonstrates his support for communication as an essential skill in the event of executing organizational strategy (Garcia, 2012). The author’s counsel improves the ability of the reader of his book to become a successful change facilitator. Therefore, the book’s significance is also in describing the promotion of communication skills, especially among leaders who should be able to drive organizational strategy and change.
The author’s message centers on the use of empathy in an effort to facilitate the audience’s internalization of the communicator’s goals. This demonstrates the author’s appreciation of the perspective of the audience so as to be persuasive with regards to the strategy used in delivering the message through communication. The author also warns communicators of obsessive focus with regards to their desired outcome during communication. Garcia warns that it can deter the real reason as to why a message is developed and communicated. The author provides a simple but effective and powerful premise for communicator-audience rapport creation during communication. According to Garcia, success is dependent on what other people think of the message of a leader (Garcia, 2012). The author also reinforces the idea of communication being a bilateral process. The author consequentially concludes that it is the speaker’s responsibility to use persuasion rather than trying to command his or her audiences’ minds.
Among the things that one can learn from reading the book is the significance of developing communications skills such as adaptive leadership. The author describes the need for leaders and professional communicators to ensure they use an easy and distinct language of communication, which the audience is familiar with. As opposed to ensuring clarity and consistency in communication, a communicator should also be able to relate to the audience in a manner that facilitates his or her delivery of the message during the communication process. Adaptive leadership promotes the ability of the communicator to appeal to the audience as it facilitates the reception of their message (Garcia, 2012). This is because through adaptive leadership calls for the lowering of expectations, which can result in better speech reception. Similarly, adaptive leadership in communication helps to prevent disconnection of rhetoric from reality owing to the reception of the speech by the audience due to the adaptive leadership communications tactic.
Another thing that readers can learn from Garcia’s “The power of communication skills to build trust, inspire loyalty, and lead effectively,” is the first-mover advantage in the communication process. According to Garcia, organizations, as well as individuals who would otherwise be branded perpetrators can use the first-mover advantage with regards to the definition of context. In a similar manner, leaders can pre-empt an argument and as a result, such leaders can use facts in an effort to mitigate the likelihood of miscommunication, a lesson that can also be derived from the book is that of connecting with the audience by developing a communication message based on the audiences’ perception. This is because people typically empathize with what they understand as opposed to what they do not comprehend. Therefore, the book teaches of the significance of familiarity in the communication process (Garcia, 2012). The book provides both the positive elements to employ during the communication process, as well as the negative ones to avoid as they negatively influence the communication process. As a result, the book provides an all-rounded guideline on developing communications skills for effective communication among leaders and professional communicators.
Overall, the book provides detailed information on the development of communication skills, since they build trust, inspire loyalty, as well as promote effective leadership. The book provides lessons on how audiences can also look out for certain qualities in their communicators and leaders that shows credibility with regards to their message and efforts to drive change. The author covers various elements of communication that are necessary for effective leadership and communication to ensure it occurs as it is should and that it occurs in a binary process occurs. The book also provides a guideline for a wide range of people from leaders, readers to communicators, thus its significance.
Reference
Garcia, H. F. (2012). The power of communication: Skills to build trust, inspire loyalty, and lead effectively . Upper Saddle River, N.J: FT Press.
